#just so u know i can see the activity feed ticking up ominously from this screen but am powerless against it

[istherewifiinhell]

reading progress: chapter 222 (i had to get some shit sorted but we're back in action here folks)

reading highlights: get the scrolling fingers ready

196 oh theres a character w gender

kdj kind of commenter that just wants a girl character. okay

kdj ID theft yjh: oh there you are

197 "in moments of low self esteem Kim Dokja would say "I'm Yoo Joonghyuk"

UNIONIZE HELL!!

198 going to a bar to eat the appies yes (non drinker solidarity)

guy who survived a decade on one story -> maybe [non constellation] people need stories also

kdj: WWYJHD? wait im better than him

199 kdj special fake it til u make it

listening to funky synth music during the reaper fights (cat out of hell on bandcamp)

"my lovely kids LGY & SYS" t-t

200 [processing gamified revolution] HMM

201 hell yeah publican dude (british sense) i want him to make me a butty

Han Myungoh (HMO?) union buster OFC

YJH bar of handsome ness entry #1652

203 kdj unabashed long media enjoyer

LITERALLY comparing this to union efforts at the old job. okay

204 why are all office manager/company men roman philosophy losers

bring out the skill/item from 100 chapters ago

kinda hot to kill people just cause there fucking with the revolution

ORV MPREG?

205 orv a story for people who like wall

JHY videogame siren girl technique :/

206 HMO demon king consort? good for u?

ppl can grow off screen?? kdj lack of human object permanence

YJH widower era babey. uriel not causing problems persay. but on purpose

207 [BAD SOCIETAL THING] isnt the natural state of the world and can be changed. kissing this arc

brooo do get yjh a therapy watch to get him to dissociating/alienating himself less -> kdj is the guy planing this o__o

KNW and abyssal black dragon are u evil or just 14

208 [hsy feels like] an abandoned food processor?

The entire hsy & ysa scene its got everything: sexual tension, fraught emotions, abt secrets and grief, Big Dragon

JHY in a world of minmaxers is a balanced PC

209kdj you have a new kid a they are a foolish teen

4th wall dog training continues. NO eating other smaller wall

Big Guy (derogatory) my fav passive aggressive insult

210 "I forgot to I was Yoo Joonghyuk" yeah rookie mistake man cant forget that

"Tell the Duke to learn to fear the Day" HOOTIN AND HOLLERING

211 why is this egg so cute wtf. it needs story and hugs okay

dokkaebi sys birth im crying. kids man, you gotta love them! they love the whole world!

212 [heh] kdj dad moments! thats his kid!!

SYS LGY LJH kid hang out T_T -> maritime admiral yi sunsin T_T

uriel is so normal about dokhyuk. you abandoned ur incarnation!!

213 yjh uriel Road trip buddy comedy

STEAL FROM WORK!!

214 "if you have to sell your story sell it for the right price" THATS PRAXIS BAYBE

kdj doing the blackbeard thing about demon king of salvation

215 kdj cant talk to people. mood. -> praising jhy cute

216 kdj no good billionairs-ing the constellations

the readership to commenter to author pipeline. themes

Kdj existential crisis about the existence of truth and the true self and if its possible to know the other

Yelling

"I think there is a huge wall" [Fourth Wall is looking at you] -> THATS WRITING

'theres no such think as communication' DOKJA

everyone has a wall, communication is impossible thats obvious -> TEENS ROCK

you should leave your mark

music: loves first explosion

kdj 🤝 me : getting the names slightly wrong

SWK!!!

↳ 217 he had sweet lips?

↳ one of swk hairs? -> secret tool that will help us later?

↳ its the gaze of one person...

218 the snake says hes okay cause he has no hands and feet (GOOD JOKE) i missed the twitch chat

THE REVOLUTION MUST LIVE IN OUR HEARTS AND IN OUR MINDS

many stripes one team! (blaseball ref)

219 dokhyuk's constant one up man ship ID fuckery

219 theres the swk hair. im gonna get a good grade in orv!

220 KNW is a mech. okay

Bye KNW see you in another 50 chapters

UGH YJH [SCREAMING] thx for saving him bbygirl

"He came..." I was so happy I wanted to call out his name... yeah bro?

221 kdj self rationalization speed run. did my friend do smth just to save me? no he must have some convoluted motive

Author is that file A THREAT? sad yjh tho bby.

rotating: i mean shit. i already made a post cause part of of this section was so fucking good. kim dokja! you got problems man. fucking fascinating ones. I love it when teens school him about the philosophy of communication. yeah bro its all signifiers all the way down the platonic realm of perfect objects is inaccessible to us. but meaning can still be created even if its infinite meanings of infinite texts. hang on.... can we get fictional character Kim Dokja to read Borges i think i would fuck him up so bad. delightful revolutionary stuff going on here too, big fan. to think we can kill the trope of the evil revolutionary that takes power for themself if we all just had the most weird intrinsic gay identity thing going on with some guy thats assassinates politicians in ur name.

i think ill leave the actual nibbles of kdj yjh legacy/story swap for next time tho. just based in vibes. also just noteing the veritable gaggle of kids being collected. love em. kdj like many people with parent problems and who is easy to own, collecting them like flies

remember all epiphanies of the self are 80 percent wrong

#some shit #orv blogging #going to go DEVOUR some fucking dinner the narratives make me so hungery -> actually just forgot to eat #just so u know i can see the activity feed ticking up ominously from this screen but am powerless against it #did u know posts work exponential i think im learning that. #orv notebook

[thesecrookedbones-blog]

the collection.

