PROMPT: Write a sci-fi story about a poison (Strychnine).
CW(s): implied sexual violence, animal abuse, extreme body modifications, murder and death.
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The poison we spill,
is the poison we breathe.
Someone said that to me once, a long time ago.
I can't remember who exactly. Maybe that blind Pujari from one of the dozen decrepit temples in the slums, always trying to sell his gibberish as ancient wisdom.
Or maybe it was that old, lonely woman who would give me some of her plain dosa to eat every time I sat down to listen to one of her endless life stories.
My memory ... isn't what it used to be.
But whatever, it doesn't matter.
Whoever it was, their words seemed to have stuck.
Like maggots, they had burrowed deep in some small, clammy, forgotten corner of my brain. And they would come to me at the most random and inappropriate of moments, like one of those old "friends" that only calls you when they need a little bit of your "time".
A silly, useless, made-up expression that thinks it's saying more than it actually is.
That's what I used to think, anyway. Because I really didn't know any better.
I couldn't yet taste the bitter irony dripping down from them, infecting every breath and scream out of my mouth, every sight, every foul stench and every noise around me, spreading more and more in my veins with every step I take to claw myself out of that pit of snakes they call life.
That's the thing with poison though, isn't it?
It's silent and slow, just as much as it's deadly. You never know it's in you.
Until it's too late.
*
The poison we spill,
is the poison we breathe.
Strychnine.
You'll hear that word a lot in the streets of Lower Meenapur.
It's a compound, a crystalline alkaloid, mainly used for killing pests. There's a lot of them down in the deep valley we call the Pit. Rodents mostly, but also macaques, cheeky little demons that they are. The kind of creatures that are much more suited to the vertical, industrial hellscape that is the cramped, corroded and unregulated infrastructure of the lower levels of the city.
No birds though. Not even the mutated ones can survive the perpetual smog that covers the entire Pit. Like a toxic blanket of death.
That's all it was, wasn't it? Just another poison, amongst the many swimming in the bowls of the city.
I never thought too much about it.
Not until I found myself being dumped onto a dark alleyway after what had to be the second worst night of my life, like a sack of rotten meat that no one wants to deal with. Because it was then, as I laid there, all but numb to the bruises and stains on my body that I was trying really hard not to think about, that I saw it.
It was one of those macaques, its body lying there in a shadowy corner, on the same filthy ground as me, only a couple of feet away, just out of reach.
At first, I thought it was dead, because no sane macaque would ever risk coming down alone to ground level like that.
But then I saw that it was moving, its small body tensing up and convulsing, over and over, though its neck and long limbs stayed locked up, as if frozen in place, drool dripping down its open mouth, wetting its matted fur and pooling on the ground beneath it.
It was an awful sight, and I meant to look away, because the last thing I wanted right then was to start spilling out the nothing that was left in my stomach. But then, a particularly violent convulsion knocked the macaque to its side, forcing it to face me with its wide, dilated eyes.
I couldn't look away.
I don't know why, but there was something about that stare that held me there, something wild and almost desperate that I couldn't let myself look away from.
So, I just stayed there, hand outstretched because that was all my battered body could do through the excruciating pain.
In the oppressing and cold silence of the alley, I forced my hoarse voice to hum the broken pieces of a song that I barely remembered from my nonexistent childhood, while I watched the life slowly and painfully drain from those big, yellow eyes.
I'd seen a lot of dead animals on the streets before. Run over, shot, mangled, disfigured, kicked to a bloody death, poisoned, you name it.
But I'd never seen one die in front of me like that before.
It was so small...
I thought I didn't have any tears left in me that day, or any other day for that matter. But I did cry then. I cried more than I ever have. Not for me, not for the hundred million things that had gone wrong in my life, not for the horrible thing that had just happened to me, or the other even worse things that happen to the people around me all the time.
I cried for that random, little monkey, that died all alone and scared in that dark, dingy alleyway, not knowing or understanding how and why, ignorant of the poison that it had been consuming every day until it became too much for its body to handle.
It was so small though.
So very, very small...
*
The poison we spill,
is the poison we breathe.
All the dancers take it.
The strychnine that is used for all those street rats and macaques is artificial, produced and purified in some factory, then mixed into those baits, scattered across every hole and corner of the Pit.
Purified strychnine is dangerous though, and much too expensive anyway. So the dancers get it directly from the source, which are these flat, woody-looking seeds of a plant called Kupilu.
