Introduction

For my rewrite I chose Edgar Allan Poes’ “The Fall of The House of Usher”. I wanted to keep the story very similar to the original with one major difference: the narrator would no longer be the unknown visitor but the house itself (or more accurately the mysterious evil presence that dwells within it). I knew this would be a bit of a challenge, but if done right could effectively portray similar themes as the original story, themes such as human vulnerability in both the body and mind.

For this reason, I made my monster one that feeds off not only the physical blood of the victim but it’s soul as well. I did take the liberty of changing the meaning behind small plot points in order for it to fit my story better. One change, or more so addition to the story, is that the haunting presence gets a bit of a background in my story, describing itself as an ancient being that first began living in the water outside of the house before it was built.

However, in my mind the most substantial of these changes is the ending moment with Lady Madeleine, who in the original story one can assume was indeed buried alive. In my version, Lady Madeleine is indeed dead when the two men find her, and it is the evil presence in the house that is conducting her body in order to feast fully upon its victims. I believe this change would make the ending more about the creature I give a voice to rather than the characters it feasts upon, making the ending of its agency rather than of anyone else’s.

With this change I could also have my ending, in which its weakened state is responsible for the house’s disintegration, as well connecting it to the backstory I created for my monster, having him come full circle and retreating to the black depths of the water from which he came. Other than this I tried to tell my story in a way that is parallel to the original, describing the same events only through the perspective of the monster that is continuously feeding upon the family of Usher and all else who enters the house.

The Fall of The House of Usher

I had been sinking low, the black depths becoming my hands, my eyes, my mouth, I was lapping at the dank and sulfurous edges of the earth, darkened by the hate and rot of the dead, my teeth stretched over everything I could not taste, so hungry, so insatiable, crying into the blackness and creating its source, weeping out great ballons of inky grotesquery. It was in this search for some slick pink morsel to wrap my blade of a tongue around, to pierce and draw into me, that I smelled roaming in the distance, something fresh, not yet begun to rot.

Now I am not the black water, I am metal bones and glass edges to spy, to peak, to glance at things I might be able to taste. I groan and ache, in search of something to fill me, I expand my bones, draw them out, seep them like water into corners and holes within rotten wood. I am so large, I can twist and turn within the confines of my new body, hurt with it, feel my hunger with it. I dance around in this form, I dance because the new and fresh thing is here with me, came right up and offered its sweet flesh.

I spy on him now as I did when he first came, when I fled to the emptiness of the ash and oak, conducting their bony roots like a marionette, setting them to writhe and squirm beneath the earth, feeling with them each approaching step of the newcomer. The closer he came the stronger the scent enticed me in hollow places, the fresh energy stretching over me, so unlike the used up halflings that had sustained me, more my black thickness than their own silver. I threw myself back to the water, spying at him there, while he glanced at my edges, then I threw myself again, to the sharp angles of the windows and their rotting beams set against cold glass.

His face is vivid with life, flushed with color and strength. He is untouchable, I find, as my prodding finger falters and squirms, moving like a worm in the presence of his independence.

He is too clean, too fresh, too full of otherworldly wonders whose influence restricts me. I watch him for a while, as he glances over me, and the russett pink of his flesh makes me weep with anger. He is so unlike the two pitiful souls who sit small and quivering, pressed against me, rotting on my insides. He is the scent of something untainted, new, something that could fill the miserable fathoms of my hunger. I will take him slowly, I have already begun to gnaw at the boundaries, soon I will be able to taste.

I feel him shift within me, as I peak at him with eyes of glass and wood. The one I have feasted on, the one who rots, greets him. They make sounds I do not care for, and I watch with quiet glee as the newcomer searches for traces of things that I have devoured. He sings like a songbird notes of different colors, vibrant and moving sounds he makes in an effort to draw something from his companion. He does not know that all he searches for within his friend is lossed, sucked into oblivion, sloshing in my monstrous stomach. The only thing I’ve left there is fear, the thing that tethers him to me, that holds him in place so he can be tasted at my will. It is the only thing the newcomer will find in his proddings; the fear, like ribbons of blood that wink and dance before me, hints of life, filling my eyes with ruby red lust. They move and squirm, I tear at the flesh of my own mouth, watching in anticipation to see when his songbird call will wilt, when he too will be infected with the fear I have left intact, cultivated, within my victims.

Though he is too strong for me to pluck away at, his scent entices me enough to feast upon the other little thing, the one already used. As they sit down, still speaking, I crane my finger down to his head, feeling with a tender grace, the tares and folds of the grey thickness within it, the place where I feel his substance most acutely. I trace over the old wounds I have made there before, deep hollow plunges to bleed him of the liquid silver and red I need to smooth the creases of my cracked mouth. They are old and wasted, caverness in their lacking, black and tasteless moments I have already savored. I prod and touch, I can feel the slippery dew of his palm against the seat as I feel for the remainders of his sanity. I find a place there, warm and untouched, for me to widdle my little finger in, my tongue lulling in anticipation beneath him.

