Ichor And Steel

Chapter Thirty-Two; The Penny Drops

ɢᴀꜱᴏʟɪɴᴇ, ʜᴀꜱʟᴇʏ/ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴠɪʟ ɪɴꜱɪᴅᴇ, ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍᴜʀᴘʜʏ

Enervated from a timeless period of torture vaguely stained in his memory, Ethan attempted to contend the seductive clasps of unconsciousness and pressed his palms into the ground, rising on his elbows until he was propped on his knees. His head lolled back, skin touched by moonlight and bleached by sickness. The only one left in the room was Daniela, he'd known of her being there since her sisters left. Groaning through bloodied lips, he weakly asked, "what do you want from me?"

She pattered over, a curious aura highlighting her sincere innocence. "Did you drink the tea mother gave you before?"

Ethan moaned, pained and tired, his eyes shutting.

"I'm only trying to help," her velvet tones spoke, illustrating her as a visage in his mind. He nodded. "It was vinegar, Ethan. You're going to feel very sick."

He yawned, stifling a gag at the pure mentioning of vinegar. Through the lucid vision of fluttering eyes, he witnessed his hands decay, crumpling to merely nothing until Daniela soothingly took them in hers.

"Try to think of something nice," she suggested, her dark lips parting into a tender smile.

"Why are you helping me?" He begged, nasally from his awfully sore nose. Within a blink, she'd vanished and a new presence replenished the silence; a lanky girl, jeans a pale blue and coat a familiar beige or khaki, he honestly couldn't tell. The teenager approached and held his face in cold hands.

"Hi dad," she whispered hoarsely. His eyes dilated and the best simper he could achieve lit up his happiness.

"Rosemary," he wheezed, clutching to feel her hair that slithered like silk along his fingers and skin like a child's. "I'm so sorry!"

"No! Dad! No! It's OK!" She wept back, pulling in for a hug a little too tight. "Why are you sorry?"

He hiccuped and shook his head into her shoulder. "I should've let Kar do this...I should've let him come here so I could've been there when you woke up!"

Limpness. Unresponsive. Rose had frozen like a quick spreading ice and her voice held the same bitterness. "So you confess?"

"Huh?" Ethan broke their hug, throwing himself onto scrabbling elbows when Rose rotted into a wretched skin.

"You confess to being a bad, bad man?!" She wailed, voice twisted into abated wheezes until smoothing. Mother Miranda, slicked skin and grandly dressed, her pretending done so well and real. "How could you lie, Ethan Winters? You're one of us!"

"No, I'm not!" He shrieked, teeth snapping viciously. Vigour returned with a harsh clash of adrenaline and gave him the will to stand and squeeze his knuckles. "I, like Heisenberg and Donna, will never be like you—"

"You don't know who you speak of!" Miranda impinged, booming vocals trembling the ground they stood on. Ethan did not waver. "Alike you, they do not have hearts. Heisenberg runs on steam and gasoline, Donna her ability to believe someone cares, that gilled freak thrives on power above him, and Dimitrescu...well, she needs blood! Those are not hearts, Ethan, those are desires and you too function off one."

He grinned, sheepishness vanishing into the darker pits of his subconscious where he shoved aside all his pains too. "Oh yeah?"

"Very, and your desire happens to be mine too; your daughter—"

"She's not my desire, she's my daughter you psycho bitch! Whatever you want to take from her, take from me!" He attested, desperately as a wind billowed through windows and swept his hair over his face. He persevered their showdown with a grim look from beneath fallen strains of hair, eyes shrouded in shadow. "I am made of mold and flesh, and most of all I have a heart so if you want to get to Rose, you come through me!"