You'd think something poisonous like that would only be sold in the ilegal markets, next to all the other million drugs and flavors of toxins that they trade in. But I've seen even old ladies sell Kupilu, right there, somewhere between the genetically modified house plants and the bags of colorful spices.
It's everywhere. It's always been everywhere, really. I just never paid it any attention. I was looking, but not seeing.
But now I see it, all the time. I see the sellers crush the seeds into a fine powder. I see the dancers backstage, sneaking a tiny bit of it into their own drinks or mixing it in with the usual cheap drugs, if they have any to spare.
It's like coffee, they say. A little bit of it can make you feel more awake, maybe even enough to get you through a whole night of dancing if you're too tired from your day job.
It's less expensive than coffee though, they say. Less expensive than any other alternative in the market. A cheap way to keep yourself awake. To keep working. To keep dancing. To keep smiling at the handsy costumers. To keep making money. To survive.
You just need to be careful with the dose, that's all. Just a little is fine. Too much and you lose control of your body. Too much and your lungs stop working. Too much and all you feel is pain. Too much and you die.
It's cheap though.
It's cheap, they say.
*
The poison we spill,
is the poison we breathe.
I had a friend once.
Hitika...
Hitika was special.
The Pit has a gravity to it, this crushing force that slowly wears down on anyone who stays in its bowls for long enough, one that dampens any flicker of joy and squashes any bit of hope under its oppressing weight.
But even though Hitika had lived and grown in that same darkness, she'd somehow kept that little bit of light inside her. And like moths to a flame, we all felt drawn to its warm, guiding light.
Even though she wasn't the best dancer in the club, the clients flocked to her performance. That alone should've made her a target of resentful jealousy and the cut throat nature of a place where attention was a scarce commodity and the only way to pay the bills.
And yet, every dancer and worker in the club couldn't help but fawn over Hitika, desperate for her attention but just as eager to keep her happy, to keep that light glowing.
I was no exception. Even though I refused to admit it.
I hated her.
Hated that she didn't try as hard or care as much. Hated that she turned everything into a joke. Hated that she thought so highly of herself. Hated how annoying and insistent she was, how desperate she was to make me like her, when she already had so many adoring fans.
I was jealous of her.
Jealous of the fact that she didn't need to try or care so much. Jealous of how she could make a whole room burst into laughter after a shitty day. Jealous of her sheer confidence. Jealous of how she could still say the word "love" without lying.
I loved her.
But I couldn't.
So, I let Hitika call me her wife, the Parvati to her Shiva, the light of her life, even though I knew I wasn't, but I never told her my real name or asked for hers.
I let her be generous to me, but refused to lean on her.
I let her infect me with her hope, her dreams of a better life in the heavens above, but I never promised her anything.
I let her touch me in her own gentle way, but I never touched her back, too scared that I would hurt her. Too scared that my poison would seep into her and snuff out her light.
I wished I'd known though.
Like with the Strychnine, I wished I'd paid more attention. I wished I'd listened more. I wished I'd cared more.
Because maybe then I would've known that something much, much deadlier had long sunk its fangs into my friend.
*
The poison we spill,
is the poison we breathe.
They called him the Baron.
No one knew much about him, only that he was a generous man from higher up in the city of Meenapur, and the Club's most important patron.
He was also Hitika's biggest admirer.
The Club has a strict policy against requests for private performances. They might not care about us as human beings, but we were still their assets, and the cost of us getting "permanently damaged" by rough clients who didn't care much for the "no touching rule" was too big.
But they made an exception for the Baron.
He would request Hitika all the time.
At first, I was worried and so were the other dancers. But Hitika waved away all of our concerns with her usual disarming smile.
She said that the Baron was actually a very kind, gentle and soft-spoken man. He just really enjoyed her dancing. But he was also a private person, who preferred the security and intimacy of having the performance be done at his place, instead of watching it at the club.
Hitika was many things, but not a liar. So, everyone took her at her word. After all, she seemed happy, and there were no signs that the Baron had done anything to her. No bruises, no marks, nothing but glowing smiles, a pile of generous gifts, and an insistence that the identity of the Baron would remain a secret.
And it stayed that way. Until it didn't.
Hitika still smiled, sure, but the brightness just wasn't there. She still got piles upon piles of gifts, each one more expensive than the other, but the excitement was gone. She still waved away our concerns, but no longer with the same carelessness. There were no bruises on her body, but there was something new about it every time she returned.
Modifications, small at first, like jewelry or tattoos surgically embedded onto her skin. But they grew more and more extreme each time, until Hitika would spend months recovering from them before she returned.
