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Between breaths, however shallow, Doyoung prays for deliverance.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been adrift—clinging to this piece of shattered wood for maybe a day, maybe two, maybe twenty. There’s nothing to mark the passage of time save for the rising and setting sun, the gentle rock of water into nothingness. He can't even be sure if he’s awake, most of the time. He can’t tell the difference between his dreams and the endless shift of water, both of them drenched in the same wordless song. Water. Sunrise. Sunset. Nighttime. Daytime. Water.
He prays for deliverance, begs for it in the feverish way of the mute and damned. No boats in this hell of an ocean. No men but him.
Our Father, who art in heaven…
He prays for a miracle. Eventually, it finds him.
…
The rocks. It is the rocks that save Doyoung and ultimately doom him, each one sharp enough to jut through the water and hold him as the waves bleed back and forth. He can barely feel it, now—the sensation of water over skin just as natural as air in his lungs.
The day and the night. The sun. Lord, deliver me, do not desert me, I am alone . Let me die. Let me live. Just decide quickly.
Doyoung’s eyes are heavy as the sky bleeds red into sunrise. He’s afraid if he closes them he won’t see anything again.
Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy Name.
The waves lodge him in a sharp pool of rocks. Land. Doyoung struggles to move, to pull himself out of the water, but the jagged waves bring him back. He’s not as strong as he was before the wreck—the ocean has leached away whatever will he had left.
There is a figure among the rocks, watching. It could be a ghost.
But it isn’t a ghost—as Doyoung twists among the water the figure draws closer. Through blurred vision Doyoung can barely make out the shape of a man carrying a shovel, his hair hanging over his face, his expression unreadable. He deftly steps from rock to rock, water splashing against his coat.
Doyoung aches. He moves his mouth in what should be a plea for help, a desperate scream for mercy, but no words come. His limbs feel like they’re made of stone, held down with weights, filled with sand. He can’t raise his head, only look uselessly to the side.
The man looks down at him, shovel braced over his shoulder. The exact shape of him fades in and out of view, merging with the slate gray sky, but Doyoung can tell he’s tall. He has sharp shoulders. Even sharper eyes.
“You’re alive.” The man crouches and tilts his head, reaching out to run a finger along Doyoung’s collar. “A priest?”
He doesn’t have the strength to do anything but gasp, the cold air closing around his lungs like a vise.
“Please,” Doyoung rasps, voice hollow and stony with disuse. “Help me.”
The man stares at him for one long, slow heartbeat.
“Tell me, Father,” the man says, resting his shovel against the rocks. “Do you believe in curses?”
Like a painting unveiled, the man comes into focus—dark hair. Darker eyes. His smile is twisted sideways like an expression of hurt, eyes glittering blue in the absence of sunlight. His knuckles are dark. His fair skin is ashen.
Our Father who art in heaven.
“Help me,” Doyoung chokes out slowly, trying to keep the air from rushing out of his lungs as if it is eager to leave.
The man slides his arms into the water and Doyoung feels a hand on his back and another on his neck, colder than the ocean itself. Impossible. He would’ve thought it impossible. The man lifts him out of the water with almost practiced ease.
“Of course,” the man says with a small smile. His tongue darts over his teeth.
Before Doyoung’s vision goes dark, he notices the man’s mouth is as red as blood.
…
The man pulls him out of his wet clothes. He feeds him salty broth until the fever breaks and he’s strong enough to lift his head, his hands. It is a while before Doyoung has the energy to speak fully, to think clearly.
The morning is gray when he finally pushes himself upright, taking in the thin wooden bed, the narrow stone room surrounding him. The ancient door creaks open and the man enters with a small bowl, the contents thick and colorless.
The man smiles, sharp, something that would be beautiful if Doyoung could focus on it. He gently places a threadbare pillow behind his head, spreading the rough wool blanket over his chest.
Doyoung clears his throat, vulnerability clawing at his insides. “What’s…what’s your name?”
The man looks up at him, one eyebrow raised. Doyoung notices then that his eyes are a brilliant blue, not unlike the sea itself, cast half in shadow by his night-black hair.
“Yuta,” he says. “And you?”
He swallows. “Doyoung.”
