I Am Exhausted By You Vol. 3

A M EXHAUSTED BY YOU A Zine By Dana Reijerkerk vol. 3 “Do You Like My Art?: A Short Horror Story” She rubs her tummy because she feels anxiety from waiting for a response that will never come. Is an IBS flare up oncoming? Her waxy, dry eyes widen in an attempt to see the computer screen more clearly. The blue light filter isn’t helping her at 2AM. Her ears stay drooped because she got rejected from every conference she submitted a proposal to this year. Her lips are heavy set because the collaborative project she worked on for months fell through when her co-authors did not prioritize her or the project. Meet Amara. She is like us. She is exhausted. The weight of her unseen labor is exhausting to carry. About The Zine I am exhausted by you is a zine for sharing my projects (writing, data, exhibits, proposals, and more) that never got published. How many submissions, proposals, bids, or writing pieces have you made that never saw the light of day? I have quite a bit. Page 2 of 10 “Do You Like My Art?” is a short story I wrote for NaNoWriMo November write-a-50k-word-book-in-one-month challenge in 2023. The short story was an extension of what I did for The Relational Possibilities Project (The RPP) and an experiment in making video games. The character Cowrie-Shelled Woman came from the Twine video game, All Are Welcome, I made for The RPP. One thing I liked about The RPP was that I gave me space to return to creative writing. By 2023, I had already published several academic research articles, white papers, technical papers, etc and writing to be imaginative wasn’t something I had time for. Even now most of my writing is non-fiction and about data/facts. After I made that Twine game in 2023, I became really interested in developing indie games. At the time, I hoped to turn the short story into a visual novel game, but this never happened. In early 2024 I made my first visual novel for a game jam called The Creatures From Below (another nod at the characters in this short story). In this game, I played with coding and experimenting with art and multimedia since Twine isn’t designed for that. It’s more of a text-heavy game engine. You can really see in my earlier games on itchio where I experimented with the game engines, finding people to team up with on game projects, and narrative writing/design. In doing game jams I’ve found a group of other creatives serious about developing games so my later games are much more polished and complex like Late Night Surfing and Hear Me, Hear You (which was an official selection in an indie game festival!). About This Issue Page 3 of 10Do You Like My Art? DO YOU LIKE MY ART? The Void. Home to the Creatures From Below. This is where all our wasted breath goes. Cosmic horrors lurk and dance and dream up reality from their home in the subplace here named the Deep Dark Wood. The Void echoes the inhabitants desires, hopes, and grief. The giantess, Big Pink Moon, gazes up at her sibling in their forest of bodies. A lone creature from Below stands in their mind’s eye waiting, watching, searching for a new Dream. Black ooze and the foulest rot drips and convalesces in its new form of a puddle. Do You Like My Art? Page 4 of 10 The Void begins to shake as its creation comes to life. Imitations of densely woven trees in a thicket spring up from darkness. The sound of a thousand cicadas rises up from the newly formed earth and engulfs the puddle. A raspy wet voice speaks. “Ahhh, I…remember.” The Creature From Below dreams of its favorite place. A black shape rises from the ground, dripping sizzling rot on the forest floor. The Demon From Below feels alive for the first time in a long while. The Big Pink Moon blinks in and out - unable to keep alive with the stench of madness. The Demon From Below looks up at its twin. “I’ve decided. This time…this time it is a haunting. And I will haunt them.” The Demon raises its leathery clawed hands and covers its eyes. It breathes in as rot drips from the hole in its throat and hums. The droning buzz of cicadas bursts from its chest. The dimly lit halls of a distant art museum come into focus as a new dream begins. