Work Text:
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October 27th, 1997
Dear Diary, I guess.
I see Shauna writing in her journals and it seems to help her, plus it's not like we're short of time out here so I figured I would indulge. Cabin dude left a few notepads lying around and we don't use them for kindling anymore, so it's no waste (I hate waste).
I don't really want to write a day to day chronology of my life out here, I imagine that would be quite boring. Day 217, Nat found a rabbit while the rest of us sat and twiddled our thumbs all day. Day 229, Nat still can't find food and I think Mari is considering putting Misty in the stew. Yada yada, so on, so forth.
No, I think I'll write about what my mind always gravitates back to when I've finished my chores and have nothing to do but stare at the fire. Those nights every month or so that everyone pretends don't happen.
Sometimes I just want to pull my hair and scream at them for acting as if everything is fine and they don't need the release they so clearly do, for pretending high school cliques still mean a damn. Instead, every month or so, someone's dam breaks and I accept the tide.
I think I would just pull my hair and scream, if I didn't enjoy it so.
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October 31st, 1997
Happy Halloween, I guess. I'll be honest, I'm all out of spooks.
I have kinda been putting off writing in here again, as I can't seem to find the words to describe things. ‘Things’. I can't even bring myself to put the words to paper let alone voice them. Wow Charlotte, so brave.
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November 2nd, 1997
Screw it, I guess I'll start from the beginning. Well, not the full beginning but… I don't know why I'm arguing with myself. Anyway;
Shauna was the first to do it. With everything that happened with Jackie and then after, I could see her start to unravel. Those days spent in the woodshed, the way she would glare at anyone who even mentioned it. The way the corner of her mouth would twitch and her fists would clench white when she spoke to one of us. I could see her start to unravel, and then she hit Misty.
Misty could take it, but I know her; She would hold a grudge, a real grudge. So instead I stepped in and offered myself. I hate how I do that. Always the martyr, trying to throw myself in front of other people's problems, other people's fists.
But it worked, and the blackness in Shauna's eyes softened somewhat. I'd love to say that was the end of it, but that'd be a lie in both regards. It wasn't the end, nor did I want it to be. The next time Shauna didn't even initiate, it was I who kneeled in front of her and asked, no, pleaded with her to show me the knuckles again.
I try to convince myself that by helping them let out their anger I'm doing a good, but it's far more selfish. I'm sure Laura Lee would have had some good bible quotes to help me put that in perspective better, but, well…
I sometimes wonder how she would react to the situation we find ourselves in; Or rather, the situation we have created for ourselves. Would she have kept us on the straight and narrow, helped us cling to some civility? Or would she have fallen in with the rest, sitting in the circle and ‘enjoying’ the show. Hell, could she have even joined in?
I don't know, I'm just rambling now.
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November 4th, 1997
That second time it happened, I think Shauna realised something about herself she had been ignoring. She likes it, the things we have to do out here. That darkness was always in her, it's what drove her to fight against Jackie yet covet her so. Out here, she can finally explore.
She didn't step too much further that time, but I think it laid the foundations for everything since. She is always careful about my face, especially now with what comes after (no missing teeth or broken noses, that wouldn't do), but that first kiss was anything but careful. All teeth and consuming, I think the gash on my lip was the last thing to heal.
I liked waking up to that dull, body-wide ache and taste of pennies. I still do. Misty scares me the most in anticipation, but Shauna scares me the most in the moment.
I hate the part of me that grows warm when I think about that.
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November 5th, 1997
Misty's first time was next, just before Shauna really changed things. After Crystal went missing in the storm Misty started acting dejected and bitter just as Shauna had done, but it felt different. I'm still not sure if the others could see it but it seemed to me she was just copying, acting out how she thought she should react.
Looking back I think that after seeing Shauna hurt me so good, she got jealous. She wanted to hurt me too, though not for any real reason. Misty is just like that… sickly sweet, with emphasis on sick.
The selfish part of me ignored the fact she didn't need it, that it wasn't necessary like it had felt with Shauna. Misty wanted to hurt someone, and I wanted to be hurt, so that's just what happened.
While she lay on top of me, fingers probing between my ribs in ways I could never have known would hurt so much with a wholesome smile kissing away my tears, I could see Mari off on the edge. Everyone had formed a circle as they had done the times before, and she was sitting with her legs to her chest.
As she peered over her knees with her mouth open ever so slightly, I could see faint movement between her thighs. I followed her arm down and realised what she was doing; Looking around the circle, I saw Van and Shauna were doing the same.
No one mentioned it, not even Misty who just giggled when she noticed. No one said one singular word about it, and I'm not entirely sure we ever have the times since.
I think I would just pull my hair and scream, if I didn't love it so.
