Plaster Saints
\nPart 1
\nElijah never hears the witches arrive.
\nThere’s no thunderclap of magic, no dramatic warning—just the soft, synchronized exhale of power as the spell settles over him like a held breath. One second he’s upright, coat still on, already turning toward the sound that shouldn’t be there—
\n—and the next, his body betrays him entirely.
\nHis legs lock first. Not weakness. Not pain. Just… absence. The signal from his mind hits a wall and dies. Elijah stumbles, confused more than alarmed, hands reaching for balance that never comes. His knees buckle but don’t catch him; his body tips forward in a stiff, graceless arc, and he hits the stone floor shoulder-first, the impact ringing hollow through him.
\nHe tries to move.
\nNothing answers.
\nHis fingers won’t curl. His toes might as well not exist. Even his jaw refuses to clench when instinct demands it. Panic flares sharp and sudden—not because he’s helpless, but because he doesn’t feel helpless. He feels intact. Trapped behind his own nerves.
\n“Paralysis,” a woman says calmly, stepping into his field of vision. “Total motor inhibition. Voluntary and reflexive.”
\nElijah can still breathe. For now.
\nHe watches boots circle him, robes whispering against the floor. There are four of them. Maybe five. He tracks them only with his eyes, the last thing still obedient. He tries to speak—tries to warn, to threaten, to reason—
\nHis throat moves. No sound comes out.
\n“That’s intentional,” another witch adds, almost conversational. “We find screaming complicates the setting process.”
\nThey roll him onto his back.
\nThe movement is deeply wrong. His inner ear screams that he’s being handled incorrectly, that joints are being torqued without permission, but there’s no pain yet—just pressure and an eerie sense of detachment, like watching someone else’s body misused.
\nHands strip him quickly, efficiently. Buttons torn free. Shirt cut away rather than pulled. Cold air hits his chest, his ribs, his thighs. It should be humiliating. It would be, if his body would let him react.
\nInstead, all he can do is stare at the ceiling while they work him into position.
\nThey don’t lay him straight.
\nHis right arm is lifted and bent above his head, elbow locked at an angle that makes his shoulder ache preemptively. His left is pulled across his torso, wrist twisted palm-down against his ribs. One leg is forced straight; the other is bent sharply at the knee and angled outward, hip strained and open.
\nEvery position is wrong.
\nEvery joint is set just shy of dislocation—enough that once sensation returns, it will be agony.
\n“Hold him there.”
\nFabric slaps wetly against his skin.
\nElijah’s eyes flick down just in time to see thick rolls of plaster-soaked cloth unfurl. White. Heavy. Dripping. The smell hits him a moment later—chalky, mineral, damp.
\nCast plaster.
\nHis pulse spikes.
\n“No,” he tries to say.
\nThe first strip is pressed across his chest.
\nIt’s cold enough to steal his breath—what little control he has over it. The fabric molds instantly, clinging to the lines of his ribs, sinking into the hollow at the base of his throat. Fingers smooth it down, pressing deliberately, ensuring full contact.
\nAnother strip crosses his abdomen.
\nThen another.
\nThey work fast. Too fast.
\nPlaster wraps his torso in overlapping layers, each one stealing a little more give from his chest. The weight builds quickly, dragging down on him, pinning him harder to the stone. He can feel the pressure now—can feel the resistance when his lungs expand.
\nNot enough to suffocate.
\nJust enough to promise it.
\nThey move to his limbs next.
\nHis bent arm is wrapped first. The fabric is wound tight, locking the joint in place, plaster setting as it goes. His shoulder begins to throb as circulation dulls, the awkward angle turning from discomfort into something deeper and meaner.
\nHis other arm follows, pinned across his body, forearm flattened against his ribs and immobilized there. Fingers are pressed together and wrapped as one useless unit, hand rendered into a single pale block.
\nHis legs are worse.
\nThe straight one is cast from ankle to hip, heavy and unyielding.
\nThe bent one is encased exactly as positioned—knee locked at a cruel angle, hip twisted outward and held there. As the plaster begins to warm while it sets, a phantom pain blooms, his body anticipating the damage it can’t yet register fully.
\nBy the time they reach his neck, his breathing has changed.
\nShorter.
\nShallower.
\n“Head last,” someone says. “Once we’re ready.”