“I think yer book’s makin’ it worse out there, y’know? Girls’re disappearin’ faster than ever. What’re ya even doin’ about it? You think ya can come here with yer fancy education and yer fictional little books. This’s real life, slim. Emily’s a good girl. Comes in all the time gettin’ supplies to keep the neighborhood strays well fed. What’re you gonna do when her body shows up like the rest of ‘em?” Buck’s tenure in Chilling is measured by the way his teeth sit ground deep toward his gum line. His brows sit low against his eyes, like anchors dragging along rebellious eyes that no longer wish to see the pain around him. I know from what city hall records I could find, that Buck has owned this general store since 1983, inheriting it from his father before him. Southern hospitality is only known to the locals, like some kind of localized slang. There was never any welcome wagon for Nora and I. Any words of encouragement actually sound like a shotgun shell being loaded into a sawed off chamber. Or the coarse friction of a knotted noose. “Just the lightbulbs today, Buck. It’ll probably cost me extra for the lecture and I’m short today.” “You think yer so funny, Mr. Typewriter? You come into town an’ just look what you’ve done.” His words hiss past stained yellow teeth, syllables clicking like a slow trotting horse. The teeth were appropriately reminiscent of a horse too - in their prime. Back before the Copenhagen dips and malt liquor sips before sunrise. Behind the halitosis breath is a venom Buck has never spoke to me; something I have been too afraid to mention. His daughter was one of the names on a growing list of the missing, and later deceased. The Collector had left her in a deer carcass bag after collecting his trophy. It was her tattoo from her right shoulder blade, memorializing her mother with bumblebees and sunflowers. Two of her most favorite things. Layla Carpenter. She got inked underage at 17 after her mother lost her battle with breast cancer. It’d been a badge of honor. I could tell it from the way she showed it off in off-shoulder dresses and floppy tank tops. She smiled wider for Polaroids when the tattoo was in the photo with her, like she’d mastered the ‘glance over the shoulder and smile’ pose just to honor her late mom. She’d been missing since 2000. She was The Collector’s first. He kept her the longest. Her body was discovered exactly one week after Nora and I moved in; lakeside nearest our property. Her body melded with the burlap carcass bag, decomposing so harshly that the medical examiner couldn’t tell flesh from bag. Often even after severe decomposition, special wavelengths of light and photographs can enhance ink in any remaining tissue. There was nothing to enhance - but everyone knew The Collector’s calling card. Her tattoo was in his possession. A token of his kill. “Just ring him up, Buck. Fer Pete’s fuckin’ sake.” I nod my appreciation to Todd. He’s one of the few neutrals I have in this town. His eyes betray him in hiding the spark of curiosity I know he feels. He has no pawns; no one on the growing list. Hell, Todd lives alone in the home his parents expired in. He has no one to look after him as he expires and no one to lace his grave with flowers once he’s gone. He has nothing to lose. “Thanks,” I say, tucking the paper bag against my shoulder, though my eyes lock with Todd - the only person who deserves my gratitude. Back at the house, I leave the bag beneath the flood light fixtures that seem to have shoddy wiring. The fixture eats through bulbs at least once a week, somehow feeding too much power while still causing the ominous orb to flicker in and out. I check my watch. School will let out soon and Nora will be home. She’s been bugging me about this light. Any kind of darkness makes her feel uneasy. I can see it in the way every layer of her spine pricks as she rounds a dark corner, helplessly reaching for a lightswitch. Plugging the six-foot wood-runged ladder down beneath the flood light fixture, my shoe centers the rung and haphazardly trusts my weight to it. It flexes but the screws snar and it holds. Gravel sounds behind my back as I twist a fresh bulb in. I’m in a pissing contest with the rest of this town, careful not to show fear or cowardice, so I don’t turn my head. Fingers yo-yo the lightbulb to a tightened position and the footsteps behind me still. I finally sneak a glance.“Yer so fucked.” I don't know him by name, but he's recognizable as one of the local meth addicts. What about him? I try to paint a mental picture of his face and I’m lost in non-distinctive identifiers. Bugged eyes, a toothless grin, sunken cheeks, and clothes that loosely swing off of his bony structure. Is he a suspect? He laughs at me, his hollow soul echoing behind him as he continued on. He's probably hallucinating, I tell myself and finish with the second bulb. The ladder gets returned to the corner filled with dust bunnies in the garage and I discard yet another bulb box. The basement of the home is bunkered beneath ground; a safe haven from tornadoes. It is the only place I trusted my work, given the lack of any natural daylight. It’s the space I get lost in, drawn in like a moth to lamplight. As I descend on creaky, wooden steps, I decide - it’s time to start Emily Marx’s chapter. The latest missing