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November 7th, 1997
When Shauna does it it can take at least a few weeks to recover. She does the most damage. She likes to use her fists, cracking bone and tenderising flesh; While she may not leave lasting wounds on the surface, deeper down is where she sets her score.
Misty though, her work only lingers for a day or two, and never in any permanent way. She is calculated, digging fingers into spots fingertips shouldn't go and clawing at the most vulnerable places. Once the pain fades there is no sign she was ever there besides the throbbing memory of agony.
This meant that just days after Misty's first time, Shauna was ready to go again. I think seeing someone else do it had spurred her on a little, that it had allowed her to shed what little self consciousness she held onto about it.
She repeated her routine as it started to solidify itself. I'll stand or kneel, and she'll punch me in the face or gut. Eventually I fall, maybe coughing up blood, before she straddles me on the ground and continues. By the time she stops and tires, adrenaline has dulled my body and all I can feel is the thrill, the fun. The girls have said I look crazy as I grin dumbly to myself, mouth and teeth stained all scarlet while my face hardly even resembles a human let alone Lottie Matthews.
Sometimes I beat myself up about it. Hell, a lot of the time. You've (you? I'm talking to myself. Yes, dear paper, take in my secrets) probably noticed that by now. Ultimately though, I can't stop myself. The feeling is second only to the look my pretty girls get in their eyes, that sadistic, lustful something. I wish I could bottle that look and the feeling it gives me, I'd just bathe in it forever.
I'm rambling again.
Anyway, once Shauna was finishing she took it further. She was so frantic, I think that was the most scared she has ever made me feel, the most scared I have probably ever felt. It was intoxicating. She looked like she was almost worried, fearful of herself and what she might do as she shifted further up me, straddling not my hips but now my shoulders.
In the haze of getting my head rocked back and forth I think it took me longer to realise than it should, admittedly. I had only a few moments to really take in the sight as she tore off her pants and mounted my face.
I have been sitting here for a while now trying to find words to describe how it looked, how she looked, that first time with her thighs threatening to suffocate me for daring to free her. I just can't. It was magical.
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November 10th, 1997
Misty and Shauna ‘finish’ it differently, yet similar. Natalie is a different beast entirely, but that's another story.
When Shauna wraps up the beating and moves onto dessert, she's definitely the roughest. She'll slowly grind herself into my face, the pressure threatening to either pop my skull and spill these thoughts onto the planks below or simply smother me to death with beautiful homemade chloroform.
Misty is like a rabid bunny with how frenzied she gets, sometimes I worry she may give herself friction burn. I never knew it was possible to get whiplash from having someone sit on your face, but here we are.
And yes, the carpets do match the drapes.
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November 11th, 1997
Natalie. Gorgeous Natalie and her big sad eyes. All smoke and gravel.
For a while it was just Shauna and Misty who would take part, the other girls never stepping up or even mentioning the possibility. I'm not sure why honestly, as looking around those circles I could see in plenty eyes the hunger, the want. Maybe they see it as compensation for losing something dear to them - Shauna lost Jackie, Misty lost Crystal? That they feel it wouldn't be fair, even through their desire?
Or, maybe they're just voyeurs. It's hard to say when no one ever speaks of it. Speaking of it would normalise it, ruin the fun, ruin the specialness, ruin the ritual. Pull hair, scream, love.
Regardless, Nat came home one day after hunting with something other than food; A bloody rag and directions to a cave. Or rather, a mausoleum.
One would expect Travis to be the one to unravel, to lash out and bite, but he just fell into a hole after going to see Javi for himself. He stopped talking pretty much altogether after that, and now he just runs on autopilot. Surrounded by death, we live with a zombie.
Instead it was Natalie who broke, angry at herself, angry at the world. Misty was the devil on her shoulder whispering sweet nothings into her ear with no angels left to challenge her, pointing her in my direction. Of course, I welcomed her with open arms.
Fake martyr. Pretty girls. Beautiful pain.
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November 13th, 1997
I had known for some time that Nat liked blood. When I started making ritual tea for her and Travis before hunts I saw how she would sometimes hog the mug, taking every last drop into herself. I also saw how other times she wouldn't drink any at all, and would be seemingly incapable of even looking me in the eyes before brushing me off with a cold comment and stomping away into the snow.
That indecisiveness, that disdain for herself and her desires characterises Natalie in my mind. She's like me, in more ways than I think she would ever care to admit.
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November 14th, 1997
When Shauna talks during, she's insulting, degrading. She says I'm pathetic for wanting it, mocks me for what I am. She holds some guilt about it, and has even awkwardly apologised after she finishes in ways I can tell are truthful; although equally truthful are the taunts. She doesn't seem to contemplate the contradiction, and is probably much healthier for it.
