3. No Empathy
3
NO EMPATHY
RIOT
His music is his mask. A shield he hides behind. A way to feel without showing feelings. An emotion expressed without a word spoken—he’s used this method so often that I’ve taken on the term.
Ghost keeps the house awake with his violin, but none of us have ever complained. He plays and plays, and the music gets stronger and more prominent, and as he lets go of everything trapped within the deep well of his seemingly shallow psyche, so do the rest of us. We settle in bed, close our eyes, and feel.
The strings of his violin make sense of our sensations. The tenor of his music pulls understanding from the locked boxes of our hearts. When Ghost plays his haunting harmonies into the dead of night, I start making sense to myself. I almost understand who I am and why I am the way I am. I understand it through the way he hurts, putting his pain into his music and ridding himself of the burden of it by creating something so deceptively dark.My self-understanding always fades away from my grasp as soon as the music ends.
Sometimes, Seven’s guitar joins his violin, bleeding frustration and beauty into the music. Ransom’s woodwinds sometimes join on nights Monster is having a particularly hard time. Oboe or clarinet, it doesn’t matter, Ransom can play them all and make the melody hurt. Facts sometimes joins with his viola, deepening the tone until we’re all entranced by it, but when he plays the organ at the asylum, I swear we all break a little. And when Monster adds himself to the music… it’s so special it’s hard to bear.
There’s one piano in Vile House, and five of us can play it, but it’s never me. I hardly even attempt to play in private, choosing to try to express myself in solitude because nothing about me makes sense and I forgot how to interpret my music. Nothing about how I feel, what I want, and who I am is meant for the outside world. They see my mask, what I manipulate them to see, and that’s all they’re allowed.
They don’t even realize how fragile all my facades are.
Tonight, Ghost’s music is full of desolation. Not pain. Not fear. Not even anger or rage. Just desolate longing, a feeling of emptiness and destruction. He’s a broken boy who refuses to be broken; a destroyed man with no outer damage; a hunter whose prey is both too real and not real enough—a hunter who forgets to look over his shoulder and realize he is also prey.
Death. He seeks it. Not to die, but to broker a deal with it. To be better than it, more powerful than the allure of it. I used to think it was because he’s a thrill seeker, and he still is, but he’s also so fucking lost that he doesn’t know where else to seek what he’s after.
I’m going to be that thing. The thrill he chases. I’m going to be the emotion that finally fills him with something, overthrowing all that desolate emptiness to bring him back to life in a way he’ll almost resent me for. I made a deal with my brother, but I’m not going to keep it like he thinks I am. I’m going to keep the one I made with Ghost instead, and when I win, everything will change.
Tonight in his grave was only the beginning, and I love that my actions have brought on this music. He’s playing because of me. He’s expressing himself because of me. He’s broken because of me. My palm rubs my cock because of all of it combined. The way we both taunt something we won’t name, and the game that brings a level of danger neither of us will admit to fearing. Our back and forth has always been exciting, but now… fuck, I grab my cock harder. I wonder if my cum is still painted on his abs along with the dirt from his grave?
As Ghost plays, filling Vile House with the relief we all need, giving us the comfort to do it in the privacy of our own rooms, I smile with my eyes closed and feel everything he feels.
Because without even knowing it, his violin playing is a cry for help.
I’m going to answer the call.
Dreaming of ways to do just that, I drift into a level of rest without ever falling asleep. My dick hard because of his music, my chest settled because of my pride, and my mind busy because of its dark ideas.
But when the emergency light in the corner of my room flashes red through my eyelids, I wait, my eyes wide open now. Waiting to see if it stays red to indicate an actual emergency or turns magenta to signal exactly what I need. Wide awake, I grin devilishly when the first tone from the alarm signals and the red light turns magenta.
Some little lamb has come to Vile House to make a bargain.
* * *
I love this part. The deals and the bargains. The lost souls who swallow their pride and make their way to Vile House as their last resort. The locals who have tried everything within their power but still failed, and the tourists who get trapped here, still seeking a way out.
Bargains in the stone hall of Vile House are so vibrant. Fear leeches into the air, turning the cavernous room wicked, and power rumbles from the ten of us. The combination of fear and power turns me on because I’m not the one who’s terrified. I’m the god, standing here in my favourite mask, arms crossed and my smile in place beneath the material over my face, watching this poor, pathetic rodent wring his hands together, building up the nerve to speak.
All ten of us are here tonight, ready to fight over a new bargain. It’s not often we’re all home when someone comes knocking, but when we are, it makes the newcomer sweat so much more.
