Escargot

Natsui Vogt           1822 words
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Escargot

By Natsui Vogt

Here's a trick for an edit- go through it with a flow

"If you lit a match- would the clouds burn?"
There was sun and the acid fog.
The fortress of clouds cleaved them apart. Only tall, black spires went through the both of them. Below, Escargots(TM) slid around the edifice catching refuse with their mantles and pushing back recycled bits into a shaft.

"I came from an unimportant family from an unimpressive country. But dreamt an oppressive thought: the specific culture we live in shapes our decisions and shapes our characters and ought to be credited for our faults."

I stopped stitching her skin and one of my eight eyestalks straightened to meet her two.
She met that with a smile.
A tick.

Her glass body lay shattered by the spire, and I lay by her side, eight eyes and eight paws pulling Velcro thread from my skin to a needle clutched in my mouth.

"I'm only a B, though my skin is porcelain"

She reprimanded herself I think.

"A Velcro man is C, but I think I-"

The acid mist cut her off and left droplets on her skin. Her eyes flickered when it reached her inside. Its machinery pulsated with each drop. The Escargots(TM) slinked by catching things that fell from the spire.

The clouds blocked the sun and the mist covered everything in green.

Her face hadn't lost its smile.

A black object sailed and bounced on the pavement a few feet away.

A metal body slithered close to it. Its mantle stored a rusty battery that chugged loudly as it moved. Its pincers snatched the item. It glided back to the steeple and crawled up its walls towards a chute.

"Stitch" I said in acoustic. My mandibles held the needle.

Her eyes flicked to life after I shook her.

I started stitching her heart.

She grinned- but her tick said otherwise.

Her face was painted to be pre pubescent hiding her age. I traced the intricate blue on her lips and the purple on her eyes. Her hair had all but melted away but her face still qualified as angelic.

My eight paws flexed. My needle and thread went down and up and pulled Velcro twine off of my legs.
I had sutured an x pattern to close the break between her aortas.

"Shattered skin is fragile. But your hands work fine" she murmured.


Her face melted by the by as she talked. The mist was slowly working through her. I felt her soul slip out her chest. My head hair prickled. She wont last long in pieces.

"The fog doesn't agree with a doll"

"A ph below 2, is rare in Helios. Acidic and the like- but up there in heaven, its ph7"

I only understood that she agreed.

"The Black Gold Barons really could help you lot"

I knew of the Barons; they made us, and wore skin made of glass like she did. And they lived up in cozy glass bottomed hovels in the sky. With things called doors and the like. Its useless I think, Velcro men nested in the tunnels THINK OF ANOTHER NAME (a gift) and just a shell roll away we saw another clan. Their skin like hers melted when they broke the clouds and fell here like she did.

The pincers on the Escargots clicked a rhythmn. The sun had left. Rest time for them.

She wouldn't be the first; we found many others who whimpered at the sight of us: their glassy tiled limbs shattered when they fell, thinking less of the lot of us (spidermen they spat, so we mostly ignored them).

None lived long. And she wouldn't unless I helped.

The fog cleared and life came back. I saw her shattered legs clearer. My eight paws worked faster unwinding my skin's twine and mending hers.

Her porcelain mouth never seemed to close.
I saw no use to open mine but she seemed never to see the ticks I send her way.

"Don't you read faces up there?"

"Once or twice but never thrice, they never change anyways"

I've exhausted my acoustics and my curiosity for her alien world, so I let her prattle instead.

I saw her other ticks though she denied it. She found me repugnant. A term the Doll men often spat with their last air. That's a term, there's no "repugnant" when we all look the same. Our Motherhead's maxim: Made of the same Velcro thread and stitched of the Holy code". Apparently theirs didn't laud this, and used pieces of paper to change their faces slightly. But I thought of why she continued to talk, rather than whimper scared.
Nervous like? Fondness? My mandibles clicked in esteem at this.

That set her eyes wide.
I stopped. So instead I tried "smiling".
Her face distorted likewise. I smiled inside but she smiles oddly (not a tick this- no).

Her whiskery thin fingers brushed the hair off my leftmost paw.

I looked up and met her two eyes. My eight seemed to unnerve her- but only a bit.

She reached and brushed my leftmost eye.

She fell off the spires that reached to the sun and from what she said: "crawled out of an air vent and fell through a chute".

A finger curled against my fir paw and slightly settled on its Tarsi palm.

"Lucky we have Escargots(TM) on duty"

Her hand recoiled.

"For catching and recycling rubbish- I'm none of those!"

Her face distorted again, but this time badly.
The sun broke through the clouds a bit and reached her face. They were slightly cracked, but not as badly as the rest of her limbs.