Though he does not see me his body registers the peeling back of its bark, the small intrusion I make three inches above his left ear. With rigid motion his body stiffens and shakes, excretes sweat that I catch, along with the blood and silver from his head, with my open mouth, wide as the floor beneath him. I am glowing, dancing through my metal veins pumping thick bile, the grey walls I have adopted as skin sinking and groaning in delight.

When I finish, he looks white as marrow, dark eyes darting like synchronised flies. The new one too looks worse and stretching my long face to his I catch the fresh scent of fear. I am still ravenous, the little thing I fed upon does not taste so sweet. I taste myself in his blood, it is corrupted by the traces I leave frome plunging, the holes I make that shrivel and fold then fill up with my seeping soul that crawls into all these dead and empty spaces. He knows he will die, there is so little of him left, so little claim to life already. He is more dead than alive, more myself than his own, he shakes and tells the other of his fate, again I laugh, I laugh because it is true, because he will die and when he does it will be with a muted trickle that the last of him goes, finding its way into my mouth in its final rest.

Deeper within me I feel a stirring, the other quivering little soul, closer to its end even more so than the other tasteless creature. She moves and I slip away from the room where they sit, swinging myself about to follow her as she traces down the stairs. I am in the ceiling,

watching them all as she passes by, passing with the soundless steps of a body who walks in the fields of death. I will taste the last of her soon, and despite her tainted nature it will give me the strength I need to make the first plunge into this new flesh. For now I’ll let her alone, she’ll lay within me for a while longer, the last of her light a flickering thing for me to devour when the time is right.

My only focus lies within observing and tearing away at the new soul. He cannot spread like I can, though he tries. I have watched him for days now, taking small drops of dew from his companion to sustain me, all the while waiting as fear decomposes him enough for me to pierce. I watch as he tries to spread himself as I do, travelling through my many arms, my waist, my thigh, his song bird call dropping bit by bit its flourishes as he tries to recompose my squirmy little pet, but he cannot spread like I can. I am the walls that shield them, the beds they sleep in, the air they breathe which I use to plunge myself into their bodies, searching their lungs in my frantic, relentless way for a nick or contusion to burrow and grow parts of myself in.

I am constantly bouncing, spreading myself over these things, conducting them as my own. This new flesh looks over it all and sees different things, not knowing they are all the same, all my bones, all my flesh and teeth. He tries to spread himself, I see his feeble attempts, stretching and searching for the remains of his friend with little golden thoughts, not knowing I have sucked him dry of himself, not seeing that he encounters only me with his attempted tetherings. I am the only thing that enters him, that encases him, I have weakened him with the consistency of my meager violations, and I know he is nearly susceptible. Tonight, I will finish the nearly dead thing, and then take my first plunge into the new flesh.

I am spread out against mold and darkness, in the sinew of webbing, the harshness of old iron and wood, and I am rolling in my mouth the thoughts of how I will eat the new and fresh thing. I know I must be sure to keep him here, so as to give him time to lose in his entirety the unknowing powers he has against me. If he leaves but for a moment, he will have grown defenses against me. I know this from the others, before I learned to keep them in place, when they would come and go and with each return carry the foul protection of stupidity that comes from an ever-shifting focus, a mind that is not stagnant and cannot be feasted upon slowly. This movement, like thick hide, delays the piercing action of my glass and iron teeth, unlike the soft and supple skin of one that has begun to rot. Within the harsh piers and angles of my body the creature is safe to decompose, to bleed and disintegrate into my open mouth.

Before the house was erected, I dwelled only in the depths of that black pond, a feeble body of wax sucking out the life of frogs and birds in order to sustain myself. Then the house was born in sweat and blood, and the water made it alive, pulsing through its pipes, mixed with its cement, carrying me with it and enfusing me within its structure. There I found a place to dwell, a place to feed, to grow stronger and older.

Now it is night, and I can feed again. I move from the damp and mildewed darkness, lifting into the air. The darkness carries me faster than the light, so that I slip with seamless intent through peeping cracks and into the lady’s chamber. Hovering above her I grow my fingers into long and slim tools, bending their grey form into twisting hooks I place around her head. One by one I pierce the veil of her flesh and feel the corners of her mind for any lasting dew which I draw out, hard and fast, into my own being. Her eyes are open suddenly, her body pale and slick, trembling with the last heave of life as I cleanse the emptying shell of her soul. Fully dead now, a grey pallor takes set on her face, my mouth fills with a mixture of my own soot and traces of her liquid membrane, the traces of life left within her drained like the last grainy sips of muddy water.

I am floating again, through the air and walls, taking up the space in its entirety with the strength of my delight, then sinking back down into something smaller that passes through the space with slow, floating movement. The morning will come soon, and new ribbons of fear will dance with me through the halls, sprouting from the heads of those that discover the clean bones of my last victory. In envisioning them I slip through time until they are real, when the pitch of the night has settled into a lifeless grey, and the two mortal souls carry the body of the woman deeper into my depths. I follow them, shifting myself through pipes and paper across the walls, catching sight of their fear. The new one is becoming tender and supple, I reach a finger out to caress him as they walk, and I can feel the slacking of skin, the beginning of rot. Gleefully I retreat, willing myself to wait, waiting until the darkness comes again.

