Chapter 3: Punk Poetry in Flesh
In which the song rewinds, the mirror splits, and a boy made of poems forgets how to die.
Rule Three: Never ask why barnacles sing.
1. CB Static and Typewriter Blood
The hallway didn’t exist five seconds ago.
Liora Vale had walked twenty-eight paces from the Self-Rewriting Codex when the library’s architecture shifted around her—subtle, silent, predatory. A new corridor unfurled from the far right of the atrium, slithering behind a shelf labeled Grief, Miscellaneous. She hadn’t noticed it until it breathed.
The air rippled.
The floor turned to warped linoleum—checkerboarded and blistered like neglected vinyl. Tape residue crackled under her boots. The ceiling sagged.
Then the static began.
Not a sound—an infection.
Her ears buzzed. Her molars ached. The kind of static that creeps into your skeleton and sets up a pirate broadcast.
“Twenty… twenty… twenty-four hours to go…”
A lyric.
Warped. Broken. Dragged across time like a dying cassette.
She turned toward the source. A ghetto blaster sat half-dissolved in the wall, coated in barnacle growth and tape ribbon. The music wasn’t playing—it was leaking.
Liora’s body moved before her mind caught up.
She followed the sound.
2. Zines and Ghosts in Linoleum
Posters peeled from the walls in long, wet strips—riot grrrl manifestos soaked in seafoam. Punk zines were stapled to old church hymnals. Someone had scrawled “Sisters drown quieter” in Sharpie over a photo of a nun. Burnt cassette tape unfurled like kelp.
The air tasted like hairspray and static.
And then—she felt him.
Before she saw him, before she understood—she felt the hum.
He sat slouched against a shelf labeled Dead Frequencies: 1985–1989, arms crossed over his chest. His head tilted like a question mark.
The skin over his torso was translucent—inked not with tattoos, but text.
Words pulsed faintly beneath the surface: punk lyrics, haiku fragments, and something in wingdings that her brain refused to decode.
His pulse glowed indigo.
His collarbone formed a line break.
His sternum stuttered.
She stared.
He looked up.
“I wanna be sedated…”
The lyric shivered in the air, not sung, not played—just exhaled.
His Ramones tattoo twitched.
He grinned. His teeth rearranged mid-smile into a phrase:
TIDEHAVEN WELCOMES YOU
3. The Delay
He blinked, then smiled again—like someone remembering their own obituary.
“You cataloging me,” he said, voice slow, words lagging behind his lips, “or just hoping I don’t glitch again?”
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Liora swallowed hard. Indigo shimmered beneath his translucent skin. The Ramones tattoo on his chest twitched faintly to a melody she hadn’t heard since the attic’s radio static: “Should I stay or should I go…”
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice paper-thin.
He glanced at the mirror behind her, where his reflection stood two seconds out of sync. Then turned back.
“Dexi,” he said. “Dexi Monroe.”
Her breath hitched.
He studied her face a moment longer, then said—almost gently, “You look like her.”
“Who?”
“Marrine Vale.”
Liora staggered. The name cracked open a memory.
A sketch in a journal: a punk poet with storm-lit veins. A concert stub from The Drowning Men, stapled beneath a note in Marrine’s slanted hand—Dexi Monroe sings like the library is already inside him.
“You knew her?” Liora whispered.
“She showed me the fog that sings,” he murmured. “Told me about the rules, the velvet, the reflections… I turned it into lyrics. Thought it was poetry. But the Leviathan heard. I named it in verse, and it came for me.”
His smile faltered.
“I died thinking my song killed her.”
Silence fell around them like salt ash.
Liora stepped forward slowly. “She wrote about you. Even at the end.”
Dexi looked down at the tattoos crawling his ribs. One line of gold ink pulsed in time with her words:
“The gate wasn’t locked.”
“She loved you,” Liora said.
“She forgave me,” he whispered. “And that’s why I’m still half-here.”
Barnacle Chorus
The humming started low—barely more than static. But Liora froze as she realized it wasn’t random.
The barnacles on the wall… they were singing.
Not a melody. A memory.
Marrine’s voice echoed, fractured and warped:
“He sang the gate open. I heard it. I let him.”
Then it shifted—to Liora’s voice.
Dexi's jaw clenched. “Don’t ask,” he said. “Whatever you do, don’t ask them why they sing.”
“Why not?” she almost said—
—and then the air ripped.
