Episode 4, Act 1 - Tempering

=-July 27th, 2022-=

= 📕 =

I could hear crickets in the darkness. An interminable abyss of sound. There was no light, nothing to keep me occupied but the sounds of tamped grass, the piling of soil and metal scraping against dirt. As the scraping came closer, I could hear a humming tune pick up.

The thud on the wooden lid startled me. I tried to feel around. I could hear my limbs bending, twisting. I couldn't breathe, wouldn't breathe. The air inside my blackened space was running out, wasn't it? I opened my eyes. Darkness, but there was a crack of moonlight, shining down on my eyes.

An end to the abyss. I reached out, but felt a firm surface. Wood. A coffin I pounded against it, feeling my fingers crack and my flesh tear. I stopped moving, fearing for my safety. I tried to call out, my voice hoarse. "Please help."

  The humming stopped. A translucent pink film began to cover the hole in my coffin. Two blobs, one violet and one blue, fell through the crack, landing on my shirt. I could feel the cold gel of the blobs shifting around on my breast. Teeth grew from the crack in the coffin, sealing it up, and the slime spoke. "YOU SEEM TO BE IN A PREDICAMENT, KID! HOW'S ABOUT I HELP YOU OUT?"

I tried to scream. Not again! Not again! I don't want to drown, but the slime just cackled. Pink ooze began to flood the coffin, raining down on my face as I struggled, and squirmed, and screamed. My screams were silenced by a deluge of slime, smothering my breath with its body. I felt my skin, my bones, my teeth falling apart.

I drowned.

 

=-July 27th, 2022-=

= ⏰ =

 

I woke up with a startle. I felt my face, my clothes, my hair. I was covered in pajamas and sweat, but there was nothing wrong with the rest of my body. It was a nightmare. Just a nightmare. I scanned the room, spotting Malty resting in her jar and relaxing. (You've got this, Madeline,) I thought to myself. (It was just a dream. You can go back to bed.)

As it turns out, I couldn't go back to bed. The nightmare I'd just experienced had brought me to full alertness, so I grabbed some fresh clothes. Extending my arm, I could see it was covered in a layer of grime. I hesitated, before grabbing my clothes and heading into the bathroom.

I stared in the mirror of the sink for a long few moments. The girl staring back at me was not the Madeline I am, but the Madeline I was. Covered in a black, greasy layer of filth, the only thing visible being her eyes. I pulled on my dark blue hair, as she did the same. Looked down at her, how much shorter she was, how much taller I am.

I hesitated, staring at my reflection in the mirrored glass. I didn't state for long. I tried to see the world from her perspective.

 

= 👓 =

 

Madeline Crisp is a burly young woman, no older than twenty, with blue hair and golden eyes. You wouldn't be able to see that at first glance; she is currently smeared with a tar-black jelly. Impurities drench her body. She peels her formerly blue pajamas off as best as she can, inch by inch, wincing in pain. The cloth is practically fused to her skin.

The sticky grime clings to her clothes as the stench of unwashed filth fills her lungs. She lets out an experimental breath. Black and coarse steam escapes from her lips, and her throat sears with pain. It is happening again. She is being Tempered, again.

She tries to excise the cloth from ker skin, but it does not budge. She knew how to deal with this; many attempts to clean herself at the age of twelve dredged to the forefront of her mind.

(Get out!)

Madeline Crisp could not escape. She finds things were not so simple as disabling her power. She tries to ignore what was happening. Prevent her mind from flashing back, visions of the past brewing and bubbling to the surface. Deny, deny as she always does. But she can not be let off so easily!

(I don't want to do this! Not again!)

Not again, she cries, knowing what is to come is a repeat of the past, a projection of her future. She remembers what happened on that night. The red of her flesh as she peeled away at her jeans and jersey. The rawness of her skin. The pristine patches buried under the tar and grime. She does not want to repeat this. Swears that she has learned her lesson.

Madeline Crisp is about to learn a lesson of a different kind, a lesson all Divinity will have to experience once a decade. Tempering is not a one-time process. As you breathe, you inhale smoke. As you eat, microplastics worm their way into your blood, into your intestines. As you crave for that next cigarette, that tar sticks in your lungs.

(No... please...)

Madeline Crisp. You have not taken good care of your body.

Now, you pay the price.

(Who are you...?)

Madeline's voice is hoarse, but we can forgive her. It would make sense that she has forgotten who she is. What she is. That this, too, will all pass in a haze, and she will wash it down with booze and non-prescription painkillers. These, too, will cause her pain. But enough about the future; we live in the moment, now. The present tense, even.

She stumbles towards the tub. Remembering what worked in the past, she sets the warm water. Then, she's off to the kitchen. Her footsteps smear black jelly against the soft carpet, ruining it for future generations. She will not be able to steam clean this.

(Stop speaking in my head.)

Madeline Crisp looks quite grumpy. So rarely does she ask for a taste of her own medicine! It is not so pleasant to have someone speaking in your head, now is it? She tries to tamp those feelings down and focus on immediate problems, like the awful smell. Her palm sticks to the handle of the cabinet, and she tears the door off its hinges.

The cabinet door does not leave her sticky palm. But it does shift away, revealing jar after jar of spaghetti sauce. One of the few things Madeline can force herself to eat when she is depressed! She will, regrettably, be unable to stomach pasta for the near future. Dear readers, note this. It will be on the exam!

(Readers?! Who are you talking to?)

Madeline Crisp is hearing things. But we forgive her, don't we? There are always many voices speaking in everyone's head. It can be troublesome to tell them apart. She hesitates, but manages to clear her head. Focus on the objective, reach in and grasp that sauce! Using her own stickiness as a tool, she manages to stick the jars to her flesh. Might as well make use of the tar, right?

