POA ch010 — Fight

Summary: Henry fights a monster. Naomi pulls teeth. Garlic is sniffed.

Author's Notes: Hey, can you be a little more careful with our puppet?

Content Warnings: Violence, insectoid monsters, insects, blood mention, needles (eldritch), injuries, panic. I am not a medical professional, but neither are Ash and Naomi. In any case, don’t try this at home, kids.

The glass shatters and paralyzed with uncertainty, Henry feels that splitting-open feeling rise within him again. He squeezes his eyes shut, praying that if he’s about to have another episode, it is not an indecisive one. The black fog of unconsciousness creeps into his vision, and Henry resigns himself to another splitting headache and the most inconvenient fainting spell.

Naomi throws the door open and then reels back, recoiling in fright. There’s a line of white along the threshold of Henry’s room and a discarded box of salt lying by the side, toppled and spilling more white grains onto the carpeted floor. Ash is clenching at Henry’s arm and babbling panicked words that Henry does not comprehend.

The insect, as big as Henry’s torso, reaches two of its spindly, articulated legs through the shattered hole in the window. Its legs taper to a wickedly sharp hook, glistening and black like the careful and clever legs of a spider. Each of its limbs pulls shards of glass from the hole it has made, digging an entry for the rest of its body. Its bulbous, glistening eyes poke through the hole in the glass.

The black fog clears from Henry’s vision, and he feels the icy tension sink into his veins as you take over his limbs. Henry wrenches himself from Ash’s protective grasp.

“What are you doing?!” Ash yelps. “Henry—!”

“I don’t know!” Henry shouts back.

Henry leaps towards the window.

You drag his hands up. Adrenaline, that chemical manifestation of human strength, sings through Henry’s veins. A thrilling and newfound feeling, for you. Moxie, chutzpah, courage, daring, instinct.

The insect hoists its body through the window. The sharp edges of the shattered glass squeak across its carapace like nails down a blackboard. It squeals in alarm as Henry’s fingers meet the insect’s face — identifiable only by its opalescent, bulbous eyes, huge black pearls.

Henry’s left hand presses down beneath the bulging eyes. His other hand comes up to find where the insect’s thorax and abdomen meet in a thin joint, like an ant’s. As his hands clasp the insect’s exoskeleton, Henry is filled with knowledge he should not know: a twist just so and this creature would snap in two. His thin arms tense and muscles that Henry hardly ever uses scream at him.

Still, you do not back down.

The insect is not complacent with Henry’s attempt to bisect it on its way in through the window. Beneath Henry’s left hand, pressed beneath its eyes, a mouth yawns open.

This is no typical insect mouth.

Dread pierces shrilly between Henry’s lips in a terrified scream. There are no mandibles. Instead, the mouth reveals a set of glistening, needle-like teeth. Henry feels hands grasp his shoulders, trying to pull him back from the window. He ignores them, powerless to do anything but fight. He twists with his right hand. The insect clamps down with its needle-teeth on his left hand, piercing into his flesh.

Henry shrieks in pain. Five thin, sharp teeth sink deep into his hand, slicing into his skin as though it were tissue paper.

Naomi’s pale fingers wrap around his wrist, pulling his other hand from the creature’s thorax. Ash appears in Henry’s peripheral vision. They reach between the creature’s needle teeth, expression angry and determined. With a mighty yank, Ash manages to pry the creature’s jaw apart.

Henry rips his hand free with a pained gurgle. The creature screams and chitters a horrible clack-clack-clack. With the last vestiges of fight left in him, you bring Henry’s foot up and plant it squarely between the creature’s eyes. The creature flies out of the second-story window, and lands on the pavement below with another angry scream.

Your control over Henry fades.

Then, there is pain. You feel it, too. Another new sensation.

Henry glances down at his hand. When he’d yanked it from the creature’s jaw, one needle-tooth remained stuck in his hand. The top of the tooth where it ripped from the creature’s mouth has thick black sludge caught on it — somewhere between blood and tar and void. Gazing down upon the glistening tooth, slender and nearly four inches long, a wave of nausea takes Henry over. He falls backwards, and Ash steadies him.

“Right,” Naomi gasps. “Right. Okay. We— E-erm— We need to, er, to remove the tooth, clean the wound.”

“’Kay,” Henry agrees tremulously. His whole body shakes. “Um. Quickly?”

