Whitechapel
Another story from Crystala's Dreamcatcher universe, this time in Auld London. Dealing with the terrors within this time, and without. Dreamcatcher is copyright to Crystala, and the story and its characters are copyright to me. Tell me what you think!
Ten years past, the world was thrown into chaos. A madman's device broke the barriers between the waking and dreaming world, changing both forever. Billions died or vanished, never to be seen again, while entire cities seemed to be rewritten in bizarre and unique ways. Man is as changed as his world, but their stories continue. This is one of the uncounted tales of our new reality. Welcome to Victoria, a part of Dreaming London.
I look down upon her, a delicate young thing, and I lick my lips. Urges within me rock back and forth, mind and soul not at all agreed upon in this. Her hands are tied, as are her feet; no easy flight for this bird, no, not at all. Oh, how I've waited for this...
Or have I? What am I doing? In God's name, she's just a girl!
But such a delicate thing will taste as good as the liver I once plucked, another juicy morsel to taunt the Yard.
I shudder, shoving myself back from the girl, revulsion in my mind for the thoughts now within. I look about- a dirty tenement flat, bedclothes uncleaned in an age, windows grimed so thick that steel wool wouldn't clean it and light from soot-encased lamps.
How did I get here? I rub my face, and the features feel wrong, like they belong to someone else.
Who am I?
A name floats up, one I know is false for both who I was and who I seem to be: Jack.
A titter comes to me, escaping like bubbling madness with a hideous doggrel: /Jack be nimble, Jack be quick; Slit the bitch open real quick!/
Bile flows like a river and I struggle not to vomit. The girl, gagged as well as bound starts to wake, as I want her to. She should be awake for this.
For what? Oh, God, I don't want to know!
She struggles, a scream failing to escape the foul rag within her mouth. Breath sucking in and out from wide nostrils, pale skin reddened about the gag, pale as whitest linen else.
She's a pretty little one, she is. I should be slow about it, savor it like a fine wine. I shake my head again, panting in the horror of what was once my mind. I focus, forgetting the girl and trying to remember. Where... London. Yes, I was in London.
Why am I in London? And where?
Almost like a voice I hear it, the place that I now reside, where I will be forever: Whitechapel.
She's a loverly one, she is. Nice tits on 'er too- they'll cut as nice as you like. The Copper's, they never caught me, never will. Such a time I'll have with 'er! The room, 'tis dingy and horrible. Maybe a paintin' in red t' liven it up!
I come to myself looming over the girl, one hand roughly in her hair, the other holding a butcher's skinning knife. It's as sharp as a scalpel, I know this. I let her go, chest heaving as I pant and I drop the horrid thing.
I'm in London. I'm in the Whitechapel district. God, is this real or a nightmare?
The word rattles through my skull. Nightmare. Nightmare! Dream is real, the world was warped and torn asunder, and London... Is now many places. Victoria is where I am. How do I know this?
Who am I?
"You're me. I'm Jack. We're Jack!" The voice is male, gravelly and horribly familiar, like the face of a lover; I shove it away, moving to the girl. She shivers, and I think time has passed since I was last myself. Hours, perhaps. I notice my dress for the first time- roughspun shirt, a cheap woolen coat, dirty workman's trousers and leather boots; a leather butcher's apron. I rub my head, shifting a dirty cap.
Time, time time... I have all the time we want with this one. I were careful, I was. Took 'er from behind, knocked 'er 'ead juuuust right so she comes along nice as y'please... To this loverly flat where we'll dance and sing the night away.
Again. Oh. Oh, God. What am I? I scream back at the damned voice, making the girl flinch. She has a shallow cut along each arm now, the blood making streaks on her torn, shabby clothes and the foul bedding. I reach across and yank the gag loose from her.
"Don't you scream, " I grind out. "I'm not... I'm not myself. What's your name?. TELL ME!" I scream it, flecks of spit flying into her face. She shrinks away with a cry, whimpering.
"S... Sarah if you please, sir." A Cockney burr rides her voice. "I 'avent don' a thing, I don' turn tricks, I'm not that kind!"
I glare at her, breathing hard. "Who am I?"
Another flinch. I'm becoming aroused, and at the same time the bile rises in my throat again. She says, "I wouldn't be knowin' that, I shouldn't be knowin' that!"
I pick up the knife, running it along the bedclothes and watching the noisome linen part with almost no pressure. "Who. Am. I?" Softly this time. Softly for fear, yes. Fear's what we want, what we need. And the blood, oh, the gore, the screams, the pain...
She stammers out, "L-leather Apron. You're him. You're Jack. Oh, Please no..."
I lash out with the knife, faster than a snake, faster than Jack. the bonds on her hands part like her delicate flesh should, followed by the straps holding her feet. "FUCKIN' RUN, BITCH!" I scream, driving the knife into the bedpost with all my strength, snapping the blade off at the hilt. She flees, and I stop myself from following... But only just.
Later, I'm not sure how much, I wander Whitechapel in a daze. I toss the knife-hilt into a sewer as I move through the nightmare-maze of the district's streets and alleys. The voice, which is part of me- I know that now- tries to make me stay. To stop, to turn around and find another delicate thing to open like a present at Christmas. I fight it off, walking as if drunk, staying to the shadows and out of the sight of the overburdened police.
Finally, daylight. Sun shines through the morning fog. I'm outside of Whitechapel, just across the northern edge of the district. I can't hear the voice, can't feel the... Awful need of it anymore. I sigh, and sit on a bench. I feel myself change- form and features reshaping in the sunlight. I don't know what I look like now, or who I am. But at least I'm not Jack. I'm wearing modern jeans and a white button-down shirt, workman's boots on my feet. I stare at the fog, thicker within the cursed forever-night of Whitechapel, and I see a face. Hate personified glares at me with faded, familiar features. "Free you are, but nothing is who you is. I made you, laddy-buck, to ride to my sweets, to open them and find the shining glories within. YOU LOST ALL THAT, ME LAD!" I start and look around at the scream, but not even the pigeons react. Only I can hear him.
"What am I?" I ask. My voice is even, smooth and male. Young, I think. I don't dare hope that he'll tell me, but I have to try.
The figure firms, but is still just ephemeral mist. Standing straighter he growls, "MADE you, I did. Dream, that's what you is. I scraped you together, made me a new me. Yer nobody at all, never were. Fuck you. We'd 'ave been an artist again, a magician!" A wordless howl, and there is nothing but the fog burning off in the morning light.
I am a dream. A Dream. I wonder what I was before, if there was a before. I rub my eyes, my hands somehow clean of the filth they'd had upon them in the night. I stand and start to walk; maybe I can make myself into something, someone. I don't have a name, but I'm no longer afraid. As I go, I hear his last, chilling words: "There will ever be Jack in Whitechapel..."