The man grins. “It’s an absolute pleasure to meet you, Doyoung.” He hands him the bowl, filled with chunks of nameless meat and pale potatoes. “I hope we will be close for a long, long time.”
The bowl is hot enough to scald. Doyoung shivers, but this time he doubts it’s because of the cold.
…
Prayers of thanks for survival. Prayers of thanks for whatever crag of rock Yuta has made his home. Our Father who art in heaven, thank you for this land.
The house Yuta lives in is more mansion than house—it’s an old manor of some kind, the gray stone crumbling all over into the rock below. He could probably walk this entire island in a day—the other shore is obscured by a forest of dark trees, but he doubts there’s much else to discover.
He watches Yuta through the filmy windows. The man is in what seems to be a garden, pounding his shovel into what is undoubtedly rocky soil. There is a repeated cruelty to his movements, the way he moves as if to make the ground bleed submission. Doyoung feels numb at the sight.
Thank you for this land.
…
“You’re a priest, aren’t you?” Yuta asks through a mouthful of stew. “How’d you get stranded out in the sea?”
“It was the ship’s first voyage,” Doyoung says grimly, hand creeping to the gold cross around his neck. “The captain wanted someone to bless the journey.”
“Unfortunate.” Yuta’s eyes glimmer. “A man of the cloth. I’ve never had one of those here before.”
Doyoung’s blood stills. He gently lowers his spoon, stomach turning—the grainy meat and potatoes still make him ill. “What do you mean?”
“The rocks surround this island for miles out,” Yuta says. “Ships wreck here all the time. I’ve had countless men wash up on those same rocks you did.” He shoves another spoonful of stew in his mouth. “Most of them are long dead by the time they get here.”
“I’m truly blessed, then.”
Yuta grins. “Should I call you Father?”
His stomach flips. “No, that’s really not necessary—”
“Oh, it's very necessary.” Yuta laughs at that, throwing his head back and shaking the hair out of his eyes. “How nice to meet you, Father. ”
Our Father who art in heaven, thank you for this madman.
…
The days are long and gray, and his prayers become short, hurried whispers. He should be closer to God, here. In the middle of nowhere, on peaks, far away from the world and its vices.
But God is not here. Yuta is king over this domain, this rock and water, all gray and horrid nightmares over cliffs. God has never been farther from Doyoung’s grasp, so untouchable he might as well not exist. Where is the voice, Doyoung wonders. Give me a sign.
“Father.”
Doyoung’s shoulders tense at the sound of Yuta’s voice. He turns and sees him with two rusted shovels, one dented severely at its tip.
“Yes?”
“Would you like to help me in the garden?” Yuta offers one of the shovels.
Doyoung takes the dented shovel. The edge is red with ancient, ancient rust.
They stand in the garden and plant potatoes in the rocky soil, scraping at the ground until it gives just enough to place thin slices of potato in the already struggling earth. Yuta insists this is how it is done, but his eyes are too wide, his smile too broad.
“Where do you get your other supplies?” Doyoung asks, driving the blade of his shovel into a small patch of gray-green weeds.
“There are wild pigs in the woods,” Yuta says calmly as he digs his hands into the soil. “Everything else washes up on the shore. You can only imagine how much gold makes its way to these rocks, how much useless finery and garbage.” Yuta stands and stares at Doyoung. “I’m very resourceful, Father.”
The wind whips Doyoung’s hair into his eyes. “Then why don’t you leave?”
Yuta stares at him for a long minute, eyes wild, and Doyoung gets the disconcerting feeling he is in the sights of a wild animal, something with no heart or mind to rely on. He almost takes a step back, but then Yuta shrugs.
“I enjoy the quiet,” he says, hoisting the shovel over his shoulder. He turns and heads back up the hill to the house.
…
Superstition is an idol like any other, and so Doyoung casts it away. He spends hours in the rocky garden trying to nurture what little crop he can. Yuta spends most of the day in the forest and at the shore, carrying buckets of water from the tempestuous sea back to the house. He boils the salt away from the water for drinking and stores the salt in the dark stone cellar. Doyoung has only been down there once, but something—something in the dark between the stored meat and dried herbs—still makes his skin crawl.
