V M Itch in the Brain

[Strazio Rockwell]

Scratching. Terrible and constant scratching. Digging ever deeper. Clawing at roots. Chewing through stone. Scratching, clawing, digging. Blood and dirt and chipped fingernails. Fingertips scraped to the bones. Rooting deeper and deeper. He had grown blind. He had grown deaf. How long had he been clawing and scratching and digging into the bedrock of Inverxe? Too long. Not long enough. Not long enough at all. Not so long that his body had fallen apart and become useless for the task of digging. No, his body hadn’t fallen apart just yet. Until then he had to keep clawing and digging down.

He paused. Slowly opening and closing his hands. Blood and dirt and chipped stone clung to them. What remained of his shattered fingernails hung from shredded nail beds. Why had he stopped? There was more digging and more clawing and more scratching to be done. He raked his fleshy digits across the rock face. He trembled. His stomach was empty. His stomach had been empty for many days. No, his body hadn’t fallen apart yet, but it was dying. Eat. He had to eat. Consume. He needed to consume. Swallow up something living. Swallow it in big bloody chunks. He worked his jaw. He crawled out of his pit. He wheezed, his lungs wet and reedy.

A nest. Delicious blue eggs full of unborn soup. Hunger. He plodded along. His bare feet slapped at the jagged cavern floor. A young mother skittered and stopped before him. Remorhaz, someone had told him. Who told him? No one told him. Who else exists besides him, the young mother, and Inverxe? No one. No one exists. No one ever existed. These two creatures were all the universe had ever amounted to. Disgusting mindless things. He snarled, his throat raw and full of phlegm. She chittered. Her spiny back trembled and grew red-hot. He’d be turn to ash. It didn’t matter he was hungry and he had to keep digging. He had to slurp down her liquid children and keep clawing into the rock and stone.

Her body, centipedal in nature, coiled tightly around the clutch of eggs. Pincers, red-hot and steaming angle towards his heart. He shuddered. No, his body hadn’t fallen apart just yet, but he was weak and he was hungry. She hissed a terrible screeching hiss. Then, as the young mother made to skewer him something happened. There was first a pop and then a crackling and finally a wet rumbling as her body was torn apart. Within moments the young mother’s body was splattered against the cavern walls by an irresistible force.

Strazio blinked. He collapsed. Fell to his knees. His fingertips throbbed and his stomach rumbled. But he was no longer he. Whatever terrible fever had overtaken him regressed and he became fully aware of his sorry state. God, the thirst. He swallowed hard.

”Ahh, my precious little noodle. Such wasted potential to see you scrabbling about.”

A voice whispered between his ears. It slithered up his spine and perched within his addled brain.

“Who the fuck are you?!” He rasped.

From the darkness emerged a figure. Humanoid in notion, but so far removed from humanity. It’s face was punctuated with two gleaming blue eyes and instead of a mouth there was a writhing mass of tentacles. It stood stock straight and wore silken robes. And when it spoke? It spoke not to your ears, but rather to your mind. It spoke no language and instead transmitted thoughts so perfectly distilled that you couldn’t help but hear them in your own mental voice.

”You may call me Varigyot, little noodle.”

“Get out of my fucking head.”

”But you leave it so open for intrusion. Was I not to assume it as an invitation?”

Strazio made to stand, but his legs failed and he fell belly-first to the ground. Even breathing had become difficult as malnourished as he was. He grunted and asked, “What do you want?” Varigyot ignored him and instead palmed one of the remorhaz eggs. Using a sharpened nail he carved off the egg’s top and held it in front of Strazio’s face.

”Eat, you’ll need your strength, little noodle.”

Strazio murmured a threat, but greedily reached for the egg. It was filled with a goopy off-yellow brine mixed with blue chunks of maturing flesh. He wretched for a moment before guzzling more of the mixture. And though it tasted like burnt rubber it was the most delicious meal had ever had in his entire life.

”Yes, what is it that we want, a good question, little noodle. The Elder Brains might need your… help in a small matter. The Rock Raiders have some… sensitive information we desire. Specifically the leader of a nearby excavation. I’ll leave you with a brain extractor, return their leader’s brain to me and we’ll happily fortify your mind against further… intrusion.”

Strazio tossed the hollow egg aside and wiped his lips. He looked towards Varigyot and asked, “What information?”

”Nothing you need to worry your precious little head about”

“Look, thanks for saving me and all, but I’m not just gonna go steal someone’s fucking brain,” He said, “So, please, fuck off.”

Whatever pressure had been holding his mind together vanished. His belly full and body rejuvenated he needed to return to his purpose. Clawing and scratching and digging down, down, deeper into Inverxe. Just need to keep scratching and peeling away the rock. Strazio inhaled sharply. His mind returned to him. Varigyot smiled in a way that only a squid could.

”You’re free to say no, but well… Inerxe is not kind to unshielded minds.”