girl. Keys gallop against paper freely, a brainwave on a stroke of genius. The latest victim is fresh in my mind. Bright eyed with a bright future, given the academic records her parents’ failed to share with me. They slammed the door in my face, blaming me for opening this can of demons again. They thought my soul needed saving. They hoped to see me in church on Sunday morning. Her body hasn’t been recovered, but it’s nearing two weeks. I expected her to be the next ink to his collection after 48 hours. Death is the sole consumer in this barren land, its hunger accelerated by demons sworn off by bible verses Sunday morning and ill-will cast against family and friends after a few swigs of whiskey post-service. Blasphemy pulled straight from the bottle. Hours wash away outside without notice. The south has a way of filling your pores with heavy heat and slugging you down, zapping Father Time until seconds rock by slower or the mind’s ability to be conscious of it slips away. Each chapter takes its toll. Another life vanished into the thick air, often in stark daylight. The moment they encounter The Collector, they become another ghost; a wisp of heavy wind to remind us all that Chilling is haunted by a living being. I find myself in the position I often end up in with this book, face curtained with my hands as I count the breaths it takes to make me feel better about it all. I still haven’t found the number. Then it dawns on me. The silence overhead. Usually the kitchen floorboards would creak as Nora dances around the kitchen, preparing another meal without company while I try to figure out the great mystery of Chilling, Missouri. No creaks have sounded above to distract me from proper sentence structure or finding the perfect word that’s just hibernating at my fingertips. No, it’s been oddly silent. I feel uneasy all at once, but disallow panic as I jog up the straining basement stairs. The kitchen is dark, as is the living room, and entryway hall. Upstairs sounds just as quiet, but I run up nonetheless. Nora perfects stability in my schedule, trying to make my life look somewhat normal. She never falters - but I’m the inconsistent one. Maybe I didn’t listen or didn’t remember. She could have parent-teacher conferences. Maybe some kind of after-school tutoring session. Maybe some other after-school activity. I pretend I don’t hear the stress battering through ragged breaths. Where would she be, where could she be? Tires squeal into the school parking lot. It’s empty. Her car is nowhere to be seen, but I still run toward the front doors, truck barely stuck in park. It’s dark inside. Not a soul to be seen. There I stand, in a pained shred of reality. I didn’t even notice she didn’t come home. I check all of the possible spots, and Chilling has a limited selection. The diner, the gas station, the library, the post office, the general store. No sign of her car. I stop outside of the old run-down drive-in that has only been used as vandal grounds for the last decade and find my hands shaky as I dial the sheriff’s department. “My wife - fiancee - is missing.” It’s better not to go to the office in person, I decide. They’ll waste precious minutes vetting me, seeing only an unfriendly face they already suspect to be all kinds of evil. “She - school gets out at 2:30 and she’s usually home by 4 at the latest, depending on what kind of students need help after-school. ...Eleanor Coulson. Yeah. Middle is Winona. She’s - her birthday is June 29, 1986. Look, can you just - I am being calm.” My lip quivers and heat streaks down my cheeks. The speedometer ticks to 65, the big truck’s steering wheel quaking within my palms. "She’s like...5’6” or 5’7” and can’t weigh much more than 100 pounds. She’s small, but she’s mighty.” The sorrow touches the back of my throat and I cough to cover the emotional choke. “No, no scars or tattoos.” It's an identification question, but it feels pointed and my answer washes gooseflesh down my neck. The female voice on the other end of my call drifts into a cavernous hole as my right foot shifts from gas pedal to brake, tires crying against warm pavement. I can hear my heart rattle my skull, vision blurred with thoughts lashing against positivity. The previous girls with their mangled bodies, tattoos sliced from their skin, torture evident in their demise - it all bleeds forward until the female’s voice rises, “hello?” “I - her, her car. I just found it on Highway 26 near milepost 17.” A long pause. “He’s got her.” 6 hours later, I return home after police interrogation. I’m the prime suspect in the tragic story I’ve supposedly created. I sit there in the driver’s seat, hands folded beneath my nose and listen to the waves of fear wash over my knuckles. Within eye line, the flood light surges and flickers, faltering between a vivacious glow and the absorption of death. I watch intently, hoping the light will stay lit. Lightness in the dark - a symbol of hope. But the light hisses and with a dull gurgle, it flickers to black. A tear rims my lower lid. He’s got her. Her life will burn out just like that bulb. Hot air fills the truck, my throat rattling with rage as a low growl precedes the words I will die by if I must: “The collection ends now, you motherfucker.”

#drabble #robbie hamilton #nora coulson #chilling missouri