“Are you a good hunter?” Yuta asks as they both peel potatoes into a boiling pot of water.
Doyoung shrugs. “Not really. My brothers, maybe, but not me.”
“You have family?” Yuta’s eyes adopt that manic gleam. “Tell me about them, Father.”
Doyoung clenches his teeth slightly, reminding himself to let go. Yuta’s words have always been graceless—Doyoung assumes it is something he has had little practice with on this stone he calls home.
“I have 2 brothers,” Doyoung says quietly. “The oldest took over the farm. The youngest went to sea.”
“Three brothers,” Yuta says wistfully, looking out the window. The evening is beginning to creep up on them, making the fire beneath the pot seem brighter. “Many strange things come in threes.”
Doyoung raises an eyebrow.
“Three little piggies,” Yuta continues, eyes gleaming. He’s looking at Doyoung but not quite at him, almost as if he is transparent. “Three bears. Three days to guess the name of the little goblin that spins gold.” Yuta tilts his head. “Do you not like fairy tales, Father?”
“I mostly heard them in passing from my older brother,” Doyoung admits. “He would tell us stories.”
The clergy prohibits it, Doyoung almost adds. Too much talk of witches and magic and monsters.
“You’ll have to tell me one,” Yuta says dreamily, and Doyoung watches his knife slide through the potato and then his own finger, the blade sharp enough that the skin splits like butter.
“Your hand—“
Yuta looks down at his finger, blood welling to the surface. The cut, though deep, isn’t as gruesome as Doyoung thought it would be. Yuta stares and raises the cut to his mouth, licking at it like a dog.
Revulsion curls in Doyoung’s stomach. “Don’t do that,” he says, glancing around Yuta’s small kitchen for a scrap of fabric. “Let me bandage it.”
He grabs a loose scrap of cloth off the table and takes Yuta’s hand, blood and saliva beginning to smear at the tip of his thumb. He wraps it as carefully as he can, repressing a shiver at the coldness of Yuta’s hand.
“You’re very good at that, Father.” His hand twitches against Doyoung’s palm and once again he is reminded of beasts in the wild, feral creatures with yellow teeth and eyes.
Doyoung drops his hand. “You’ll get infections if you don’t treat wounds with care.”
Yuta glances at the boiling pot. He gives Doyoung a hungry, hungry grin.
“Dinner’s ready.”
…
Doyoung knows many fairy tales. Some have become more like legends in his memory, so vast they could be real.
His youngest brother once told him a story about a pirate captain as unholy and tempestuous as the wide ocean, a terror even unto himself, unpredictable. He did something terrible to his crew, something unspeakable even in story, and the sea herself banished him. Many say he lives out his penance on a cliff, unable to set foot on any other land. Many say he’s one of the old devils.
But that’s just a legend, Doyoung thinks, lying on his thin bed and staring up at the moon through the blurred glass windows. He holds the cross between his fingers, the thin edge digging into his thumb. This is real.
Somewhere in the hallway, a candle flickers. Doyoung listens to quiet footsteps make their way down the hall, back and forth, as if Yuta is pacing. Doyoung isn’t quite sure if the man ever sleeps.
Outside the window, a steady streak of dark blue separates the sea and sky. In his dreams, the water still seems to have a life of its own. Writhing. Wild.
The light goes out, and everything is dark once more.
There is a legend of a man that lives in a high castle in the middle of the sea, his brother had said. A recluse, hideous and awful, a tyrant confined to his stony fortress. That is his prison, the legend says. That is his kingdom.
“And lead us not into temptation.” Doyoung murmurs, eyes heavy. He wraps his hand around the cross at his throat. “But deliver us from evil.”
…
“There must be some way off this island,” Doyoung spits, sweat running into his eyes as he hauls salty water up the sharp rocks back to the house. He looks up at Yuta ahead, effortlessly hauling pails of water while Doyoung struggles behind him. “There’s wood, maybe I could make a raft?”
“You’ll be dead before you could even reach the open sea,” Yuta says lightly, plainly, as if he is recounting the weather or a particularly successful hunt in the woods. “The waters are too rough here to launch anything from the shore.”