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ A woman comes into focus. Her skeletal Black form is covered in pink silk pajamas. She stands barefoot and sleepy eyed in a large empty arboretum. Dust motes shimmer in the air. Through dirty sun lights, a faint pink moon uncovers remnants of ochre-colored wood floors. Do You Like My Art? Page 5 of 10 “This place is a tomb. But for who?” She closes her eyes and breathes in the stench of decay that covers the space with its memories. A dim memory surfaces. The corners of her faded smile begin to widen even as her forehead wrinkles and puckers down. She slowly blinks the dream from her mind's eye and smiles. The Cowrie-Shelled Woman smiles as she remembers the last cycle. As she dreams of how much paint she had last time, the joy fades from her face. She moves her mangled black fingers over the concave dip of her stomach. She's hungry and has been for a long time. “Maybe, that's why I dreamed this time.” Her shoulders rise as her mouth thins out. The cowrie-shells in her braids clink against one another as she shakes in anger. Her button-up silk top moves with a phantom wind. A wave of exhaustion rises up and nearly topples her. She leans her hand on the cool window pane in the far corner. Her solemn reflection in the milky glass stares back at the mess she’s become. Her emaciated shoulders whisper her downfall. She twists and takes in her dilapidated art studio. The hard-wood floors seem to shine now in the pink tinted moonlight. But everywhere the moonlight hits is empty. Except. The single dark corner comes into focus. A pair of skeletal feet peek out beneath scraps of fabric that were once size twelve kid sneakers. The pristine bubblegum pink Hello Kitty backpack rests in the visage’s lap. She stares at the hollow eye sockets of once whisky eyes. She looks away in shame. “I am what is left at the bottom of the sweet tea pitcher. The saccharine sweet leftovers.” The woman looks up trying to peer through the dusty glass ceiling panes. She blinks, trying to focus on when she is. The woman touches the mini cowrie-shells woven in her thick black braids as she shifts her aching feet. In a daze, she picks one foot up and then the other. Stepping her clean feet over bones and red ribbon stains. Page 6 of 10Do You Like My Art? The Cowrie-Shelled Woman sits atop her fallen throne of bone and blood and waits for next time. “I can be patient. I will wait forever if I have to.” She glances back at the pink straps of the backpack. Lowering herself to the floor, she crawls on all fours over to the girl. Sliding closer, she lifts her torso over the display and looks. The sound of electricity hums in the walls. Afraid, she lifts her hands to the bag. The bag she hasn’t been able to open since - Bony Black wrists come into view and she stops reaching. The gashes from wrist to elbow overlap with her faded blue ink. The faint seams of her new skin scarred over long ago. Yet, these remain. She traces the little finger marks with the tip of her pointer finger and glances at the dead. She left these ones. The girl with the bubblegum pink backpack. The Cowrie-Shelled Woman loses more of her strength with each attempt to finally see what’s inside Her bubblegum pink backpack. She tries and tries and yet, her fingers never make it to the zipper. Dust and dirt and rot permeate her room, but not that bag. Her environment might age, but never that damn bag. Its vinyl surface remains pristine even after all this distance. The dream begins to fade out. The Demon From Below lowers its hands from its eyes and looks to its sister, Big Pink Moon. “Will she remember me? Do I want her to this time?” Big Pink Moon stays silent. The pockmark craters in her left side ache. She doesn’t interject anymore. She learned her lesson last time. A soft noise comes from outside the wall glass. Crossing her arms, the Cowrie-Shelled Woman looks out the window. She squints, leaning closer even as the glass fogs up. The Cowrie-Shelled Woman freezes. The etchings of a clawed hand fades in and out. A phantom rumble comes from below. She tightens the grip she has on her arms. Something squeezes at her heart, but she can't remember why. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Page 7 of 10Do You Like My Art? The Cowrie-Shelled Woman crouches down in a daze, her head and eyes feeling heavy. The technicians circle her, their backs to the wall, crunching on bones and debris scattered around the room. A tech approaches the backpack shrine in the corner and stares. Thick milky redness blankets the floors and walls, but it avoids the bounds of the shrine. He looks at the long-dead corpse of a little girl and gets drawn to the faint red rimmed orbital bones of her skull. It calls to him. He starts to lose focus of the room around him, sucked into the inhuman whispers of something sinister and ancient. Another tech shakes his shoulder. "Paul, wake up." The man shakes his body and stares at his friend. "I saw..." The man cuts him off before he can finish the thought. "Don't look at them." The door rattles and bursts open with a cloud of red dust. Men in white hazard suits slowly step over the threshold holding a long black tube pumping red mist into