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Okay, note to self? One, stay away from the dark side for a while. Two, don't research extermination camps on sunny days when people won't understand why you're suddenly pale and nauseous. *grimaces faintly*
Title: In Bhalasaam
Rating: R (for ... atrocity)
Fandom: Sanctuary
Characters/Pairings: Nikola Tesla. Mention of the Five and a historical figure
Summary: Bhalasaam. Jasenovac. Two mass graves.
Wordcount: 1046
Warnings/Notes: Brzica existed. The Srbosjek existed. 1300 in a night was a real figure (29 Aug, 1942, by one man). That ... that should not be ... Suddenly I understand Nikola's 'take over the world' idea so much better ...
Disclaimer: Not mine
ETA: In part prompted by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
grav_ity's amazing How to Fake Your Death *ducks sheepishly*
Title: In Bhalasaam
Rating: R (for ... atrocity)
Fandom: Sanctuary
Characters/Pairings: Nikola Tesla. Mention of the Five and a historical figure
Summary: Bhalasaam. Jasenovac. Two mass graves.
Wordcount: 1046
Warnings/Notes: Brzica existed. The Srbosjek existed. 1300 in a night was a real figure (29 Aug, 1942, by one man). That ... that should not be ... Suddenly I understand Nikola's 'take over the world' idea so much better ...
Disclaimer: Not mine
ETA: In part prompted by
grav_ity's amazing How to Fake Your Death *ducks sheepishly*In Bhalasaam
In Bhalasaam, there was naught but dust.
It sounded like some line from a poem, Nikola thought, through some black, slick slide of amusement. Feeling a laugh claw its way up his throat, slipping in the path of blood, and forcing it desperately back. Forcing it desperately away. Like a line of a song, some ballad to while away the evenings, and forget that between these lines lay death.
He was not well, he mused, reeling somewhat drunkenly between shattered columns and broken walls, tripping in the dust of an ancient destruction. Not so ancient. Not so far. So near, in fact, and clawing so close to fresh, fresh wounds, still bleeding.
No, he was not at all well. He should tell James. Would, if he thought James could fix it. But he didn't. He didn't.
It might be the blood. It might be the screaming in his veins, the clawing, animal thing snarling at him. He'd drunk so much, these past few months. Gorged himself, drowned himself, washed away any trace of the human he'd once been, the person he'd once been. Well, why not? That person had died. That person was dead. Dead and dead. Nikola Tesla was dead.
Like the Vampires. Like his people.
Like the corpses floating in the Sava. Like the bodies, the remnants, torn apart, worn away, not even human anymore. Like the blood, the stench of it, the sweet of it lying under everything the river touched. The tang of it richer and deeper, death crawling in every crevice, creeping across his skin, into his nose, behind his teeth. Blood and death and fear and pain, and the vampire in him had shivered and crawled, and strained beneath his skin, and clawed at his heart, his mind, the human someone left within him. The vampire tore him apart, and made him something else. An animal, drowned in blood, another corpse floating flayed in the Sava's flow.
In Bhalasaam, there was naught but dust, death a ghost only waiting. In Jasenovac, death had crawled like a living thing, a bloody spectre in the darkness, walking over bones.
And he had followed it. He had become it. Followed the Ustase with their little knives, Srbosjek, Serb-cutters, strapped into their hands. Followed them and shown them his own. Shown them the knives not tied to his hands but part of them, the gift of a dead people to a dying one, and he had cut them in turn. Sliced them, so and so, precise as Helen with her scalpel, savage enough to do John Druitt proud, and gave them to the Sava when he was done. An animal, a monster, but that was all they thought him anyway. A thing to be put down, like the thousands drifting in the river's flow, the hundreds piled beneath the ground.
Like the hundreds drifting in the dust of Bhalasaam. Victims of another crusade, the same crusade, echoed and repeated over and over again. His people. In the dust, in the ground, in the sliding of the river's flow. Again, again, again. This endless, holy crusade, this quest for purity found in blood, this killing, over and over again. His people. Every time.
He came to Bhalasaam. He ran to Bhalasaam, in hopes to find something, some thing still living, still standing, some thing remaining. Ran from the Sava and its blood, from the Ustase and their knives, from the clawing thing inside his own throat, his own chest, and now ...
Another grave. Another Sava, not of water now, not of blood, but of dust and wind and broken remnants. Remote slaughter. Thirteen hundred in a night, maybe? With cannon, not a knife. Did it make much difference? Did it ever?
The laughter bubbled, rich and red and poisonous, and he stopped. Nikola stopped, Death's spectre walking across the bones, and shook himself. Stopped himself, turned himself.
Himself. Nikola Tesla. Not Death, not an animal, not a crawling thing with knives. Not the Ripper, not the Vampire. Not even the Serb. Dead and dead, and dead again, and he could not do this again. He could not do this anymore. Not anymore. He was not made for this. He could not drown inside the blood and the dust. He could not, could not ... He must not be what they had made his people. All his peoples. He must not be what they wanted him to be.
He was not an animal. He was not the mindless monster, following the scent of blood, drowned in it as surely as the crusaders themselves. He was Nikola Tesla. He had made electricity sing. He had made a world hum with energy. He had built a century. He had done that, had made that. He had held that between his hands, and wrung it into life.
That was what they faced, now. These endless crusaders in search of bloodstained purity, these echoes out of the past, these animals crawling in the dust. Not another animal, as mindless as themselves, but a man. A vampire. A scientist and a creator, a builder and a destroyer. Like his people before him, but he wouldn't fall this time. He wouldn't be unmade. He would build again. He would make again. He would make ... make a world where there were no knives, and the rivers didn't run with blood, and whosoever lifted a hand against his people again ...