It comes, and when it does, I am swift, impatient and hungry, finally ready to taste the newness of his flesh. I clamor across the floorboards, jump from wall to wall, fling myself into the space where he sits and waits for me. When I see him there, the grey and green of his skin glistening with fear, I am electric and pulsing with ravenous joy. I smell the crimson of his life and it drives me to act swiftly, diving down but an inch away from him, my fingers traveling like the legs of spiders up his back and to the sides of his head. I feel with my coarseness the dip of his temple, and it is there I make my first incision. His body, like all the others, begins its quivering submission as I lap up the first signs of crimson nectar that betray him, falling to my mouth and filling me with colors I have never felt before. I am alive and buzzing, these few drops of a purity which I have not tasted for centuries. I take my fill greedily, savoring the sweetness of his sweat, the liquor of his blood. I feel him unknowingly resisting me, trying to pull away, perhaps willing himself to jump up, but unable to do so because of my tight grip. For a moment my eyes tilt back in exalted submission as I savour the pooling taste of his fresh soul, filling me as I have never been filled before.

I feel the other one coming, the ribbons of his fear dancing through the room and falling into my mouth, mixing with the essence of his companion. With much difficulty I withdraw my finger and stop the drainage. Yes, I could have very well finished him off right there, left his corpse an empty shriveled thing. But then I would have had no new thing to keep sustaining myself with, I would be forced to continue with the consumption of the one who is entering the room and speaking words, whose blood will never be enough now that I have tasted something fresh, something other than a mixture of my own being. He is loud and frightened, smothering the traces of my satisfaction. I close my mouth, trying to savor the last moments of that taste. But it is not enough. A feverish desire has flooded my body, a new passion that drives me in a way which is electric and rapid. I must find some lasting permanence in that taste, some way for it to fill my body entirely without wasting it on the expanse of my being. I am vibrating and shifting about the room swiftly, looking at the pair, the one I desire picking up a book, shaking off my effect, the scent of his life filling him again. I shift faster about, rickashaying from the corners of my walls, trying to find a new angle, looking for some new way to feast and be filled.

I think of the empty shell below me, the small one with little teeth that can bite. She could be filled, she could taste and be filled by the blood in a way I cannot, she who lays stiff and still beneath us. I race to her, letting myself fall through the floors with frantic speed to reach the cold dead body, banging against the walls as I go. I have never tried to infect in such a way, to enfuse broken flesh with myself, flesh that has already begun to rot, but it is the only solution to my growing need, the only way I will be filled. I enter her little box, squeeze myself in and penetrate her flesh.

It is cold and still and does not at first contain me. I feel myself slipping out every time I try to move, and it takes all of my concentration to press firmly from the inside against the flesh, willing myself to move its little eyes and hands with my force. I twitch the fingers, stubby and useless, but under my control, nonetheless. I move her head, her feet, her arms, I cry with excitement, and it is not a thick inky black but a light salty trickle that wets the cold cheeks I feel encase me. I use my strength through her feeble body, lashing and tearing at my confines, breaking her skin and revealing the little bits of dew left behind. I release myself, moving slowly, strangely, the confines of a body such a foreign conductor of my soul. My arms and hands are one connected thing, they fling and flop as I move, almost breaking as I close the iron door with a strength they are not used to wielding. I clamber up the stairs, slipping and falling but moving with as much haste as the broken body allows. I feel my new tongue and my new teeth, the instruments I will seek my satisfaction with. I am smiling, I think, smiling because I know this is a body that can be filled. I move faster, feeling the clutch I have on the body becoming weaker, parts of me close to slipping out through the eyes and mouth.

Finally, I have come to the door, the place in which they dwell. I see no ribbons of fear with these human eyes, but I hear the silence and I know it is there. I am slipping, I must act fast, I feel heavy and strange, unable to control myself within this form, I know I am weakened with every moment I spend in this condensed state, I need to feed, to be filled. I open the door with fingers that feel limp when I conduct them, and slowly my two victims are revealed to me. They stare with shock and horror as I stumble towards them, hand outstretched for my prize.

My vision is blotchy, I am so weak, but I can smell him and I must have him. I am moving forward, but I can barely see, the body I feel is slipping in and out of my control, lulling and swaying as I advance. I feel so strange, so strange, but I must be filled, I must be. I feel myself fall, falling on something, it is my victim, I cannot tell if it is the right one, the one I want, I can only hope it is. With my lasting strength I stretch my jaw as wide as it can go so that I can bite down, but I find that I can’t. Instead I am slipping fast, tumbling down, leaving the mortal body and sinking with incredible speed.mI am weeping out loud and wretched wails of despair that makes the air ring with fury, I fall faster, I don’t know how long for, but the house is crumbling around me, I feel the borders I once inhabited sinking and cracking, passing through me as they too fall.

I land in the depths of the lake, the darkness swallowing me as I sink to its bottom, a weakened frail thing, wallowing in my own wretched emptiness. I am sinking, spitting out black bile and taking it in again in the desperate hope that it will fill me, fill me completely.