Misty however is completely remorseless, though far more positive about the whole situation. She instead says this is just my place, that it's what I was made for. It's a good thing in her mind, that I put myself forward for her to use without fear of consequence. I think she sees me as a pet, a plaything that she can twist and bend and try to break; Though I doubt she ever would, as then she wouldn't have any toys left to play with.
Natalie though is painfully insincere. She hates this part of herself as much as I do, and so tries to justify it with the mysticism of this place as if it isn't simply in her. She claims she has better luck hunting after she bleeds me, after she tastes me, and that is why she came around to my ‘woo woo bullshit’. If you believe her words, it's all just purely practical.
Her mouth says one thing, yet her eyes say another. I think she is still a sceptic of everything (which I completely understand, I can't exactly explain everything that happens here either) but she plays into it because if she can convince herself of it hard enough, she can forgive herself for enjoying it.
If it were purely for the ritual, she would never ask for anything more than tea. If it is completely void of deeper emotion, then why does she come and lay her head in my lap when she ashamedly asks to play with me?
Natalie is a terrible liar, and so am I.
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November 16th, 1997
The most egregious proof of Natalie's charming, enraging dishonesty is what happens after. If Shauna is a vice and Misty is a rabbit then Natalie is a succubus.
While Shauna only ever uses my face and Misty does, say, ninety percent of the time, Nat is more of a coin toss. Sometimes she'll follow the form set by her teammates and mount my face, leaning back on her hands to ensure she can look me in the eyes, hips rolling back and forth on my nose, my lips, my tongue.
Other times she'll interlock our legs and grind herself into me in ways nobody could explain away as friendly. While Shauna and Misty do it for their own reasons, Nat makes an effort to acknowledge my personal biases. It might seem to an outsider as though she is being kind, going about it in a way I can also physically enjoy; Seeing her face though, I know better.
It's Nat’s way of calling me out. Her way of saying, ‘you’re not honest, and neither am I’. We have whole conversations in silence, staring (glaring) at each other as we try our hardest to become one.
That's the finale, however. What comes before is the meat of Natalie's meal.
Shauna does the most damage and Misty causes the most hurt, but Nat leaves the most scars. My chest and back are a gallery of brailled illustrations, a piercing artwork she slowly adds to as our time out here stretches on. Intricate lines, dots and dashes are Natalie's gift to me in return for getting what she really wants; My primitive tattoos are just the consequence and while she does enjoy drawing on me, more than anything she likes playing with the mess. Natalie enjoys the red.
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November 17th, 1997
She studies her work with wild, dark eyes. A drunken smile hitches on sharp fangs, carmine liquor dripping further from her chin down onto her chest, breathing shallow and staggered.
Pluck out my eyes and leave me with that image, I'll die a happy woman.
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November 18th, 1997
She makes me promise to stay healthy. She nags at me to tell her if I'm feeling too drained, too weak, or if I think one of the others has messed something up inside. I agree of course but it infuriates me that she seems to care so much, for reasons I don't understand. Why do I hate that someone cares for me?
Scratch that, it's not that I hate that someone cares. It's the fact the person that cares is also one who hurts.
I think maybe I find it frightening that somebody can appeal to both sides of me? That they can be that scary, bloodsucking monster that excites me so, yet also a real human being who comforts me and needs comfort themselves. Why does she have to lay her pretty head in my lap, and why do I have to stroke her pretty hair? Why can't she just cut me up and be done with it, why can't it be like the other two?
Why does it feel so much better, yet so much worse?
If I had to put it in simple terms I think it would be that what drives Shauna and Misty is malice, but what drives Natalie and I is lust. Or longing, maybe? I don't know, words are hard.
All I know is I love when Natalie plays with me.
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November 20th, 1997
I know I said this wouldn't be a collection of ‘this is what I did today', but something big (maybe) happened. Gen was away using the outhouse then came running back saying she had seen a plane. No one else saw anything so I'm not getting my hopes up, but there is a very slim chance this could be my last entry.
Would we survive back in the real world? How could we come back from this, after all we've done to each other. Do we just filter back into schooling, into working, ignoring the lingering taste of friends behind our teeth? I'm honestly not sure I could handle that.
This place doesn't exactly feel like home but neither does back there anymore, at least to my mind. They say home is where the heart is, don't they? So I guess my home is with my girls.
Shauna, my brute. Misty, my tormentor. Natalie, my vampire. Swaying branches and echoes of antlers, snowflakes mixing with wisps of hair, chocolate, ginger and blonde. That's home to me.
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November 22nd, 1997
The seaplane didn't slow down as it dove towards the lake. No survivors. The fire didn't last long on the ice, and at least it didn't hurt us or take anything. Silver linings, deja vu.
In other news, Nat bagged us a moose. We won't go hungry for a while now, thankfully.
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November 27th, 1997
Sometimes I think I may die out here,
Sometimes I sit and weep.
Sometimes I think they may kill me,
Yet I let the blood seep.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.