“Right,” Naomi bobs her head. She dashes out of Henry’s room in two quick steps, shaking out her nerves in several flaps of her hands. Ash lowers Henry to lie back on the bed.

“What the fuck was that thing?” Ash pants, referring to the Scout.

Woozy dizziness blankets Henry like cotton. He can barely process Ash’s words. Still, an answer comes to him as though he’s always known it, even though it makes no sense.

“Scout,” Henry breathes.

“What?”

“Right, I’ve got plasters, bandages, I’ve got antiseptic wipes—” Naomi sinks down onto the bed. She and Ash examine the needle-tooth still jutting out from the muscle between Henry’s thumb and pointer finger.

“It doesn’t look too bad,” Ash observes. “Very clean bite.”

“I agree. I reckon we can just pull it out, clean it, and bandage it up.”

“Henry, can you move your thumb?” Ash speaks slowly and clearly. Their words manage to pierce the pain and fear.

With a grimace of pain, Henry moves his thumb. Then he wiggles his other fingers, too, for good measure.

“It looks like it’s gone almost all the way through, but not quite” Ash observes. “If I had to guess. And it’s so thin, I doubt you’ll even bleed too much.”

“Hope— it’s not— venomous—” Henry manages in between deep breaths. He is trying valiantly not to vomit.

“Might as well hope it’s not radioactive for all we know about… whatever that was,” Ash replies. “You know, I always tell my mum how much I love that the UK doesn’t have bugs, compared to the US. I guess I might need to revise that statement.”

“That hardly looked like it belonged in this world, much less this country,” Naomi scoffs. “This will sting a bit.”

Ash offers their hand for Henry to squeeze as Naomi carefully applies antiseptic to each small puncture wound in turn.

“I’m going to pull the other tooth out now,” Naomi explains. “In three… two…”

On two, Naomi unexpectedly grasps the tooth and pulls it from Henry’s hand in a swift motion. Henry tenses, his legs coming up to try and curl into a protective ball as a pained moan escapes his lips. Ash places their other hand on Henry’s knees, keeping him steady. Naomi wraps the tooth in a bit of paper towel and sets it aside. She rips open another antiseptic wipe and brushes along the edges of the wound. Then, she deftly and inexpertly wraps the white bandage around Henry’s hand and tapes it down.

“That will have to do. Pain?”

“Yes.” Henry’s whole face pales, and he feels clammy sweat covering every inch of him. He gasps and swallows and pants.

“Water, then, and some painkillers. Anadin?”

Ash retrieves a glass of water and a couple pills. They help Henry sit up in bed, leaning against the wall. He examines his hand in shock.

Had he really just done that?

That was the most terrifying moment of my life, Henry thinks in wonder.

In his other hand, Henry takes the proffered glass of water and downs the pills.

Then, the room is still.

Henry feels all of his fear rush into his face like it’s trying to escape his body. Tears prick his eyes and rush down his cheeks in two lines. When he finds his words again, he can hardly get them out around his sniffles.

“What the fuck,” Henry cries. “Is happening?”

…

The question hovers in the silence like a thundercloud, gray and electric.

“We need to call Jessica,” Naomi says, in her practical tone. “see if she can get someone in to fix your window.”

Henry goggles at her. “You— We just got a-attacked by a, uh, a bug, and you want to call our landlord?”

Naomi fixes him with a calm expression. “What else would you have us do?”

Henry has no answer. Shouldn’t there be some kind of pest control? Animal control? Who do we call? Henry thinks, wildly, of calling the police, the fire department, literally anybody. None of it makes sense.

Perhaps, for someone else, those choices would have made sense. Perhaps they would’ve been the obvious course of action. But here, for Henry, he knows, somehow, that what just happened cannot be resolved by normal means.

Henry knows, in this moment, that they are on their own. He isn’t sure how he knows it, not yet.

Ash appears to have come to a similar conclusion. They straighten up.

“Right. Henry needs to rest, and I suppose we should ice his hand? To prevent swelling?”

“Is— is the thing gone?” Henry asks.

Naomi turns and peers out of the window. She cranes her neck, careful of the sharp shards of glass. “It’s gone. No sign of it.”

A breath punches out of Henry.

“Right. Okay.”

“Hen shouldn’t sleep in here,” Ash says. “What if the thing comes back? Plus, it could be cold tonight.”