“Do ships ever pass here? Maybe I could wave one down?”
“No one comes here,” Yuta calls over his shoulder, “and lives to leave.”
Stranded. He’s stranded here, then.
“There has to be a way,” Doyoung says, despair creeping into his voice.
“If there was, Father,” Yuta pauses on the rocks. “Do you think I would still be here?”
They make the rest of the steep walk in silence, Doyoung watching the ocean churn behind them. Rocks jut out of the water like spikes, like the teeth of some forgotten monster.
Yuta begins to start a fire to distill the water, hands busy, busy busy. His thumb has been healing quickly.
“If we worked together, we could find a way.”
Yuta shakes his head. “If it were that easy, anyone could do it.”
“What about the others that wash ashore?” Doyoung presses. “Surely I’m not the only one.”
“The ones that are alive don’t stay that way for much longer,” Yuta says, shrugging. “All filled with brilliant ideas like yours. They end up dashing themselves on the rocks.”
“Well—“
“The sea doesn’t give second chances,” Yuta says, the fire flickering in his dark blue eyes. He smiles but the expression is one of fathomless hunger, an otherworldly desire. “She won’t let you rely on her mercy again.”
He stands and walks back to the house. Doyoung doesn’t follow him.
…
In the end, all men who hunger become sinners eventually.
…
The days drag into weeks, into months, and time blurs together. Yuta has his rhythms, just like the tide or the moon. He spends half his days wild, running from place to place as if there are ghosts on this island that will kill him if he stills for long. The other half he spends staring at the sea, locking himself in the cellar, watching the horizon with the watchful eyes of a fox. Doyoung can just about tell when he will move from one state to another—the telltale shake in his hands. The grim set of his mouth.
But between all that, woven into his moods like thread, is awful, awful adoration.
“Here, Father.” Yuta beckons him closer in the garden, grinning. “I have a gift for you.”
Doyoung lowers his shovel. “What?”
Yuta pulls a flower from behind his back, delicately purple, the petals so thin they are almost transparent. He offers it to Doyoung like a proud child, holding the thing by its too-thin stem, so green and lovely against the white of his skin.
“Where did you get that?” Doyoung starts, pausing as Yuta moves closer. Yuta’s hand brushes his cheek as he tucks the flower behind his ear, skin flushed warm with what Doyoung assumes is madness.
“Found it in the rocks,” Yuta says plainly, adjusting Doyoung’s hair. It’s started to grow into his eyes, just long enough for him to run his hands through. “Isn’t it pretty? It suits you, Father—pretty.”
“Why didn’t you leave it to grow?” Doyoung says, brushing the petals with his knuckle. They crowd into his peripheral vision like purple clouds.
At this, Yuta’s expression darkens and he scowls. “It wouldn’t have lasted long,” he says, voice low. He tilts his head. “Might as well pick it before it begins to rot and die. That way we can remember it as lovely.”
Doyoung nods slowly. “Thank you.”
Yuta’s dark expression morphs into something between a smile and a grimace. “Anything for you, Father. Anything at all.”
…
There is half spring, almost summer, the rainy season. The rain is what Doyoung hates the most, moreso than the fog or the cold—too much water. As above, so below. On Earth as it is in Heaven.
Yuta loves the rain, though. He stands outside in the torrent yelling and laughing as if God Himself can hear him and be jealous. It is a foolhardy thought. Doyoung doubts there is anyone listening.
He tries to catch his blasphemy before he thinks it but doubt creeps in like a cold wind, a swell of rain. God isn’t listening, not like Yuta is, Yuta who built this land and rules it like lord.
This is a test , Doyoung murmurs. This is a test of my faith, I must be strong, I must—
“Father?” Yuta calls out. “Where are you?”
Doyoung’s chest tightens as he stands, suddenly sick with himself, the very thought of the rain enough to make him nauseous.
“Here, Yuta. I’m here.”
“Good,” Yuta says, opening the door to the cramped bedroom. He reaches out to swipe a thumb across Doyoung’s cheek. His hands drip water onto the floor. “You were beginning to worry me.”
…
“When thou goest, it shall lead thee,” Doyoung mutters to himself, gritting his teeth and clawing his way through the hard soil. “When thou sleepest, it shall keep thee.”