He’s shaking on his feet, looking at the stone floor instead of us. As the door closes behind him and the initiate—Selena—leaves to monitor the house, he whimpers. Took balls to come here, especially on Halloween night, but now he’s cracking, and I love watching them break.
We don’t say anything. Director once told us to demand that they speak to get things moving, but by some unspoken agreement, none of us ever do. It’s more fun to wait them out, watch them panic, see them second-guess their decision to come here. But no one leaves Vile House alive unless they make a bargain or fight their way out, and this one doesn’t look like he has much fight left in him.
Shame.
Kyd vibrates next to me, and Facts jitters on my other side. Krypt leans against the wall, seemingly bored, and Monster shifts his weight from foot to foot. Ransom, Glitch, Seven, and Ghost are all stark still. Menace is poised, drinking down this guy’s pained fear, leaning forward like he wants to goad him into a new reaction.
“I… I… hi,” he says, voice shaking. “I, um, heard about the bargains you make?”
As one, we all breathe out, shifting our weight, acting as a unit. It’s never planned, but we’ve been a team for years now, and we’ve been through enough of these bargain meetings to know how to dictate the outcome. My arousal spikes when the guy looks behind him, tempted by the exit.
“How… how do I make a bargain?” he asks, looking at our feet.
Menace answers. “You tell us what you want and then you tell us what you’re willing to give up to get it.”
“Don’t waste our time,” Ransom adds harshly.
“Oh, okay,” he says. “It’s a matter of… an estate.”
Pathetic.
He’s not a street-smart guy, that much is obvious. He’s wearing a hoodie from the university Selena attends. I don’t recognize him from Moros, so how the fuck does he know about Vile House bargains?
“I have family here. My great aunt passed away and left her house to me, but my cousin won’t move out of it.”
“Who’s your cousin?” Ghost asks.
“Willow Olenna.”
My smile is so sinister I wish he could see it beneath my mask. Love when Willow plays her own games, and now I know how this guy found out about Vile House. This isn’t his bargain, it’s hers, and I’m excited to see what she’s going to offer up. Information is Willow’s game, and I’m eager to be the one to collect.
“So, in exchange for you getting her out of my house, I will offer you… uh, money?”
“Don’t want money,” Seven says.
“Why do you want the house then?” Kyd asks. “Gonna move in?”
“I want to sell it.”
“Offer something better,” Glitch snaps. “Not money.”
“Like what?” he asks. “I can pay you. I don’t have much more than money.”
Then why’s he want to sell the house? “How about your ass?” Menace suggests. “Bet you’re an anal virgin.”
“N-no,” he stammers, backing towards the door. “Please, I just want her out of the house! It’s not worth my… ass. I just don’t want her to have it!” He gulps, and the ten of us step forward as he steps back.
“Why’d your cousin tell you about Vile House?” Krypt asks, baiting him.
“She didn’t. I overheard her talking about it, saying she was going to come here to make a bargain.”
I laugh with my whole body. “So you thought you’d beat her to it?”
“Yes…” He tries to open the door, but it’s locked. “Look, maybe this is a bad idea.”
“Oh, it’s definitely a bad idea,” Ghost says, his voice playfully dominant. “But here you are. Too late to back out now.”
“What do you want from me?” he shrieks, skirting around the outside of the room. “I thought bargains were safe!”
Oh, he thought wrong. Especially because he thinks he’s the one making the bargain. Willow beat him to it, offering herself up on a platter by sending her cousin here. She’s an old friend from high school, and no one can access real, undiscovered information like she can. The ten of us look at one another, coming to a decision. This is gonna be fun.Perfect end to Halloween.
“Offer something better and maybe we’ll take it,” Facts says, and when the guy looks at him in his copper mask, he adds, “Hello,” in a creepy as fuck voice.
Monster hasn’t said anything, but that doesn’t prevent him from circling the guy and herding him away from the wall. He’s busy now, trying to think while watching his surroundings, too stupid to realize he’s ringed by sharks.
“Please! My car? I’ll give you my car. And money. More money. Please.”
“We want your body. Your life,” Glitch says.
“Your soul,” Kyd adds.
“N-no!”
I step to his front, the others surrounding him, Monster at his back. “What’ll it be?”
“Please, have some empathy! I lost my aunt!”
Boring. Reaching forward, my smile parting my lips, I grab the sides of his face and say, “I ain’t got no empathy.” I snap his neck.