“The couch?”

All three of them wince. They’d all been the victims of unintentional naps on their couch, and had suffered through the neck pain to show for it.

“I could crash with one of you guys? Would that be alright?”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Ash offers instantly. Naomi, a rather more private person, smiles at them gratefully. “We shared that tiny twin bed in that one Airbnb in Paris.”

Henry wrinkles his nose at the memory. “Oh god, the bedbug place? Fuck, that was awful.”

“Rather bedbugs then… whatever that was,” Ash replies. They fix Henry with a disapproving look. “Why did you attack it? What the hell?”

“I— It wasn’t me!” Henry protests. “It was, you know, them.”

Ash’s glare flicks up to you, above Henry’s shoulder. “I see. Well. I’ll ask them to be a little more careful with you in future.”

Henry smiles weakly. “A-anyway. Thanks for, er, for pulling me off it.”

“I mean, we were pretty badass,” Naomi agrees. “I must say I’ve never experienced something quite so thrilling.”

“’Quite so thrilling,’” Ash repeats in an exaggerated impression of Naomi’s accent. “That’s one way to put it.”

“What’s more, you two chuckleheads have lost all privileges of screaming for help when you find a random bug in your rooms,” Naomi adds haughtily. “If you can kick whatever that was out the window, you can catch and release a spider.”

It is this comment, in Naomi’s prim consonants, that breaks the tension. Henry melts first, into laughter, and Ash follows shortly after. Naomi manages to hold her expression for a few extra moments before she, too, dissolves into giggles. The levity acts as a balm against the absurdity of the day.

As his laughter subsides, Henry remembers the line of salt that Naomi had quietly applied outside his room while he and Ash were talking, and he raises a bemused eyebrow.

“So what is the salt about?” Henry asks.

“Ah! Well,” Naomi replies, that glint of academic intrigue in her eye, “Ash and I figured that the spirit board actually revealed so much about your, er, situation, and we wondered whether any other typical superstitions might come true. And I mean, now I want to know more than ever, given that it would be prudent for us to determine whether there are ways for us to protect ourselves should other supernatural occurrences start happening. Like that insect. I presume, anyway. I don’t have a more normal explanation for it all, not yet.”

“So we decided to conduct some experiments,” Ash adds.

“And you weren’t going to, I don’t know, tell me about them?”

“We were, but we didn’t want your little friends up there to get wind of it and make our lives harder,” Ash explains. “So we figured we’d at least try to get one done before telling you. They shouldn’t hurt you! I mean, if all goes to plan.”

“I see,” Henry says. He’s not upset about it. There have been too many upsetting things in the last few hours for him to be particularly angry at this rather harmless little betrayal from his friends. And they’re doing it because they care, Henry reminds himself. Then, to you, he adds, so we should play along.

To his friends, Henry says, “Alright, sure. What do you want me to do?”

…

Henry still feels shaky and a little dizzy from shock, but he manages to stand.

“We’ll get you downstairs, and settle you on the couch until it’s time for bed,” Ash says. “We can do some of our little tests and then watch a show or something.”

“Okay,” Henry says. “That sounds nice.”

“Test One: Salt,” Naomi examines the line of salt against the rug. It appears unbroken. “Supposedly, salt can trap various kinds of demons and whatnot. According to my research.”

“What research? Watching Supernatural as a teenager?”

Naomi glares at him.

“That is besides the point.”

Henry stands before the line of salt blocking the threshold. It should be easy, Henry thinks. And, typically, perhaps, it would be.

So then why do I feel so nervous?

Ash trots over the line as normal. Naomi steps across it carefully, her hands clasped behind her back. Henry’s friends face him across the threshold, waiting for him to join them.

“This is fine,” Henry reassures himself. “Why would a little bit of salt have, like, any power over me?”

His reassurance falls flat, even to his own ears.

With trepidation, Henry shuffles his socked feet against the carpet. This shouldn’t feel as ominous as it does.

No, it really shouldn’t, Henry thinks absently.

Deftly and easily, Henry takes a step forward to cross the salt line.

His foot falls down — on the same side of the line.

Henry tries again, lifting his foot to step across. He presses his toes against where the line covers the threshold of the door. His foot will not cross.

“What.”

“Henry,” Ash says flatly, “tell me you’re joking with us.”