\nThey don’t rush it.
\nMore plaster is layered over his chest, over his stomach, reinforcing the cage around his lungs. Each strip tightens as it cures, shrinking just enough to steal millimeters of expansion.
\nElijah tries to draw a deeper breath.
\nHis chest stops early.
\nHis eyes widen.
\nHe tries again—harder this time—and the resistance is undeniable. The cast doesn’t give. It holds. His lungs burn faintly as carbon dioxide starts to build, subtle at first, like the warning ache before exertion.
\n“That’s it,” the first witch murmurs. “You feel that?”
\nHe does.
\nHe absolutely does.
\nThey cradle his head between their hands and begin wrapping.
\nFabric crosses his throat—not tight enough to crush, but firm enough to limit movement. Another strip goes over his mouth, then his nose. Not sealed yet. Just partially obstructed, forcing every breath to work harder, louder inside his skull.
\nThe plaster is colder here.
\nIt creeps across his cheeks, his jaw, the bridge of his nose. His eyelashes flutter as a strip brushes them, sticking them together. Panic surges now, sharp and unavoidable.
\nHis breathing is labored.
\nAir still gets in.
\nBut not enough.
\n“Careful,” someone cautions. “We want the first loss clean.”
\nThe final layers are applied slowly, deliberately, until only narrow channels remain near his nostrils—thin, fragile passages that already threaten collapse as the plaster thickens and sets.
\nElijah’s lungs scream.
\nHe pulls against the paralysis with everything he has, instincts howling, body demanding motion that will not come. His breaths turn ragged, uneven, chest jerking uselessly beneath the cast that refuses to expand.
\nOxygen drops.
\nThoughts smear.
\nDark spots creep into the edges of his vision as his body begins the long, terrible slide into hypoxia.
\nAnd the witches step back.
\n“To begin,” one of them says softly, almost reverently.
\nElijah’s next breath doesn’t finish.
\n\n" }, { "ChapterNumber": 2, "ChapterName": "Part 2", "ChapterURL": ".", "ChapterSummary": ".", "ChapterContent": "\n\n\n\n\nPlaster Saints
\nPart 2
\nElijah dies quietly.
\nThere is no dramatic thrashing—no last defiant gasp. His body can’t manage it. The cast holds him in absolute stillness, a statue forced to suffocate from the inside out. His chest jerks against the plaster one final time, lungs scraping uselessly for air that won’t come, and then the reflex breaks.
\nThe burn in his chest peaks and snaps.
\nDarkness floods in, heavy and immediate.
\nFor a moment—an eternal, weightless moment—there is nothing.
\nThen his heart restarts.
\nIt slams back into motion with a violent jolt, like a fist punching upward from inside his ribcage. His lungs reflexively try to drag in air—
\n—and hit the same immovable wall.
\nConsciousness returns in a rush of agony.
\nElijah wakes choking.
\nNot coughing—he can’t cough. His diaphragm spasms, desperate, convulsing uselessly beneath the rigid plaster cage. The sensation is worse this time because his body remembers what oxygen is supposed to feel like. His vision swims back into focus only to immediately blur again, stars bursting behind his eyes.
\nPanic detonates fully now.
\nHis revived nerves scream their objections all at once. Every joint that was set wrong ignites with white-hot pain as sensation slams back into place. His shoulder feels like it’s tearing itself apart. His bent knee sends lightning through his hip. Pins and needles lance through his hands and feet, trapped in casts that refuse to let blood move properly.
\nHe tries to scream.
\nPlaster blocks it.
\nThe sound stays inside his skull, a muffled, animal noise that vibrates uselessly against sealed lips.
\nHe breathes again—shallow, frantic pulls through narrowing channels near his nose. Each inhale whistles faintly, obstructed, incomplete. Each exhale feels thicker, heavier, poisoned.
\nCarbon dioxide builds faster now.
\nHis vampire healing knits damaged tissue just enough to keep him alive—but it cannot give him air. It resets the clock and hands him the same ending.
\nHis chest burns.
\nNot fire—pressure. Like his lungs are swelling, trying to rupture their way free. His vision tunnels again, the edges closing in tighter this time. His heartbeat pounds erratically, loud enough that it feels like it’s shaking the plaster itself.
\nThe witches don’t move.
\nThey watch.