He yanks out the hard stone root of some plant that has been dead longer than he can imagine and casts it aside. The humid air clings to him like film, webs its way over his hands and into his eyes. “And when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.”
His hands close around a potato buried beneath the soil and he pulls it free with all the ease of a heart from flesh. He gently places it in the basket beside him, resisting the urge to dash the damn thing against the rocks.
He moves to the next mound of dirt, digging his sticky hands into the earth.
“For the commandment is a lamp.” He pries the potato from the ground, holding it in one trembling fist. “And the law is light.”
And God has abandoned me.
Doyoung flings the potato at the stone walls of the house and it hits the window like a rock, just hard enough to crack the glass but not shatter the window. Yuta will be out any second, now, with his unnerving eyes and heartless smile. What’s wrong, Father? What ails you?
“I want to go home! ” Doyoung yells, kicking the basket. The potatoes roll onto the rocky ground, small and clumsy. They can’t grow here. They don’t belong here. Nothing belongs here but yet they both coexist among the rocks, out of place and time.
Yuta is standing at the doorway when Doyoung finally begins to regain his composure, watching with a carefully neutral expression.
“It’s going to rain, Father.” He wipes his hands on his shirt. “You should come in.”
“I’m fine out here.”
Yuta tilts his head, stepping out into the rocks they still call a garden. “You don’t look it, Father.”
Doyoung kneels to place the potatoes back in the basket. “I said I’m fine.”
“Father—”
Doyoung turns on him and grabs Yuta by the collar, some small part of him reveling in the momentary uncertainty in his eyes. “Don’t call me that.”
The uncertainty fades like lightning and a small smile curls over Yuta’s sharp teeth. “Not feeling holy anymore, are you? Guess you can’t wear this, then.”
And for a second, Doyoung is simply stunned into silence—he can’t see beyond Yuta’s fingers pulling the chain looped around his throat, even as the friction begins to burn. He yanks the chain again and Doyoung jerks forward, helpless, caught in the image of a cross between a sinner’s fingers.
The corner of Yuta’s mouth lifts in something that could almost be called a smile. “Do you like to follow orders, Doyoung? ”
Doyoung doesn’t say anything, teeth clenched so hard together his jaw aches. The thin gold shimmers against Yuta’s pale skin like a sliver of light, something holy, something sacred, something in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Let go.”
Yuta raises an eyebrow. “Why should I?”
Doyoung grabs his wrist, hard, fingernails digging into the soft flesh above his pulse. Yuta’s fingers loosen slightly but he doesn’t move. Rooted.
“I won’t say it again,” Doyoung manages, watching Yuta’s eyes flicker along the line of his throat. Moments drag into forever and then ultimately fade as Yuta sighs and lets go.
The cross hits his chest and dangles uselessly, metal somehow colder than before. Yuta stands, staring at him with an uncomfortable hunger, something invasive and unkind. Almost cruel, but mostly wild.
“Don’t worry,” he says as he finally turns away. “I can wait.”
As he walks away Doyoung squeezes his eyes shut, a prayer almost on his tongue, immediately lost to nothingness. All the words escape him, now.
…
I need to get out of here. I need…
The basement is dark, even in the day. The torch in his hand does little to cut through the black but the crackling warmth is a welcome companion.
Yuta has gone to the woods. He shouldn’t be back until much later, and in the meantime Doyoung is going to rob him blind—hopefully.
“God understands,” Doyoung whispers. “These are extenuating circumstances.”
To hell with the sea and its moods. To hell with Yuta and his strange ways, his lingering touch. For the past few weeks he has been slowly repairing the remnants of a small boat abandoned on the rocks, almost unsalvageable. He’ll grab some of the dried meat and supplies and head out soon, maybe even now, and leave his life to the mercy of whatever god will still have him.
The basement is crammed full of objects, castaways. Doyoung finds a bag full of gold coins, heavy and dusty, printed with an unfamiliar language. He finds the remnants of a fine dress, pale white and dotted with rot, yellowing in the darkness.