How resourceful!

(When I find out who you are, you'll die. You'll die a painful death.)

Madeline Crisp threatens herself, before stumbling back to the bathroom. The carpet fees will be a real killer. She manages to kick most of the cabinet door to the side before stumbling into the bathroom, the soles of her bare feet covered in scraps of fabric. Unscrewing the caps of each jar by tearing them off and crumpling the metal, she mixes tomato sauce into the warm water.

Madeline Crisp tries to cease the flow of water. She manages, but at the cost of the handle of the tub. Tearing it from the wall causes the water to cease flowing into the tub. She is a plumber's nightmare.

(Shut the hell up. Shut the fucking hell up.)

Madeline Crisp lifts her toned thighs, sinking them into the slurry of liquid before her.

Readers, do you want to follow at home?

Let me teach you how to make Madeline Soup!

Madeline Crisp can feel the grime on her skin sloughing off in globs. The rich, black liquid washes into the tub, filling it with foul ichor. Her blood is that of Divinity. A god. Contact with the corrosive fluid would kill a lesser mortal, but she is to be described as neither of those two words. She is something more, ever more, something greater.

Madeline Crisp allows herself to soak longer, letting her head sink underneath the water's surface. Under that ocean of black ink, she is provided clarity. Loneliness. An escape from that voice she has put into her own head.

 

=-🦑-=

 

How long has it been since I've seen her?

Since I've seen anyone new or interesting.

There are people here, but it has been ages. They've lived longer than they ever should have, were meant to. Humans did not live this long. And they have lived for ten centuries now. Perhaps longer.

When you live that long, your mind breaks. You run out of words to say. At least, that is what I have observed. I am the only one who has not cracked. Fallen thrall to my own appearance.

I wish they had something, anything to talk about except me.

At least I would get a break from their endless simpering soon.

I felt an itching under my scales. That time of the year: Tempering Day. I have undergone the Tempering in greater frequency over this last century; once every hundred years, then a decade. Now mere months pass before I must purge myself again. I have undergone greater and greater pain with each Tempering that passes.

I pleaded with the gods of the sea to help me understand why this pain had returned. Had I not given them enough of my ichor? Had they not wrested every drop of impurity from my body over the span of ten centuries?

The answer came simply; microplastics. And these nasty particles had only increased in frequency as the century pressed forwards.

I had to look into this. I spent the following century and a half understanding this field called chemistry. I had to perform much of the work from the ground up, starting with atomic theory and building my way up to a periodic table of the elements.

I had compared my findings with Clarisse. She told me that my periodic table was wrong. That I had organized the elements in the wrong shape. Silly Clarisse. The humans on the surface had the wrong shape.

My table was perfect. My fingers ran along the stone engraving. I was so proud, I had etched it into the walls of my cave. The web extended in all directions, lit with a pale blue light. Each element sitting in comfort with their kin. Worshiping the god particle that all life is made of.

 

Kin of Metal wrest themselves into tools of war and industry.

Kin of Fire fuel the flames of life.

Kin of Poison punish the treacherous and unwise. 

Kin of Salt make the sea that washes around us. 

Kin of Acid break down the weak and unworthy. 

Kin of Stone build the seafloor around us. 

Kin of Transition set the borders between the air and the sea. 

Kin of Searing melt the flesh of the curious and brave. 

Kin of Isolation interact with none other.

 

My problems, chiefly, were with Kin of Acid and Kin of Fire. Their number had increased dramatically in this century. Kin of Fire could be woven into a living, breathing metal known as plastic. Try as I might have, they cannot be slain with a trident alone. I was forced to resort to other measures.

The Kin of Acid were no trifle either. They built up, eroding the flesh of my body and that of my congregation. They bleached our coral farms, making them more brittle and depriving them of life. I could not filter the sea such that it prevented their entry.

The sea will overcome all barriers.

I had little else that I could do. If our ocean was left to acidify, the microplastics to build in my people, then we would all surely perish. So I developed a method to solve both problems.

I filter their corruption through me.

Our body is resilient to corruption, more than the bodies of any mortal. Despite that, my people clamor about this and that, begging me not to sully myself with the filth of their sin.

It is not their burden to carry. They did not pollute our oceans, upset the balance of Kin to further their lust for industry, convenience, wealth. It is my burden. I am strong, and yet I haven't used my strength to slaughter the world above.

I am the sick one. I must be purged.

At least the pain goes a little easier if I have some calcium.

 

=- ⏰ -=

 

Madeline surfaces from the inky depths, gasping for air. She claws at the side of the tub, dragging herself out. Her pajamas have dissolved, thread unable to withstand drenching in the ichor that bled from her flesh. She crawls onto the tile, vomiting up the last of a black and tainted strain, coating the tile in ink and color.

(What... who was that...?)

Madeline asks herself uncomfortable questions as she stands, her body covered in grime and ichor. She takes unsteady steps forwards, feeling around for the support of the cabinet. Already, ichor has seeped away from raw and red patches of skin, her nubile and muscular form visible to the mirror. She parts her lips, more smoke escaping.

"I'll deal with you later, mirror."

Wait. Where are you going, Madeline? She is walking out of the house, still in a state of undress. Nude. She kicks down her front door without hesitation, and it buckles.

"I'm going to find some Divinity-damned calcium."

 

---

2/2 chapters for this week! Oh yeah. This soup is starting to come together.

Orlon expresses their concerns.

Orlon, my proofreader, is on Scribblehub! Ode to Fallen Angels is great; there's queer themes, religion, characters struggling with gender identity and DEMIHUMANS!

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