the studio. They scatter and hunt for their prey. Jack, wearing a red hooded suit, approaches the door jam and stops. He remembers the last time they entered, when the leaves had fallen and the company shares rose 200%. The red smoke covers the ground in a haze and locates their prize for them. *BAM* Jack's eyes close and he takes a deep breath in his aerator. "Dumb fucks," he mutters under his breath. He points at the door, "if you can't bother to remember the protocol, don't interact with the creatures." Jack looks back at the scene. He sees a pitiful animal, caged for its bizarreness and disobedience. He thinks he hates these visits as much as she does. The Cowrie-Shelled Woman struggles to stay crouched until eventually she falls on her side and blinks her eyes open and closed and closed until she's asleep. Page 8 of 10Do You Like My Art? Jack stands and surveys the room. He notices the new artwork. Drawings and etches on the glass walls. He looks to the far back and walks over. Small black smiling creatures stare up from the bottom corner of the glass window. Made of the ooze from her body, their matte faces seem more sinister among the red smoke filled walls. "She's waking up! Code red! Code red!" Panicked, Jack turns. The tech that shouted shakes and slowly steps back from her body still holding the scalpel. The Cowrie-Shelled Woman's eyelids begin to flutter. Her half-sewn torso weeps ooze as she struggles to sit up. "Shit!" he shouts, "She's getting immune!" Jack crouches down, breathing a sigh of relief. He removes a walkie talkie from his belt and alerts the others. "She's out. You have 20 minutes." Jack watches as more men in lab coats enter the cage. A pale maskless face steps slowly through the red smoke. He stands over the scene of others removing the cowrie-shell woman's pajamas to reveal scarred black skin. As they remove the last button, a faint purple light begins to glow beneath the choppy inflamed sutures of their last procedure. The floorboards beneath her start to rattle and shake and an inhuman buzz over takes the room. Jack listens to the growling deep whispers in his ear. He points to her body. "There. Her hip." A tech approaches with a scalpel and cuts a long line down her left hip. Purple light erupts from her body blinding the group momentarily. A strange black ooze drips from the incision curling it’s way down her thighs. The whispers in Jack’s ears get louder and then stop. The man tilts his head and listens for more. Silence. "It's done. Stitch her up. Ten minutes folks. She'll be alive and awake. Hurry up." The men clamber to run out of the room in droves as a sinister smile works its way onto the Cowrie-shelled Woman’s face. She hisses, spitting black goo from her mouth at their retreating feet. She drags her body away from the men and seethes with a burst of deep hatred. For a moment, she's not the Cowrie-Shelled Woman, but a wounded creature. Page 9 of 10Do You Like My Art? Scurrying to close the cage’s door, Jack pushes the last of the tech’s out of the way. Using all his strength, he grabs and pushes the heavy electrified door closed. The Cowrie-Shelled Woman’s rage is palpable as she glares at his slowly dwindling face. The wood floors beneath her body rumbles and shakes, purple light glowing bright beneath. An inhumane voice rises from the floorboards to taunt Jack. "You'll never dream. You mock us." Jack stares at her display, looks to the glass wall unable to see and hear the creatures from below. She's like a cornered animal, he thinks. He crouches down just beyond reach and appraises her torn open top and the bloody pool of rot seeping into the floorboard to become just another ribbon stain on the dirty floor. He looks down in shame. The red smoke dissipates. Jack dims the lights and closes the doors. He brushes his hands over a black box that lights up as the door locks engage. He pulls his walkie talkie up to his lips. "Experiment 394 is contained." Inside the room eerie voices begin to murmur and coo, welcoming her to their fold. "Come closer." "Come visit." "Dream." Left in the dark, the woman retreats to her moonlit corner on the opposite side of the room and gazes out the window. She daydreams of what was and what could be. She glances at the closed wood door to her studio. She knows they will be back and she will be ready. Black ooze covers her teeth as she smiles at the thought. Her true form rumbles under her scars and cuts littering her frame. The whispers of the Deep Dark Wood breath life into her eyes as is their way. Closing her eyes, she lifts the hands of her synthetic form to cover eyes. The silence in the room is deafening. She concentrates and finally, she hums.