“I’m not.”

Henry reaches out a hand. He presses his fingers gingerly against the open doorway. They come up against a smooth, impenetrable wall, like invisible glass. It doesn’t feel like glass, though; it doesn’t feel like anything, and yet it blocks Henry’s body completely.

Henry rears back and shoves his shoulder into the doorway. There’s no sound of impact, but Henry feels an impact against his shoulder where it, jarringly, is prevented from continuing past the salt on the floor.

“Oh, my god,” Naomi breathes. “That’s—”

Henry drops to the floor and tries to touch the salt, to break the line. His fingers are stopped just shy of the first scattered grains on the edge of the line.

Realizing this is all futile, Henry lifts his head to stare at Ash and Naomi.

Naomi lurches forward and takes Henry’s arm in her own. With a gentle tug, she tries to move him past the salt line.

She grunts in frustration as his wrist is prevented from crossing, hand and fingers limp in her grasp. She tugs a few more times.

“Ow!”

“You really can’t cross,” Naomi marvels.

“Jesus Christ,” Ash groans.

Henry presses a hand to the invisible barrier.

“Let me out,” Henry pleads. “Please, let me through.”

Ash kicks their foot out and breaks the salt line. Henry falls forward as he is abruptly able to pass through. Ash steadies him.

“Well,” Henry says weakly, turning to look at the broken salt line, the shattered glass of his bedroom window. “I guess it’s not like salt lines are common.”

Naomi and Ash guide Henry downstairs and situate him on the couch. Naomi pulls a rather alarming number of objects out of the cloth grocery bag. She lays them out across their coffee table like a buffet for Henry to sample, and then sits across from him and pulls out a notebook.

“Right, I’ll — I’m just going to go throw some clean sheets on the bed,” Ash says, and excuses themself to their room.

“Garlic, first?” Naomi suggests, gesturing at the white bulb sitting innocuously on the table.

“Oh, jeez. I hope not. I love garlic.”

Henry reaches out and picks up the bulb. He is, thankfully, able to touch it, and it doesn’t burn him or otherwise cause an ill effect. At this point, Henry expects anything and nothing to happen.

“Try sniffing it,” Naomi suggests.

Henry does so. “Smells delicious,” He says, cracking a smile.

“Interesting,” Naomi says, making a few notes in her notebook. “And, er, I got some of that roasted garlic hummus here, would you try it? I even got some carrot sticks.”

“A snack! This is better than I’d hoped,” Henry jokes, and eagerly grabs a carrot stick. He scoops up some hummus, making sure to get the roasted garlic topping, and pops it in his mouth.

“Yep, so good,” Henry says through a mouthful, and it is. Pungent and salty and delicious. “Thank god.”

Naomi chuckles. “That is ideal, since Ash was thinking of making their garlic pasta tonight.”

Henry groans. Ash’s garlic pasta is simply sinful*,* Henry remembers. He scoops up one more carrot and munches on it happily.

“So, what’s next?” Henry asks, examining the other objects on the table. “Did you guys raid the Pitt Rivers museum? Where do you get all this? I mean, a horseshoe? A cross? Is that an evil eye pendant?”

“Well, I already had some of this,” Naomi shrugs. “And you’d be surprised what they have at various charity shops in this weird town.”

This comes as a surprise to Henry. Naomi is a deeply private person, and doesn’t particularly like when Henry and Ash enter her room without her consent, so Henry has only seen her bedroom a handful of times over the years. He supposes she could have any number of odd trinkets in there. Still, Naomi never before struck Henry as especially superstitious. Henry examines his friend. He remembers her odd voicemail, warning him not to join the study. The way she worries for him, and the way she is so ready to try out the spirit board, these superstitions. The way she knelt and frantically lined the threshold of his room with salt.

“Naomi,” Henry begins, but falters. What to ask her?

Poll 

Image Description: A screenshot of a poll at the bottom of a Patreon post, with two options. Option One — Ask Naomi about her belief in the supernatural. Option Two — Ask Naomi about the voicemail. Initializing... Polling... twenty-one percent, ask Naomi about her belief in the supernatural. Seventy-nine percent, ask Naomi about the voicemail. We have chosen to ask Naomi about the voicemail.

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Points of Articulation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is written and created by Hannah Semmelhack, with beta-reading by Fiona Clare.