He’s cutting the meat from where it hangs when he catches sight of a small pile, evenly rectangular. He pauses, and when he steps closer he realizes its a set of journals held together with twine. The covers are warped with water and age but something about them beckons, a soft call in the silence of know knowing known.
Rooted. Doyoung takes his knife and cuts the twine. The first journal falls open with an almost audible sigh of relief.
It is now August, the first page reads. We have been on this island for 12 days.
Doyoung’s stomach pivots and he almost drops the journal, hands shaking. Castaways.
It is not so bad, yet. The captain is rationing out our supplies. We have enough left to last a few weeks.
“A captain,” Doyoung whispers to himself. “A pirate captain.”
A door shuts loudly upstairs, followed by the boom of thunder. Doyoung tucks the books under the fading hem of the dress and some other fabric before heading upstairs.
…
And reproofs of instruction are the way of life.
“Would you pray to me?” Yuta asks.
Doyoung scoffs. “No.”
“Why not?” Yuta asks slyly, leaning forward in his chair. The firelight turns his eyes into blazing pits. “I could be a god. I could be your god.”
“That would be considered blasphemy.”
“Don’t tell me you never want anything,” Yuta continues, probing. “Everyone wants something.”
Yuta has been testing his patience lately, and the rough seams of his shirt are beginning to rub against all the frail, soft parts of his skin. Doyoung clenches his jaw. “The Lord provides.”
“And he provided me,” Yuta says. “Would you have rather drowned, Father?”
Do you believe in curses?
Doyoung frowns slightly. Yuta claps his hands together, overjoyed at some semblance of concession.
“I could be a god,” Yuta murmurs. His eyes could pierce through stone. “I’ll show you, Father. I won’t forget.”
“I would rather dash myself against the rocks.” Doyoung pokes at the fire with a stick. His mind drifts to the journals downstairs. “Then entertain your madness any longer.”
“Will you do it now, then?”
“Keep talking and you’ll see.”
Yuta laughs, and his smile is as terrible as the sea. “Oh, Doyoung ,” he murmurs. “I could just eat you up.”
…
Food is running low. People have been going missing—the captain says they have gone mad and walked into the ocean. I want to believe him, I do.
It is beginning to get cold.
…
Yuta is a liar. It is in his nature, as is whatever dark thing that lurks behind his eyes, makes his teeth sharp and his tongue wild. Doyoung has finished reading the first journal—days of wandering and disappearances. The boat on the rocks is slowly becoming a form that will carry a single body.
Maybe Doyoung is a liar, too—Yuta’s adoration has begun to dig into the soft flesh of his ribs, lodging there like a thorn. An awful thought chases every other: what if Yuta is all there is left?
No god will have him now. No one will understand these tempestuous days like that man, the one who pulled him from the sea like a soul reborn. Maybe he owes him that—his new and remade soul, a dark shadow of what it once was.
All men who hunger become sinners, eventually.
…
The island grows colder as the weeks pass, drawing them closer around a single fire, a single lamp. The proximity is a form of hell in itself.
Yuta is laughing at something, a poor joke with an even poorer punchline. Doyoung scowls at him, chest tightening. His voice grates against his nerves, the cold freezing all sense and reason away.
Yuta grins at his expression. “Keep acting like that and you might just fall in love with me.”
Something in Doyoung’s chest snaps in half, and the knife he was using to cut potatoes seems to move with a mind of its own. He hurls himself forward, single minded, prepared to widen Yuta’s mocking smile into a slash. Yuta catches his wrist, fingers white where he digs them into his skin.
“Am I wrong, Father?” The knife falls from Doyoung’s hand. “Don’t you like me?”
Doyoung manages to close a hand around Yuta’s throat, squeezing the words out of him. Yuta finally goes silent, choking as he pushes him back.
“Do it,” Yuta wheezes, hands digging into Doyoung’s wrists. “Kill me.”
Doyoung can hear the smile in Yuta’s voice, even as he grimaces, can hear it like some maddening song that drowns out everything else. It's all Yuta’s game, his handiwork, his evils. Everything plays into his palms like fated cards or dice. Prophecies.
And so Doyoung can do the only thing left to him—not kill him, not let go, but press his lips against his. He eases his hands off his throat, shaking. Yuta’s breath tastes like copper.
