Azazel:Deadwater:9/16/2025
First day at the Deadwater Chronicle. Orientation. I prefer disorientation, land and sky melding, body morphing, face melting, disorderly molecule disorientation. Instead I got headphones and slideshow on my computer.
The Deadwater Chronicle was founded in 1846 by Mayor Sixto Quintín Vásquez to keep an eye on the clergy in the area at the time. Blah blah blah politics. Spain controlled the clergy, Mexico was now an independent country didn’t want God’s pedo lackeys spying on them (weird that anyone does). This Sixto fellow wanted them to be accountable. Closed up the cathedral and opened up a newspaper. Have to see where he ended up, could be a good recruit.
There was- a further three hours of history. And a booklet!
Then we had a staff meeting…. not a whole lot going on right now. I’ve been put on the crime beat. Rookie stuff, but actually a good place to get intel.. and informants. I do love a rat. They all carry plague of some sort or another. Inciting black buboes, oozing insidious rot. Beautiful creatures.
Our editor is a woman named Dita Terrence. Average looking, but with a gaze that could bore holes in your soul… I don’t have one, which she seemed to pick up on. Is she angelic? I don’t think so, but she may be one of a rare group of mortals that can trace their lineage back to the nephilim. Very diluted angelic DNA at this point. Not a threat, but can be a pain in the ass.
There are two other staff reporters. Wilson Greenly, chubby, serious guy. I’ll need to get to the bottom of his appetites. And Jo(lene) Foo, taller than me, cute glasses, not giving anything away without a fight. Respect.
Not much happened after that.
Took the police scanner home with me so I don’t miss anything. Listening to these small town po talk about fuckall…
Miriam:Deadwater:9/16/2025
I smell like grease and I want to die.
I saw the manager, Dave, sitting at the bun oven.
“Dave, you’re watching the oven.”
He slapped the hat off my head, “Buckin’ the trend new girlie. Not dyin’. Now get to work!”
Hi welcome to Fried Freddies what can we fry for you today?
Hi welcome to doom can I dribble spittlebread into your mouth baby birdie?
I washed my hair twice and I still smell like grease.
Can I fry you today?
Fried human.
Me fry you.
If the ghost doesn’t kill Dave I will.
The ghost lives in the oven. But it isn’t a ghost. It’s an ancient land spirit. Bored, trapped in an appliance and wants a body count.
Don’t let me stop you.
Cute red murder oven.
Az says he’ll shave my head if I want.
I don’t know what I want, but it isn’t this.
August:Heaven:A cell
Spent the day with my barrister, forgot the term here, intercessor or something. We’re going with the folie a deux defense. I was so overjoyed at seeing my Evelyn I lost my head and so did she and here were are, separate now and coming to our senses. Our intercessors have intermingled and discussed a co-strategy. Meantime, I have figured out how to keep the shadow guards out of my cell. Simple really. Bash my head against the wall until it bleeds, then paint a pentagram on each wall.
I have found that this is also conducive to meditation. The slow trickle of blood from my scalp the only sound, white on red on white until it blends into fleshy pink and opens up a mouth with a thick pustulant tongue and grinding teeth. Behind the teeth a gaping pit…
And then my head knits itself back together and I have to start all over again. I feel like I’m on to something though. If only I could get that mouth to swallow me. I passed a note to Evelyn through our intercessors to let her know so she can try to meditate the mouth in to being as well.
Folie à avaler.
August's section hits hard. The repetitive self-harm as meditation practice, painting those pentagrams in blood only to have the cell knit itself back together, there's somethng really unsettling about a prison that heals you just so you can keep suffering. That mouth imagery with the pustulent tongue feels like it's getting at something deeper than just escape, more like dissolution. Been thinking alot about how containment in fiction reflects psychological states, and the way his intercessor is basically enabling this spiral instead of helping is a brutal touch. Curious where folie à avaler leads.