No. No knives for him. Not anymore. He was not Druitt, was not Brzica. He was Nikola Tesla, and he was a genius, and he was standing above all that was left of a race that had once ruled the world in a golden age of science and discovery. He was a vampire, and so long as he lived, they were not dead. So long as he fought, they were not ended. So long as he, Nikola Tesla, was what he had been born to be, so long as he made what he had been born to make, a world, a new world ... then his people were not dead. Then the animals had not won. Then he was not, would never be, defeated. Then he was not dead.
In Bhalasaam, there was naught but dust. But that ... that could change. Yes. That could be made to change.
In Bhalasaam, there was naught but dust.
Yet.
In Bhalasaam, there was naught but dust.
It sounded like some line from a poem, Nikola thought, through some black, slick slide of amusement. Feeling a laugh claw its way up his throat, slipping in the path of blood, and forcing it desperately back. Forcing it desperately away. Like a line of a song, some ballad to while away the evenings, and forget that between these lines lay death.
He was not well, he mused, reeling somewhat drunkenly between shattered columns and broken walls, tripping in the dust of an ancient destruction. Not so ancient. Not so far. So near, in fact, and clawing so close to fresh, fresh wounds, still bleeding.
No, he was not at all well. He should tell James. Would, if he thought James could fix it. But he didn't. He didn't.
It might be the blood. It might be the screaming in his veins, the clawing, animal thing snarling at him. He'd drunk so much, these past few months. Gorged himself, drowned himself, washed away any trace of the human he'd once been, the person he'd once been. Well, why not? That person had died. That person was dead. Dead and dead. Nikola Tesla was dead.
Like the Vampires. Like his people.
Like the corpses floating in the Sava. Like the bodies, the remnants, torn apart, worn away, not even human anymore. Like the blood, the stench of it, the sweet of it lying under everything the river touched. The tang of it richer and deeper, death crawling in every crevice, creeping across his skin, into his nose, behind his teeth. Blood and death and fear and pain, and the vampire in him had shivered and crawled, and strained beneath his skin, and clawed at his heart, his mind, the human someone left within him. The vampire tore him apart, and made him something else. An animal, drowned in blood, another corpse floating flayed in the Sava's flow.
In Bhalasaam, there was naught but dust, death a ghost only waiting. In Jasenovac, death had crawled like a living thing, a bloody spectre in the darkness, walking over bones.
And he had followed it. He had become it. Followed the Ustase with their little knives, Srbosjek, Serb-cutters, strapped into their hands. Followed them and shown them his own. Shown them the knives not tied to his hands but part of them, the gift of a dead people to a dying one, and he had cut them in turn. Sliced them, so and so, precise as Helen with her scalpel, savage enough to do John Druitt proud, and gave them to the Sava when he was done. An animal, a monster, but that was all they thought him anyway. A thing to be put down, like the thousands drifting in the river's flow, the hundreds piled beneath the ground.
Like the hundreds drifting in the dust of Bhalasaam. Victims of another crusade, the same crusade, echoed and repeated over and over again. His people. In the dust, in the ground, in the sliding of the river's flow. Again, again, again. This endless, holy crusade, this quest for purity found in blood, this killing, over and over again. His people. Every time.
He came to Bhalasaam. He ran to Bhalasaam, in hopes to find something, some thing still living, still standing, some thing remaining. Ran from the Sava and its blood, from the Ustase and their knives, from the clawing thing inside his own throat, his own chest, and now ...
Another grave. Another Sava, not of water now, not of blood, but of dust and wind and broken remnants. Remote slaughter. Thirteen hundred in a night, maybe? With cannon, not a knife. Did it make much difference? Did it ever?
The laughter bubbled, rich and red and poisonous, and he stopped. Nikola stopped, Death's spectre walking across the bones, and shook himself. Stopped himself, turned himself.
Himself. Nikola Tesla. Not Death, not an animal, not a crawling thing with knives. Not the Ripper, not the Vampire. Not even the Serb. Dead and dead, and dead again, and he could not do this again. He could not do this anymore. Not anymore. He was not made for this. He could not drown inside the blood and the dust. He could not, could not ... He must not be what they had made his people. All his peoples. He must not be what they wanted him to be.
He was not an animal. He was not the mindless monster, following the scent of blood, drowned in it as surely as the crusaders themselves. He was Nikola Tesla. He had made electricity sing. He had made a world hum with energy. He had built a century. He had done that, had made that. He had held that between his hands, and wrung it into life.
That was what they faced, now. These endless crusaders in search of bloodstained purity, these echoes out of the past, these animals crawling in the dust. Not another animal, as mindless as themselves, but a man. A vampire. A scientist and a creator, a builder and a destroyer. Like his people before him, but he wouldn't fall this time. He wouldn't be unmade. He would build again. He would make again. He would make ... make a world where there were no knives, and the rivers didn't run with blood, and whosoever lifted a hand against his people again ...
No. No knives for him. Not anymore. He was not Druitt, was not Brzica. He was Nikola Tesla, and he was a genius, and he was standing above all that was left of a race that had once ruled the world in a golden age of science and discovery. He was a vampire, and so long as he lived, they were not dead. So long as he fought, they were not ended. So long as he, Nikola Tesla, was what he had been born to be, so long as he made what he had been born to make, a world, a new world ... then his people were not dead. Then the animals had not won. Then he was not, would never be, defeated. Then he was not dead.
In Bhalasaam, there was naught but dust. But that ... that could change. Yes. That could be made to change.
In Bhalasaam, there was naught but dust.
Yet.
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