“I hate you,” Doyoung says, already pulling away. He feels a hand on his back and Yuta pulls him in again.
Yuta kisses like a beast gone wild. Doyoung can feel his teeth against his lips, the sharp swipe of his tongue over his bottom lip. He clutches Yuta’s shoulders like a man lost at sea—drowning. Still begging for deliverance.
“I wish I had died on those rocks,” Doyoung whispers, skin feverish where Yuta’s hands crawl over his throat.
This time, Yuta does not laugh.
…
There is no god that will accept me now.
Doyoung holds the last, damning journal up to the faint candlelight in the basement. The writing has become erratic, panicked—words trail off the page following an unsteady hand.
He’s killing us, the words say. He’ll soon kill me, too.
Doyoung is beginning to understand something about the Devil he hadn’t before, not in years of seminary or Bible study, not in years of standing before stiff-necked believers. His hands quake as he turns the mildewing page.
The next page is spattered with blood, the words half-erased by water and wind. When he finds out I know he’ll kill me too. Yuta will kill me too.
“What is that?”
Yuta stares at him, eyes black in the darkness. Outside the wind howls, signs of an oncoming storm.
“It's just some trash I found,” Doyoung manages, placing the book on the ground. “I thought you were still outside.”
Yuta is still staring at him, soulless, with none of the usual mirth or madness. He seems hollow—as if everything that made him passably human has been swept out with the tide. “Let me see it.”
“It’s nothing,” Doyoung continues as Yuta gets closer. His heartbeat slows and stutters with the candlelight. “Unreadable.”
Yuta leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, a faint smile spreading over his thin, bloodless lips like a predator showing its teeth for the first time. His eyes glimmer almost black in the dim candlelight, and he watches with bemusement as Doyoung takes a heavy, uncertain step backwards. “Really?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Oh, but you have, Father.” Yuta says. “Does God permit liars?”
Yuta steps toward him, picking the book off the ground. He tears out the last page and holds it up to the candle and they both watch it burn, the page turning brown and gray and white as ash. He throws the rest of the journal at Doyoung’s feet.
“They were your crew,” Doyoung murmurs with dawning horror. “You…”
“Go ahead.” Yuta is very, very still. “You can say it.”
The grainy stew. The rusted shovels. The surprising lack of wild pigs that Yuta claimed he ate. Doyoung’s stomach turns with horror and disgust, some fateful mixture of revulsion at both this man and himself.
The words are almost too unreal to speak. “You ate them.”
It’s ridiculous to say. Doyoung half expects Yuta to laugh at him, call him paranoid and superstitious. But he doesn’t. He runs his tongue over his teeth, mouth red as blood and Doyoung knows —the strips of dried meat, glue and wax from animal bones, all of it so terribly human in nature.
Yuta grins. “Are you surprised?”
Doyoung stares at him for a moment longer, heart racing like a small creature with flat teeth and some semblance of sanity. A heartbeat passes, far too long.
Doyoung bolts for the basement door at the same time Yuta lunges towards him, hands outstretched. His fingers catch in the hem of Doyoung’s shirt as they fall toward the exit, a tangle of limbs and bruising knees.
Yuta is still grinning when he slams his elbow into Doyoung’s nose, smashing it and smearing blood over his nose and mouth as he pushes him into the floor. He’s frighteningly, inhumanly strong—his nails dig into Doyoung’s cheek as they thrash together, the stone beneath them unforgiving and hard.
“Be still, Father,” Yuta says, pinning Doyoung’s hand beneath his weight. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself any further.” He pauses, then adds wryly: “fear is bad for the meat.”
Doyoung groans, trying to push Yuta off, but his veins are cold and weak with fear—his nose is still bleeding in hot spurts, and pain radiates from the bone like the sharp points of a star. Yuta begins to shush him quietly, as if he were a small animal.
“Times have been hard, Father,” Yuta murmurs. “You’ve seen the garden, this rocky soil. There has been so, so little to eat.” He eases his hand off Doyoung’s mouth, wiping the blood on his shirt. “I only did what I had to.”
The Lord provides.