\nOne of them crouches near his head, eyes intent, studying the minute movements of his chest.
\n“See how he tries harder after revival?” she murmurs. “The instinct doesn’t dull. It sharpens.”
\nElijah hears her.
\nHearing is cruelly intact.
\nAnother breath fails halfway in.
\nHis body begins to betray him in smaller ways now. Muscles twitch uncontrollably beneath the cast, spasms rippling uselessly where motion should be. His jaw tries to clamp shut, but plaster holds it just ajar, trapping the tremor there.
\nBlack creeps in again.
\nThis time he knows what it is.
\nThis time he knows it won’t stop.
\nHe dies a second time slower.
\nHis consciousness fragments, thoughts breaking apart into flashes—faces, guilt, unfinished promises—before even those dissolve into nothing. His heart stutters, then stills.
\nSilence.
\nAnd then—
\nPain.
\nRevival hits like being dragged backward into his own corpse.
\nHis heart restarts violently enough that he feels it echo through his bones. His lungs convulse, dragging air through passages that are now partially collapsed with set plaster. One nostril is almost completely blocked.
\nThe air he gets is not enough.
\nNot even close.
\nElijah sobs.
\nHe can’t help it.
\nThe sound is trapped, swallowed by the cast, but the sensation rips through him anyway—great, shuddering, silent sobs that rack his chest until the plaster digs in cruelly, punishing the effort.
\nHis eyes are open now.
\nWide.
\nWet.
\nTears leak sideways into his hairline, nowhere to go.
\nHe understands.
\nThis is the point.
\nThis is the punishment.
\nDying isn’t the torment—reviving is. Being forced back into awareness just long enough to realize nothing has changed. That the plaster is still there. That his lungs are still caged. That every breath is a countdown.
\nTime stretches unbearably between deaths.
\nMinutes feel like hours. Seconds feel like knives.
\nBy the third suffocation, his panic has nowhere left to climb. It curdles into something worse—desperation stripped of hope. His breaths come shallow and fast, wasting oxygen, his body sabotaging itself in terror.
\nHis vision flickers like a dying candle.
\nBy the fourth, his body starts to give up sooner.
\nThe burn comes faster.
\nThe darkness is gentler.
\nAnd that realization—that it’s getting easier—terrifies him more than anything else.
\nSomewhere far away, magic cracks.
\nThe witches tense.
\n“Someone’s here,” one snaps.
\nElijah doesn’t hear the fight.
\nHe’s drowning in the fifth revival when the first fracture splits the plaster across his chest—a sharp crack that sends a spike of pain through his ribs as fresh air finally rushes in.
\nIt’s violent.
\nToo much.
\nHis lungs seize, coughing reflexes slamming into casts that still hold his throat and jaw. Air floods his system like fire, burning on the way down. He chokes, body jerking uselessly as hands tear at the plaster around his face.
\nLight explodes into his vision.
\nSound crashes back all at once—shouts, spells breaking, someone swearing his name with raw fear.
\nThe plaster comes off in pieces.
\nEach break is agony.
\nBut air—real air—keeps coming.
\nElijah drags it in greedily, violently, body shaking as oxygen finally, finally reaches starved tissue. His heart races wildly, trying to catch up, trying to believe this is real.
\nWhen the last of the head cast is ripped away, he gasps openly, chest heaving against still-rigid plaster.
\nHe’s alive.
\nHe knows that.
\nBut his body doesn’t trust it.
\nNot yet.
\n\n" }, { "ChapterNumber": 3, "ChapterName": "Part 3", "ChapterURL": ".", "ChapterSummary": ".", "ChapterContent": "\n\n\n\n\nPlaster Saints
\nPart 3
\nElijah doesn’t understand rescue.
\nNot at first.
\nAir is coming in, yes—but his body refuses to believe it. His lungs claw desperately, overcorrecting, dragging in too much too fast, then stalling as if bracing for the next failure. Each breath is jagged, uncontrolled, tearing at a throat that was never meant to work against resistance like that.
\nHe’s still suffocating.
\nEven though the cast around his face is gone, his chest remains locked. Plaster cages his ribs, holds his diaphragm hostage. Oxygen reaches him in erratic bursts, enough to keep him conscious, not enough to calm the animal panic screaming through his nervous system.
\nHands grip his shoulders.
\n“Elijah—Elijah, look at me.”