Her throat burned. Her name unraveled in her own ears, syllable by syllable. The barnacles pulsed, feeding on the almost-question.
Dexi grabbed her wrist.
“Rule Three,” he hissed. “Never ask why barnacles sing.”
She coughed, the static clearing just before it could claim her voice entirely.
Somewhere behind them, a book slammed shut with a scream.
4. Reflected Failure
He turned toward a mirror—silvered, warped.
His reflection blinked—late.
Then later.
Then not at all.
When he turned, the reflection walked away.
Literally stepped out of sync and offscreen.
Liora froze.
Dexi sighed.
“It’s been doing that lately. Not sure if it’s me or the Leviathan.”
She whispered, “You saw that, right?”
“Yeah. But I’ve stopped chasing it. That version of me never looks back.”
5. Shelf Rewrites
Dexi moved to the wall. His fingertips trailed across the spines.
The shelf re-titled itself in real time:
EXODUS, MIRRORED
GUILT AS A SERVICE
THE SPIRAL IS NOT YOUR FAULT
He glanced at her.
“You touched the spiral-bound, didn’t you?”
Liora swallowed.
“How did you—?”
He lifted his shirt again. His ribs pulsed, showing the phrase:
I SHOULD HAVE CHECKED THE GATE
“That thought lived in me for twenty years,” he said. “Until the notebook bit me.”
Her breath caught.
She had bled that exact guilt into a page. Had felt it leave.
Dexi nodded slowly.
“Memory theft. Not just your own—anyone’s. The Codex rewrites. The spiral binds. And this place... feeds.”
6. Bone Music
He leaned close.
“I’m not dangerous,” he said softly. “Just… readable.”
Her fingers hovered near his chest.
“If I touch you…?”
“The song will change.”
“What does it become?”
“Whatever you regret most.”
She didn’t move.
Neither did he.
Between them, the static clicked louder.
His veins rearranged lyrics.
I am human and I need to be loved…
...just like everybody else does.
Her voice cracked. “Why do you remember me?”
“I don’t.”
“Then how do you know—”
He pointed at his chest.
“It’s written here.”
7. Broadcast: 1987
A CB radio in the wall sparked to life.
“Dexi Monroe, age 24. Cardiac failure. Ramones concert. Witnesses said he collapsed at 00:13.”
“He opened the gate. Failed to shut it.”
The air turned metallic.
Dexi shut his eyes.
“That’s my death report,” he muttered. “The Codex keeps broadcasting it. Trying to revise my exit.”
The mirror across the room blinked.
Dexi’s reflection returned—but backwards.
It mouthed one word:
FORGIVE
8. Gold Ink and Saint Rita
His body twitched.
Then bent.
He collapsed against the floor. His ribs cracked—not metaphorically. Literally.
A gold thread laced between the fractures, glowing faintly.
Liora touched his shoulder.
He was burning from the inside.
“She did this,” he gasped.
“Who?”
“Rita. The nun. Saint of the Drowned.”
“Marinne wrote about her.”
“She saved me. Not from death. From being edited out.”
The golden ink shimmered like forgiveness itself.
Liora watched the thread pulse in time with his breath.
9. Memory Theft, Replayed
Then the cracking began again.
Dexi screamed.
His ribs split open, revealing words like wounds:
YOU LET HER DROWN
SHE OPENED THE GATE
THE LIBRARIAN LIES
He clawed at his skin.
Liora pulled a shard of seaglass from her pouch, sliced her palm—ritual precision.
She pressed the bleeding line to his ribs.
The words changed:
NOT YOUR FAULT
Dexi gasped.
Everything stilled.
“I remember her,” he whispered. “She wore that guilt like a coat. You inherited it.”
Liora was crying. She hadn’t realized.
10. Shared Silence
They sat in the silence of shifting books.
Dexi’s breathing evened.
He rested his forehead against her shoulder.
“I miss her,” he said.
“Me too.”
“The Leviathan made us both remember wrong.”
Liora nodded.
“What now?”
Dexi handed her a silver marker.
“Write something.”
11. Countdown to Rewrite
She looked at the wall.
The ink was waiting.
She wrote:
“She walked the tide with his name in her mouth.”
The shelf beside them vibrated.
Its title changed:
HOW TO FORGIVE THE DEAD
Dexi stared.
“That’s new.”
Liora smiled faintly.
“Maybe we get to annotate.”
