Beneath The Alpha

ing themes that will not settle well with certain audiences i.e abuse, battlefi

iscretion

ork a comment wou

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entur

d rain

was darkening behind him as black clouds drew in from the East, with a g

nsitive nape of his neck, stirring the fine hairs with the familiar touch of a lover. Its cooling presence offered reprieve fro

lull of the receding afternoon heat. Rays of light began to ebb from the walls and floor on silent feet, slinkin

raw his attention away from the cadav

eath, that served to frighten the slaves into servitude. From the golden band still hammered

rearms were marked by slices of skin ripped from the nails of slaves, possibly

te shift. Her tailbone which had splintered through the skin of her lo

as nothing

tual– to comfort one’s other half in their final breath. Perhaps she had cried out to the animal in a terrible bout of

son, Gerfast did

uelty had been reduced to nothing but a c

rchief. A sheen of perspiration surfaced on his forehead despite the lowering of temperatures. “Com

eepened at the bitte

read them wide, relishing the crunch and snap of bone: a delicacy not only to an undertaker’s

it multiplying. Face screwed in disgust, Gerfast had stepped back as her swollen belly spilled contents cradled within, onto the floor in wet sucki

her through and thro

e creeped and crawled and dove into holes in fl

ged aside bits of pieces of guts while searching

angered by the degradation of he

to shatter within the clutch of his grasp and form a ch

om the table. He watched it struggle to move across the floor like some wounded animal, the sight of it

resurfacing and curving downwards as they languorous

way the gu

otted finger. Their surface was not as brittle as the rest of the bones in her body. His hand curled around one length tentatively and gave it a gentle squeez

ction in the dim light of his workshop which smoothed any

a price he was certain would only keep him alive for another day or two,

f no use by the time

at the affliction devoured the body from the inside, and for people like Gerfast who relied on selling body parts

them side by side on an open cloth spread beside her hip and continued plucking the bones like delicate

t whilst muttering to himself incoherently and unaware of

arly led the needle astray and into

rose to his jaw, throbbing the

m not to bother me w

ur in the sun for a prolonged period of time it pervaded the room without

rfast withdrew his kerchief and carefully dabbed at the beaded sweat along his uppe

w deep breaths to reign

ician dragged his gaze from the cadaver across the

scars from a pox outbreak could not. His unimpressed stare wandered up the waif’s whipp

ss for standing by his window just outside the

ol

yo

y brownness of his cheeks, pale blue eyes peered at him a

t his weight onto his other foot and lick at the irid

er and resumed his hunched position ov

you?” The

worth s

ary curiosity— flickering from metallic tables laid upon with surgical instruments to the wooden buckets of arsenic

someone e

ha

owled at t

ting an apparition of the boss to appear from nothingness. “I been meaning to ask

eaned down to secure the extra length between his incisors, a delicate shiver wi

rdo

don’t need no help, if I need

t the first rumble of thunder in the distance: a sound so deep Gerfas

the city like some heliotropic plague that eclipsed the sun an

wn away by severely whipped donkeys, mothers amok snatching their babes while orphans frolicked out

f sugarcane and cotton, they worked hollow-eyed and with quiet apathy as overseers stood in the dis

on at the sight of the boy still standing by

ha

needed

e bid him away with a wave

here that

rn to a final thread that gerfast

o speak when he interrupted, “reck

he

t know wher

as enough to raise a sliver of doubt within

aite. Slowly he swivelled left and right like a guard at watch, pale blue eyes cir

nod

he boy said,

orpse, already reaching for another set of needle and thread to sew up th

” he

ked at him in ira

that nam

Wh

t the place down there,

t and only name to conjure

ng shadow over the mortician’s face. “Well I thank ye.” He donned the cap again and used

t the youth raised a han

of something dull that niddled the back of his mind. With hands braced on the sill for balance, the man leaned out and

tepped sideways creating breadth to avoid

e paleness. Blood and maggots and rot in that blighted limb. Yet the boy moved with a deceptive air

wing the final light of the sun, plunging the city in a quietness that split onl

ued that chose to die in the shadows between dawn and dusk. Lightning streaked white and hot across the blackened sky. The body of

ed beneath his window and wip