\nKlaus’s voice cuts through the chaos like a blade. Too sharp. Too loud. Elijah’s eyes flicker toward the sound but can’t settle, darting wildly, unfocused. His pupils are blown wide, swallowing the blue entirely.
\n“I can’t—” Klaus chokes, then steadies himself. “I can’t get it off fast. The pressure—Freya, if we—”
\n“I know,” Freya snaps, already glowing faintly with magic. “I know.”
\nShe presses her palms to the plaster over Elijah’s chest and whispers a spell meant to soften, not shatter. The cast warms, then trembles, microfractures racing across its surface.
\nElijah feels all of it.
\nEvery vibration sends pain spearing through his ribs. His nerves, starved and abused, misfire wildly—burning cold, electric heat, stabbing pins all at once. His body jerks reflexively, a violent attempt to curl inward that the cast still won’t allow.
\n“Easy,” Klaus pleads, hands tightening. “Please—stay with me.”
\nElijah tries.
\nHe really does.
\nBut his lungs suddenly lock again, seizing mid-breath, and terror explodes fresh and absolute. His heart rate spikes, then stutters. His body remembers the pattern too well.
\nIn.
\nFail.
\nDarkness.
\n“No—no—he’s crashing,” Freya says urgently.
\nElijah’s vision dims, greying at the edges. His hearing dulls, Klaus’s voice warping as if underwater. His body is convinced this is another cycle, another death it must endure.
\nThen the plaster breaks.
\nA section over his sternum caves inward with a sharp crack, and the relief is immediate and overwhelming. His chest expands violently, lungs dragging in air so hard it hurts, oxygen slamming into starved tissue like acid.
\nHe screams.
\nThe sound tears free of him raw and broken, shredding his throat. His body convulses as breath finally becomes instinct again, no longer rationed, no longer stolen.
\nKlaus swears and gathers him closer, bracing him as more of the cast is peeled away in chunks. Each piece removed unleashes a new wave of pain—blood rushing back into limbs that scream their protest, nerves flaring alive after prolonged abuse.
\nElijah sobs openly now.
\nNot from fear.
\nFrom overload.
\nHis arms are freed next. They fall uselessly to his sides, hands curling involuntarily as sensation crashes back too hard, too fast. His shoulder gives a sickening pop as the forced angle is released, pain blinding and nauseating.
\nHis legs are worse.
\nWhen the bent one is finally released, his body arches reflexively, a hoarse cry tearing from him as his hip and knee rebel violently. He shakes uncontrollably, muscles spasming as circulation returns in brutal surges.
\nFreya is pale.
\n“Klaus,” she whispers. “He… he died. More than once.”
\nKlaus already knows.
\nHe can feel it in the way Elijah clings to each breath like it might be taken away again. In the way his eyes dart every time his lungs pause between inhale and exhale. In the way his body flinches violently whenever his breathing naturally stutters.
\nElijah is free.
\nBut his body doesn’t believe it.
\nMinutes pass. Then more.
\nHis breathing never quite evens out. Every so often, his lungs hitch—just for a fraction of a second—and Elijah panics, gasping violently, nails digging into Klaus’s arm as if to anchor himself to now.
\n“I’m here,” Klaus murmurs, over and over. “You’re breathing. You’re safe.”
\nElijah shakes his head weakly.
\nHe can’t speak.
\nEvery time he tries, his throat tightens, sealing reflexively, afraid of losing air again. His eyes squeeze shut, tears leaking freely as his body betrays him one last time—his heart skipping, breath stalling, muscles locking in remembered terror.
\nFreya presses a hand to his forehead, gentle now. “It will pass,” she says softly. “Your body learned the wrong lesson. It thinks stopping is inevitable.”
\nElijah nods faintly.
\nHe understands.
\nThat might be the cruelest part.
\nLater—much later—when the shaking slows and his breaths finally deepen, he lies exhausted between them, plaster dust still clinging to his skin like a shroud he can’t quite shed.
\nHe doesn’t sleep.
\nEvery time he drifts, his body jolts him awake, lungs demanding proof.
\nSo Klaus stays.
\nCounting breaths out loud.
\nOne.
\nTwo.
\nThree.
\nUntil Elijah finally, tremblingly, dares to believe the count won’t end.
\n\n" } ] }