LIEN-HUONG N.

prelude

lien-huong n.

There are an infinite amount of things he cannot grasp, but how he feels is not one of them. 

​

Panic, he would call this, but it isn’t. It should be, he knows. His lips part, soft heartbeats sparking in time with softer exhalations. Recognising every shifting emotion that twists his chest is no less an instinct than a curse; the hard part is knowing whether to bury or weaponise it. 

​

He tilts back his head to lift his gaze, forcing himself to steady. The fractured light from the nearby lamppost glows sepia against the deep, nameless colour of the night sky, the ever-burning constellations glittering in cruel promise. Already the tension unconsciously lining his body begins to ease as his vision blurs and his mind clears, narrowing as he visualises the shot he can never capture. His fingers twitch with his longing to still the framed image — not on the faulty, unreliable mess of paint and graphite, but something more. Something tangible. 

​

As if in response, the air rumbles low with thunder, just before the rain starts to fall. The fleeting peace shatters. He mutters a muffled curse as water soaks his clothes and hair, drops catching on his dark lashes. Blinking them away, he ducks under the closest abandoned awning, shoving a hand into the pocket of his coat. Rumours call the elegantly dusky buildings and bustling skybridges of Hellshore treacherous, and he wonders what it means that he’s already figured out which alleyways make the easiest escapes, which streets to seek for solace from the crowds. He wonders what it means that this damned part of the city already tastes too familiar after only half a month. Does that make him just as treacherous? Just as damned? 

​

And then he stops wondering, prickling self-loathing pushing at the edges of his accursed emotions. To light the fuse and then have the sinshotting nerve to go running in search of water to quench the flames — to wonder if he is treacherous, after everything he has ruined in his wake? That alone is his answer. 

​

His trembling fingers finally grasp the vial in his pocket. With delicate care he pulls it out, mouth dry as he lifts it to examine the unnaturally clear liquid inside.

Dangerous. That’s what the black market vendor told him of the vial, and at first he considered it a warning. A little over two weeks in Hellshore has since sharpened his wits. Warning — what a stupid concept. No one warns in a place like this: dangerous is a word that sends a thrill down the spine, a seductive and addictive rush of rich adrenaline and malicious intentions. It is the very concept that attracts the rich and poor alike to Hellshore in the first place. 

​

He likes to think he’s above such trivial desires, but it is unbearably easy to forget with the vial held gingerly in his hand. Both the rainwater and his own sweating palms have smudged the glass, and he takes another breath, lets it out. To light the fuse and then have the sinshotting nerve to go running in search of water… he is a fool, surely, undoubtedly. But he has the nerve. And damn it all if he isn’t a bloody sinshot.

Falling, burning sins, he swears silently, and then the vial is uncorked and the glass is to his lips and the liquid slides tasteless over his tongue and down his throat. Good decisions reign entirely absent in Hellshore. And maybe, he thinks, that is why it has welcomed him so readily. 

​

He doesn’t have time to blink before he feels the poison flooding his veins. The shock of it sends a jolt through his shoulders, and he gasps, limbs shuddering as the world falls out of focus before going dim. Blindly he stumbles forward toward the end of the harbour, both rain and saltwater spray of the sea of Hellshore’s namesake rendering the uneven wood slippery beneath his feet. 

​

Collapsing to his knees into the endless puddles, he leans over the edge of the dock and heaves and gags against the bitter aftertaste of the poison — but nothing comes out. A reminder of his drowning hunger, of just how foreign a discomfort it is to have such a lack of inconsequence and gluttony. 

​

His emotions have risen into a violent tempest. He presses a shaking hand to his chest as if to quell it, still kneeling at the edge of the harbour, half-bent over the water. Distantly, he hears the impossible, hallucinatory voice of someone left behind: half a breath of rare laughter at the grave he’s dug himself into, and then, You bastarding sinshot, don’t be so dense; don’t do this. 

​

Don’t do this. 

​

His vision slowly clears. The sea below reflects back the new face shaped unrecognisable by the poison, and he feels the rain washing away any last remnants of his own fear, his own old self. 

​

The tempest rises further as he studies his unfamiliar features, and there it is. The worst part about him, his one fatal flaw. Despite everything he’s done, everything he has abandoned — the crown he never wanted, the love he never got to touch because he was too damn terrified — despite it all, he still feels. 

​

And in the treacherous world of Hellshore, that remains the most dangerous threat. But now — he rises to his feet, face wet with already-forgotten tears or rain or both. He presses a hand to his chest once more, fingers curling around the tempest, soft heartbeats hardening. 

​

In his mere seventeen years, he has only ever chosen to bury his emotions. Now, he reminds himself, it is time to weaponise them.