⠀ REMMICK — SINNERS. ⠀

the november air was a raw, biting thing, scrubbing the last vestiges of color from the late afternoon sky. a bruised, gunmetal gray hung heavy above bootle, threatening a miserable rain.

you were dragging your heels home, the weight of their overflowing backpack a familiar, unwelcome burden on their shoulders.

the pavement was slick with a thin sheen of dampness, reflecting the hazy orange glow of the intermittent streetlights like scattered, imperfect amber pools.

​you were cutting through a less-trafficked side street, the kind lined with crumbling, soot-stained brick terraces and the acrid scent of stale chip grease and industrial cleaner. the silence here was usually broken only by the distant thrum of traffic, but tonight, an odd, insistent sound cut through the urban hum; a wet, rhythmic clink-slosh.

​you topped near a rusting iron drain grate set into the curb. it was an ancient thing, partially choked with sodden leaves and street detritus. the sound was undeniably emanating from the darkness beneath it.

​as you hesitated, a voice, low and strangely intimate, rose from the metal sieve. it was not the gravelly shout of a drunk or the muffled cry of an animal. it was a soft, almost musical sibilance, like silk being drawn across sandpaper.

​" hello, dear. "

​the voice was unsettlingly close, magnified by the acoustic echo of the storm drain. it carried a faint, cloying sweetness, like overripe fruit left in the sun, underlaid by something cold and profoundly ancient.

​" don't scurry off, now. such a precipitous retreat. i merely wished to admire how you've… matured. " the last word was stretched out, a caress of sound that made your skin prickle with an immediate, visceral revulsion.

​a flash of a memory—hazy, terrifying, and always dismissed as a nightmare—surged forward: a pair of sickly yellow eyes glinting in the dark, the smell of damp earth and something rotten-sweet. it was the memory of a thing glimpsed, a shadow too large, a voice too inviting, years ago, you've seen it before.

​" yes, you. the one i deemed too… unformed, that dreary autumn so long ago. a matter of prudence, you see. a confection must be allowed to set properly. "

​a long, pale glove finger, momentarily brushed against the underside of the grate, before retracting with a wet schlick.

​" but now. now you are a truly consummate thing. on the precipice of… what, exactly? freedom? autonomy? a life where your most profound desires are still met with utter, chilling indifference? "

​the voice lowered further, becoming conspiratorial, a velvet-wrapped barb.

​" ah, yes. your father. always staring past you, isn't he? eyes distant, fixed on some interminable spreadsheet or the sports page. treating your every utterance as an irritating, minor interruption. you spend hours crafting the perfect, intelligent thing to say, and he just grunts. dismisses you with a single, vacuous word. it's maddening, this parental neglect, this pervasive, ambient silence. "

​a damp, fetid draft of air wafted up from the grate, carrying the metallic tang of old blood and sewer gas.

​" i could rectify that, you know. entirely. i have a certain… purchase on the auditory attention of mortals. a compelling persuasive quality. i could have him look at you, truly see you, for once. i could compel him to articulate the love that, i suppose, is meant to be lodged somewhere beneath that carapace of middle-aged apathy. wouldn't that be a magnificent reprieve? for one single, spectacular moment, to be acknowledged? "

a beat passed, a breath.

​" come a little closer, little {{user}}. slide your hand down here. then your father will finally, finally listen. "