“Half the crew were almost dead anyway,” Yuta says quietly as he straddles Doyoung’s waist, leaning forward whenever he tries to squirm away. “Everyone ate, Father. They feasted. It was good.”
“You’re a monster,” Doyoung gasps.
Yuta’s eyes are so wild Doyoung can see every vein and curve of his iris. “So are you,” he says breathlessly. “You ate too.”
“I didn’t know!”
“Oh, but what if you had?” Yuta leans in close, pressing his cold lips to Doyoung’s cheek. “You were so desperate, Father. So weak.”
Doyoung turns and bites him, hard, digging his teeth into Yuta’s face. He curses and jerks back in surprise, giving Doyoung just enough room to writhe away, kicking Yuta as he scrambles up the stairs. Laughter follows him up the stairs and outside into the rain and wind.
The rocks are jagged shadows in the darkness, the moon less than half full. Everything is stark gray and cobalt blue, the sea churning into froth before the oncoming storm.
Doyoung’s feet slip on the rocks as he clambers down the cliff towards his boat. If he can just get there, get away from Yuta, if he can just—
“Father!”
Doyoung doesn’t stop. His foot catches in a crevice and he tumbles forward into the foam. The salt stings his eyes as he fights the narrow current. Yuta grabs him by his hair, wrenching his head back.
“I destroyed it, Father.” Yuta’s eyes are so black they reflect the entirety of the ocean and moon. His face bleeds from a wound the exact size and shape of Doyoung’s mouth. “I destroyed your pathetic excuse of a boat.”
Doyoung screams at him, pitching them both into the sea. Yuta releases his hair and they fumble through the dark and cold water for each other. Doyoung tastes blood but can’t be sure it's his.
No god will accept me now.
Yuta pushes his head underwater, both hands clasped around his neck as Doyoung kicks upward, writhing. He can see the crescent outline of the moon through the foam, fragmented. His hands slide over the sharp edges of rocks in the shallows, begging for one looser than the others.
Yuta pulls him out of the froth, just long enough for him to cough water out of his throat. “Don’t you see what you’ve done?” Yuta asks. “We could have been happy. So, so happy.”
Doyoung spits water into his eyes.
He plunges him into the water again and Doyoung prays for deliverance, begs for it in the feverish way of the mute and drowning. Panic mixes with what little air he has left. Fear makes his hands strong but everything else cold.
Our Father, who art in heaven…
One of the rocks is loose, and sharp edged, and Doyoung is reminded of an old story about two biblical brothers. One dead, the other forever cursed.
Yuta pulls him out of the water and Doyoung swings blindly, heavy rock clenched in one hand. The salt water stings his eyes, runs in his ears, muting the sound of the crunching bone.
Hallowed be thy name.
Doyoung swings again when Yuta doesn’t let go, screaming against the water and the warm current of blood running into the foam. Yuta’s grip falters and Doyoung shoves him aside to emerge from the water.
Lord deliver me from evil. Do not desert me.
“You’re just like me,” Yuta gurgles, blood running over his mangled jaw. A terrible sound bubbles through the blood, barely recognizable as awful, awful laughter. “Can’t you see, Doyoung? You’re just like me.”
The ocean is roaring around them, waves building in the growing wind. Doyoung raises the rock towards the sky and stares down at Yuta, barely conscious in the gray water. His eyes are as blue as the nighttime sea and he’s still laughing, gleefully, as if this is all some sort of game and he can never lose.
Doyoung screams, bringing the rock down, again and again until the only sound left is the oncoming storm. Tears run down his face, mixed with rain and blood and salt but Yuta is mercifully still. The water runs over his skin as if curious, as if it can only create evil but never understand it.
No god will accept me now.
“And lead us not into temptation.” Doyoung whispers, grabbing Yuta’s leg and pulling him out of the bloody water. “But deliver us from evil.”
…
When the storm passes he’ll rebuild his boat. Someone will find him and take him home. He just has to wait here until then—he has everything he needs, for now. He blows on a spoonful of soup, eyeing it warily. The broth is too salty but at least the meat is fresh. That is something to be grateful for.
The Lord provides. Doyoung tears through a spoonful of meat and almost laughs. The Lord provides.