And still, I believed her when she said she was fine. I stayed quiet and did nothing as I watched my friend slowly morph into someone, or something I didn't recognize.
Then Hitika went missing for six whole months.
When she returned, it was with massive scars and six new, shiny robotic arms, that she showed off with a much too big grin on her face as she joked about how much more eye-catching her dancing would be now that her body fit her stage name.
But even as the other dancers got over their shock and embraced the new Hitika, fawning over her new "upgrade", I said nothing, nor did I smile. Because I knew better. Because I saw it then. I saw that it wasn't there anymore.
The light was gone.
There were only the stagnant pools of poison and the pitch-black darkness of those dull, lifeless eyes staring back at me.
*
The poison we spill,
is the poison we breathe.
The Baron called for me.
I had a feeling he would.
On that same day, I was taken to one of his houses in Middle Meenapur. It was the first time I'd left the Pit, and the highest I'd ever been in the city, high enough that I was able to catch glimpses of a sky in between the towers that stretched up high into the clouds, those soft pinks and golden hues that I'd only ever seen in still images or holographic windows.
It made me wonder how much more breathtaking it would be, up there above the clouds, in High Meenapur, where there was only the sun, the sky and clean, fresh air above you.
But that's okay.
I'm just glad I got to see a little piece of it, at least once.
The Baron was a kind, gentle and soft-spoken man, just like Hitika said. He sounded like he cared when he asked me about her, even though he already knew that she had suddenly fallen ill and was in the intensive care unit. He'd paid for all the medical bills, after all.
He talked a lot. We spoke for quite a bit, about many things, but mainly about Hitika. Of all the dancers, I was the one she'd spoken about the least, and that made him curious, because he knew we were close. According to him, she even begged him to leave me alone, and he promised he would. So, imagine his surprise when I volunteered to dance for him in her stead.
He was a smart man, so I decided to be honest. I told him I was curious too and maybe a bit jealous of him. I loved Hitika, and I wanted to meet the person she had spoken so highly of.
He believed me. Told me he loved her too, so we had that in common.
I danced for him. I might not have Hitika's charm, but I was a good dancer. Graceful and melancholic, that's what he called my dancing, very unlike the wild passion he had grown to love in Hitika's performance. The Lasya to her Tandava.
He missed her, I could see it in his eyes, feel it in the tremble of his voice as he spoke of her, filled to the brim with such awe and devotion for the divine light he'd seen inside her. And I wondered then, if he even realized it. That the light was gone. That he'd snuffed it out, like a child who can't help but squash that beautiful firefly in their much too tight, careless grip.
I don't think he did. Not that it matters, either way. Tears won't bring back the light.
Still, I wiped them away from his eyes.
I touched him, gentle and comforting.
He touched me back, dispassionate and methodic.
I asked him if he did these kinds of things (and more) with Hitika. He didn't answer.
I asked him if he knew what had gotten Hitika sick. He told me the doctors hadn't found out yet, but I could tell he was curious. That he could tell that I knew something he didn't.
So, I asked him if he knew what Strychnine was.
He didn't, of course he didn't. Why would he know about a drug meant for pest control? There were no pests this high up. They were all down there, in the Pit, where everything bad trickled down to, like sewage.
A crystalline alkaloid, found in the seeds of the Kupilu plant, that's what Strychnine was, I said. A stimulant in low enough doses, meant to keep you awake. Always awake, always working, so you don't have to think. A deadly poison, if you take too much, or for too long. Something that makes your body shut down, until you can no longer move or breathe, or do much of anything except feel yourself die a slow, painful death.
That's what made Hitika sick.
The Baron didn't believe it.
Hitika doesn't take drugs, he said. And even if she did, she'd never take something as cheap and dangerous as that.
I leaned in, my red painted fingers ghosting over his parted lips, leaving a trace of fine powder behind. His breathing was already ragged, and I think he understood then, as his eyes went wide and I saw my own smirk reflected in those stagnated pools of black poison.
He could no longer speak, and I was glad for that, because it meant that I didn't have to hear him scream or beg. I simply got to lie down next to him, just out of reach, and watch the life leave those dull sky-blue eyes.
Even though there were no tears in my eyes, I still sung that same old, wordless song from a long forgotten childhood that I didn't have. And as I stared at those glimpses of sky outside for the very last time, I felt free for the very first time.
Because now that I know what courses through these veins of mine, I can find some solace in the sick, twisted irony in those words I'd once heard but never fully understood.
Because now ... now I know better.
The poison we breathe,
is the poison we spill.