Page 45 of The Flesh Remembers
Eleanor turned to her friend, her gaze hardening, her heart following suit. The answer came without hesitation, quiet yet resolute, like closing a door. “Yes,” she said. “It is.”
Heavy with unspoken fears and the promise of what would come, the air seemed to shift. Marian’s expression faltered, but she said nothing more. Eleanor’s grip tightened around the coil in her hand, her pulse steadying as she stared into the abyss ahead. There was no turning back now, not for James, not for Marian, and certainly not for herself.
Excerpt from the diary of Dr. Eleanor Ashcroft
Frye nearly slit my throat tonight. His eyes burned with a madness I’ve never seen before, but perhaps that’s no surprise. Madness has consumed us all in its way. This entire process, this grotesque, unholy endeavour, is madness incarnate. And yet, it works. James is returning. Piece by piece, he is coming back to me.
Frye rages that the work is corrupt, that the rituals are tearing open something spoiled and unnatural. I can’t dismiss his fears entirely. The forces we call upon are not merely dark, they are unknowable. What listens to our chants, our whispers, as blood spills and bodies writhe in sacrifice? What watches from the shadows as we offer up these rites, not in reverence but desperation? Is it the devil? Some ancient, forgotten god? Or something far worse, something beyond comprehension?
I don’t know. And perhaps I don’t want to know. But the question lingers, gnawing at the edges of my mind. What price will we pay for James’s return? What will we unleash in the process?
The Weight of a Thousand Unspeakable Acts
The clinic lay shrouded in an unholy quiet as midnight approached, the silence thick and heaving, alive with the weight of a thousand unspeakable acts. Its corridors seemed to quiver, not just with memory, but with a pulsing energy that pressed against Eleanor’s skin, a damp, stifling heat that wrapped around her like a living thing. Her breath carried the cloying tang of incense, mingled with an undercurrent of sweat and iron, suffocating and inescapable. Shadows twisted across the walls, their forms flickering like mocking phantoms under the erratic dance of candlelight. The silence seemed to exhale softly, its humid breath laden with the echoes of past depravity, whispering, tempting, and daring her forward.
Her breath quickened. She’d seen James’s transformation progress over the past days. His reanimated form was both a triumph of their unholy rites and a condemnation of everything she’d once held sacred. His movements had grown smoother, his eyes sharper, and his presence oh, his presence—was a narcotic pull that left her knees weak. He was no longer merely James. He was something more—something monstrous, something magnetic.
Eleanor found the door to James’s cell ajar, and a thrill of terror and excitement shot through her. The heavy iron chains lay broken, scattered like brittle bones. She ran her fingers over the cold steel, her mind racing with questions. Where was he? What would she find? The answer came in the form of a faint chorus of moans drifting through the stone corridors, a sound both familiar and grotesque. It was the sound of bodies in surrender, the unmistakable melody of lust teetering on the brink of agony.
Following the sounds, she found herself at the entrance of a side chamber. She felt a sudden constriction in her throat. Inside, James stood at the centre of an orgiastic maelstrom, his bare chest streaked with the sweat and desperation of his acolytes. His dead flesh seemed to glow with an unnatural vitality, veins pulsing as he drank deeply from the scene around him.
One woman clung to his waist, her cries muffled against his chest as her nails raked across his pallid skin. A man knelt at James’s feet, his face pressed reverently to James’s thigh, while another acolyte trailed trembling fingers down the ridges of his spine. Their faces wore expressions of ecstatic torment, as though their pleasure was entwined with pain so exquisite it threatened to unmake them. One of them sobbed, her cries a mix of shame and helpless desire, a haunting sound that stirred an eerie dread deep in Eleanor's core.
James turned his head, his eyes locking onto Eleanor. The intensity of his gaze was physical, a searing brand that heldher in place. His lips curled into a feral, knowing, and achingly seductive smile.
“Eleanor,” he said, his voice a rasp that somehow carried the weight of a command. “You’re just in time.”
Her legs felt unsteady, as if they might give out on her at any moment. Every rational part of her screamed to turn away, to flee the room and abandon this nightmare. But her body betrayed her. She stepped forward, drawn by the gravity of him, the dark promise in his eyes.
“This is madness,” she whispered, her voice all but frozen in fear and guilt as she fought to keep her composure. “You can’t keep… draining them like this. They’re not… they’re not your playthings, James.”
He laughed, a sound brimming with cruel delight. It prickled at her nerves and sent an icy tension curling deep in her stomach. “Aren’t they?” he asked, gesturing lazily to the writhing bodies around him. They came to me. They wanted this. They wantedme.You made me into this, Eleanor. Did you think I wouldn’t embrace it?”
Emotion clawed at her throat, trapping her voice between shame and desire. She had brought James back, yes. She had performed the rituals, whispered the incantations, and poured her love into the forbidden acts that tethered his soul to this half-rotted vessel. But she had never imagined… this. How could she have known it would make her want him more?
James closed the distance between them in a single, predatory step. His cold fingers brushed her cheek, leaving a trail of ice and fire in their wake. “You’ve been so brave, Eleanor,” he murmured, his voice curling around her like a dark caress. “So faithful. But this isn’t about control anymore. It’s about surrender.”
“I…” Her voice broke as his lips brushed her ear, his breath cool and damp against her skin. The smell of decay clung to him, but beneath it was something else, something heady and intoxicating. “This isn’t you,” she managed to whisper. “This hunger… this darkness. I can still bring you back.”
James laughed again, a sound so cruelly erotic it made her knees buckle. “Bring me back?” he echoed. “You think I want to go back to who I was? To be small? Weak? I’ve tasted power, Eleanor. I’ve tasted…everything.And I’m not finished yet.”
Behind them, one of the acolytes whimpered, drawing Eleanor’s attention. The young woman’s face was flushed, her eyes half-lidded as she reached for James. But there was something in her gaze, a flicker of doubt, of fear that stirred a sickening unease deep within Eleanor. Was this devotion or coercion? The line had become so blurred in this place of shadows and sin.
James noticed the hesitation and grinned. “Watch closely, Eleanor,” he said darkly, grabbing the acolyte by her chin and tilting her head to meet his gaze. “There’s no resistance here, only submission.”
The woman quivered all over, breathing shallowly as James’s hand tightened her jaw. The sharpness of his grip left faint marks on her skin, and Eleanor’s stomach twisted as she saw the tears glistening in the acolyte’s eyes. Yet the woman didn’t resist, her body going limp under James’s touch.
“They don’t all want this,” Eleanor said sharply, her voice cutting through the haze of moans. “You’re twisting their minds, their desires.”
James tilted his head, his expression inscrutable. “Do you think any of us are free here?” he asked softly. “You, them,me… we’re all slaves to something. To love. To power. To need.”
His words struck a chord she couldn’t deny. And yet, the sight of the trembling acolyte haunted her.
“Perhaps you need reminding of your place,” James said, his voice laced with venomous seduction. His hand shot out, gripping Eleanor’s wrist with an unrelenting force. He pulled her forward, dragging her to her knees before him. The room seemed to spin with his power, like a suffocating weight that pressed down on her.
“You brought me back,” he whispered, his lips brushing her ear. “Now prove to me you’re worthy of staying by my side.”
Eleanor’s heart pounded as she grappled with the humiliation and her aching desire. His control over her was absolute, and as much as she hated herself for it, she couldn’t fight the pull.
