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The world was a whirlpool. Hazy, green smoke drifted around their nugbone, the sickly, sour-sweet stench of their vape swirling in their skull, sinking them under in its lazy current pull. Cirava took another hit, tilting their nugbone back. It was barely even night, the last dredges of sunlight slipping below the Alternian cityscape, but here they were, swimming in a high, senses dulled, relaxed, chilled as chill as they could be while toeing the line of narcotics just left of being strong as sopor slime. Speaking of sopor...when was the last time they had slept? Cirava couldn’t recall, couldn’t be bothered enough to care when moisterwave was playing in the background, luring them deeper and deeper from the surface of their own thinkpan, a siren song. Lazily, they blew more smoke from their lips, half-lidded ganderbulb watching it rise and rise and rise, up and up and... Their right ganderbulb throbbed. Or, well, what was once their right ganderbulb throbbed, what was once their right ganderbulb before they ripped it out, golden blood spraying like ocean salt slamming into the surf, slamming into their wall, golden veins and screaming, screaming and cursing and crying because their ganderbulb- Cirava took another hit. Their right frond, the one not clasped tight around their vape, came up to trace the pink, triangle patch with a chary prong. Felt its sharp edges, sharp where their skin should give way to pink psionic sight, but instead was stained with yellow veins.
“...fuck me i guess lmao” The words felt bitter on their tongue. Maintaining their moisterwave aesthetic was harder when they weren’t streaming, when they didn’t have anyone to put on the mask for. It was harder when they were alone...it had been a long while since they weren’t alone. Even their lusus was absent, and whether or not they were holed up in their nest or simply gone alluded them. Not that it mattered. None of it mattered, none of it but the sea of smoke they surrounded themselves in. Not their streams, nor their self-imposed exile from socialization, nor the sick that had been strangling them since The Incident (it’d be a wonder if they survived to their next sweep). Cirava was chill as they were. At least this way, they couldn’t be hurt by so-called friends, fans, at least this way they couldn’t be used as a battery, even if they risked becoming cullbait. Yeah, Cirava was chill.
Their gaze floated to their husktop screen. Its brightness fuzzy and muted in the haze of the hive. It almost hurt to look at, but who cared? Certainly not them. Through the fog, they could make out the time displayed on the lockscreen. They only had a few hours before their next livestream, which meant only a few hours to idle in their sour-sweet sea until they were forced to the sandy, metaphorical shores of sober-ism, maybe slink their way into the ablution block or take a quick dip in sopor...or they could grab their bong, sink further until they forgot it all. Forgot until their thinkpan forgot what they were trying so desperately to forget, so desperate to pretend their bloodpusher didn’t pound, pound, pound until they bound their bellowsacs in vapor, a legislacerator’s noose.
Huh, they were really getting introspective tonight, lmao.
Cirava, with a sigh that was more fumes than air (but whatever) sluggishly slid their body up and out of their chair, strut pods and fronds aching after who-knew-how-long in an unmoving slump. With one last glance towards their husktop, they meandered over to their closet- chock full of clothes and colors, Cirava a dress-up character. Once upon a time, they belonged to them, the clothes, the colors, but that was when they ruled over chittr, reigning careless, clueless to the cruelty of the highbloods, the lowbloods, them all. How willing the world was to burn their lowblood blood (their gutterblood, pissblood, highbloods cackled in their comment sections-), how willing the world was to watch them break. Well, it wouldn’t get the chance. Not when they had already broken, cracked open, became a caricature of themselves, but under their control, under their fronds, their prongs grasping their future tight, gouging their fate, becoming fucking cullbait, but under their own control. Fuck the haters, lmao. Fuck them.
With a huff, they switched out their shirt for a clean one, sucking in more smoke when they were done, and pulled their palmhusk from their pocket. Cirava snapped a selfie to post later, for those who still followed them; if the internet saw them as okay, submerging themselves in charade was enough. Enough to make them at least attempt to feel like a troll. Without them, the few they weren’t even sure cared, they’d have no qualms about letting the current drag them under once in for all, becoming another Alternian adolescent lost before adulthood. But oh well, they had chosen this for themselves, so. Picture snapped and done, Cirava dropped their palmhusk to the floor. With their free frond, they dipped down to scoop up their bong and...when had they sat down? Their respiteblock spun in front of their ganderbulb, resplendent in neon greens and pinks, a curtain of vape, a tint of sleep deprivation. The floor felt cool under their prongs, their nugbone lolled against the wall, solid, smooth, and they clenched their vape, a lifeline.
“maybe…” Cirava trailed off, feeling static, stagnant in a spiral, and slowly, they succumbed to the darkness that had been swimming in their peripherals.
They were in a bivalved jewel container. Cramped, curled atop warm, spongy flesh that throbbed in time with the gaping hole in their face. Gold oozed, syrup-thick, down and down and down, dripping down their chug column into the fabric of their shirt, staining it (yellow veins). Their skin itched and their nose was clogged with iron and rot. In any other situation, Cirava would be focusing on how nasty the smell was, how nasty they felt, but they could feel the hard shell of the bivalvular sea critter pressing into their posture pole. It was trapping them here, a living corpse box. Fuck. Pounding, their bloodpusher, was all that reached their auricular sponge clots, along with their panicked, raspy breaths. They had to get out, they had to get out of here, if they didn’t they would come, they would come and rig them, they would- Cirava was suffocating. Water, salty, bloody (their blood, pissblood, it was-) filled their protein shute, filled their bellowsacs, choking them they couldn’t breath, they couldn’t, they weren’t meant for the ocean, they weren’t and didn’t have gills they couldn’t breath and their right ganderbulb throbbed throbbed throbbed throbbed- They thrashed, flailed, they couldn’t move, limbs locked in wires and tentacles- a helmsman rig- and their bellowsacs burned with terror, panic, betrayal, they were alone lmao how funny how funny lmao- The highbloods were laughing at them and Cirava was suffocating, Cirava was drowning, Cirava had done this to themselves, they shouldn’t have been so careless, they should have expected, should have seen, should have stopped before- their right ganderbulb was throbbing but they had done this to themselves-
With a strangled gasp, Cirava awoke. Remnants of their vivid daymare flashing around their thinkpan. Ugh. This is why they avoided sleeping without sopor (this is why they avoided sleeping). Lethargic, they pushed themselves off the floor. The high that had been buzzing in the air had long since mellowed out, leaving them more exhausted than ever. All was quiet in their respiteblock. A look out the window showed it had only been a couple of hours, pink and green moons high in the sky.
“just in time for moisterwave”
After loitering around their respiteblock for a few minutes, posting the selfie they had taken earlier, and reading through their feed, Cirava plopped back in front of their husktop. Somewhere along the way, their vape had found its way back into their frond. They took a hit. It tasted stale, leftover from the end of the day, but it did its job. Their muscles uncoiled, relaxed, chilled. Smoke rose up and up and up from dry lips, licking the ceiling in soft, soft waves. They took a hit. It was almost enough to drown out the throbbing. They breathed out. It was almost enough to drown. They took a hit.
Cirava started the stream.