 

[Strazio Rockwell]

What was he to say? What could he say? Even with Varigyot shielding his mind he still couldn’t remember just how long he had been down there. How long had he been scratching and clawing into the rock? He shook his head. Idle thoughts brought back whatever was out there. Whatever force had crawled into his mind and made a nest for itself. Whatever wanted him to claw and scratch down to the very center of Inverxe. He kept walking. His bare feet plodded against the rough-hewn cavern floor. His boots were long gone and his feet covered in scabby calluses.

His patron had given him a small cylindrical device that he assumed was the brain extractor. It didn’t appear to be much. Just a brush-polished metal cylinder with an ominous red button on one end and an orifice on the other. Fresh blood oozed from his ragged fingertips as he squeezed the device tightly. He was being extorted. That fish-fucker was extorting him. Fuck him and fuck his fucking brain extractor. He raised the device high. All he could think was ’good luck finding it in all this dark’. But he stopped. Another thought slithered in. Claw. Scratch. Dig. Keep digging. Keep scratching. Keep clawing.

“Grr, fuck…” Strazio muttered.

He pocketed the device and kept walking.

“Fuck!” He shouted.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” He continued, “Fucking damnit!”

Another one for good measure, “FUCK THIS FUCKING PLACE.”

Yeah. If he had his magick he would’ve blown a hole through the entire worthless planet. He paused and held his head. Something clicked. Who had sent him here? Someone who smelled like perfumed flowers. Someone with green fingernail polish. Hadn’t he been on Mesa with Elise and Nico and Gamzee? What happened? Why was he there? To find his magick. No, to get rid of whatever was blocking his magick. Yes, that’s right. To get rid of those emerald eyes lurking in his subconscious. Those terrible terrible eyes. They hadn’t even bothered to stop whatever had taken over. Those fucking eyes probably opened the door for whatever had forced him to dig, and scratch, and claw.

He blinked. His hand was idly rubbing against the moist stone wall. All it would take was one moment of unfocus and he’d be right back in that pit. He pulled his hand away and chomped on the bleeding fingertips. He’d chew the damn things off before getting back into that pit. He bit down harder, inhaling sharply as the rubbed-raw nerve endings made contact with his saliva. Yeah, that would keep him focused. He kept walking and every time his mind wandered he nibbled at the shorn open nailbeds of his fingertips. It was almost a trance in and of itself. A hypnosis built upon pain and agony. Built upon the familiar sensations he had intertwined himself with so many times before.

There was machinery. The distant sounds of drills and chisels and the slow rumbling lope of diesel engines. Flood lights illuminated the cavern and cast upon him. In that moment, standing half-clothed and covered in dried blood and gnawing at his fingers he felt as if he was a beast. Perhaps he was. He certainly appeared like one to the Rock Raider’s crew. There was only a handful of them, but each one was cradled in a powered exoskeleton. Their arms covered in drills and pneumatic chisels and their backs carrying loads of equipment and ores. They were stocky humanoids with greasy soot-covered beards. Even the one who spoke first she had a grand beard braided together with silvery widgets.

“Are ye a fuckin’ creature of the caverns or are ye a man?” She asked, shouting over the rumble of their exoskeletons.

Strazio’s throat tightened. He went to speak but inhaled and choked on a bit of blood. He hacked and wheezed, his scarified body shuddering with each horrid cough.

“He’s mad,” One of the men said, “Ye can see it in his eyes.”

“Fuck you,” Strazio wheezed, catching his breath, “I’m not fuckin’ mad.”

“Ah, so he’s not a creature. He’s a man!” The first dwarf exclaimed, “Well, what’s your name, then? - I’m Kami Oregouger and this is Decker Rockgrinder, Axle Vance, and Dorian Breakstone.”

“Strazio Rockwell,” He answered, fighting back another coughing fit as he did.

“Rockwell,” She exclaimed, “Ah used to know a Rockwell! But ye ain’t no dwarf, how’d ye come to have ah dwarven name?”

“Ain’t a dwarven name,” Strazio growled, “It’s my name.”

She snorted, “Ye don’t own the rights to it, or if ye do then your not enforcing them very well, there’s probably about fifty million other Rockwells out there.”

Strazio shook his head. For a moment he was ready to get into an argument about the semantics and whether or not it was his name or just a name, and he would have were it not for just how weak and frazzled he was. Instead he shrugged.

Kami continued, “Well, dwarf or no, your welcome to join us back at the camp - Captain Copperclean says we’re to save any poor sods trapped in the caverns like yourself.”

“I ain’t a poor sod,” Strazio said.

“Well, ye look like one,” She said, “So I’d say someone playin’ the part of a poor sod works just as well.”
Out of spite he wanted to tell her to fuck off and plod his way back into the dankest part of the cave. Out of spite he wanted to rip her throat out and guzzle down the blood. Out of spite he wanted to claw. He wanted to scratch. He wanted to dig. He wanted out.

He took a breath. He took a long and slow steadying breath. Just how long was Varigyot’s protection going to hold out? How long until he was just a poor sod lost to the caverns? Not long he figured. He worked his hands and felt the scabbed over wounds crack apart and ooze blood. Captain Copperclean was his way out and Kami was bringing him right to her. He hoped the Captain was an absolute prick, or at least some sort of bastard.