Her eyes flickered.

I worked faster before the mist settled inside her. Unwinding the Velcro from my legs I pushed it into a needle and moved my many hands until her legs sat still on her torso.
Then came stitching her cracked ribs together.

My leg twine almost ran out. I moved onto the twine on my torso and pulled it into the smaller cracks on her chest.

My middle three hands sandblasted the droplets that tried to settle on her.

It was odd how she didn't feel the pain of needles and the sand used to clear the mist off her. The fine grain was made for stripping paint and her color faded slightly as my middle three hands worked to keep the droplets from melting her further.

"Anyone you cared about?"

I asked shrugging her hands off my eyestalk. She needed to be kept "blinking". What queer things these dolls. What a queer thing "blinking".

"Some places I wanted to go to but seemed to never break in to unless he held my hand- but then again they were rough and calloused- no one would hold that. "

Rough and calloused. They were alien words.

"He took me to the vents though. It was new like he said"

She held my two free hands. She was almost pieced together.

She paused. Her ears cocked back. A mantle appeared behind her. Several acutally.

"Why do you use your body for me?"

The sun cleared and illuminated my remains. The Escargots(TM) brazed in the background.

"Because there's only one way of it"

"Why not silk?"

"What's silk?"

"Nevermind, why do you do this?"

A pause.

"Why do you never use the word I?"

My eight eyes met hers.

"I: The demiurge. The reason we live in spires above the clouds, why we change our face to suit the times"

Ticks. The ticks are there, her face doesn't change, but the ticks are visible.

"I see. a C doesn't know what a B does. And an A just fools with Bs."

Does she not see my ticks? My mandibles "smiled" the bad way to show I understood (I sort of did). Acoustics are full of nothing but her face tilted when she spoke. A tick.

"What a savage place up there" I chimed.

Her eyes brushed my torso then at the twine stuck her.
Her hands reached to pull mine away.
They lost tenderness.

A tick.

"Why did you crawl through a vent?"

She pushed her body slightly as if to stand up.

The twine broke. Cracks showed the machinery inside, pulsating obliquely.
The twine still clung to her torso. My needling hands fell off her.
The Escargots(TM) stopped.
She pulled my twine.

"A C is a C. A spiderman!"

My torso back. My eight eyes scrambled to fight the vertigo.
A kick.

Legless and half untwined I lay prostate.
"I was talking to an animal" A stream of sounds like a hiccup.
"And he was fooling with me like one!"

The mist found itself in her cracked torso, The escargot stopped in the distance.

"A vent?!"

Her eyes flicked again. But Mist drops (clear not green) slipped out of them.

"They thought me odd! They're right! A vent?! Curiosity?! Equality?! They thought him odder! A place is a place"

Chips fell off her. Her face lost luster but remained unchanged. The mist gathered on her lips. They slid down in drops taking blue pieces of her with them. <- pull this earlier.

She flailed about with my twine. I felt each tug. I tumbled back all eight hands flailing for something. They found itself on her leg.
A shriek

Daggers in my leftest eyes.

My head bounced.

Twine oozed out. I pulled pulled her legs and tried to sit up.

Her voice had not stopped its yell. I saw it: she clutched cinderblock this whole time. <- introduce this earlier

It solid shape found my right Tarsal palm.
I tumbled forwards.
My rightest most eyes lost vision. Daggers stung them like nails

Her yells would not stop.
A chugging noise sounded closer.

I heard her fell back.
Others joined it until it sounded like a sea of bees.
My last eye pricked up. It saw her pulling down the block on four mantles. Their batteries smashed brought more out of the chutes towards her.

She swayed almost graceful like until they scaled her one on one, pincers and their snaily foot.

The mist tasted sour. The Black Gold tasted odd. I hated the smell of fear. I hated her hate for herself. I hated the smell of her. <- EDIT THIS PIECE TO BE MORE HORROR LIKE


"My skin was melted but an Escargot helped me up the air vent" I said to the empty halls.

"He may be waiting for me, and I'm coming for him".

The chutes lead out the spires but also back in.

"They called me odd, and I agree. We don't crawl through the vents."

More Escargots slithered up the walls. They pushed me with them.
"We never helped dolls. But I was right to. The mist was harsh but a velcro skin helps."

I wear her porcelain over my Velcro. A C. to a B.

Outside more chugging noise.
There was sun and the acid fog.
The fortress of clouds cleaved them apart. Only tall, black spires went through the both of them. Below, Escargots(TM) slid around the edifice catching refuse with their mantles and pushing back recycled bits into a shaft.