inspired by the hush sound song "eileen"

A young woman moves through the house- restless, she walks faster through the bare white hallways, her feet cold on the polished wooden floor. Pictures hang on every wall. She can’t look at them. The kitchen window is open, and she runs to it. Long white curtains flow around her like water, embracing her. She touches them as they brush her, silently pleading for something more. But they flit away as the breeze dies. She leans out the window for several minutes, searching for something. The moon is bright and full, and it washes her yard in silver. But nothing moves except the clouds. She closes the window, smoothes the curtains, and walks back to bed. The next night she is down by the lake, looking out from a pile of rocks on the shore. She hugs her jacket around her- the night air is cold. But then she sees a flash of silver under the surface, and her eyes grow huge. She dives in after it, losing her jacket to the pull of the water, swimming frantically after a slight glow that darts ahead and back and turns…but it’s nothing, just a fish, and it darts away. She drags her feet back to shore, and shivers uncontrollably at the wheel as she drives home. The bed mocks her, calling softly, promising rest but only giving memories. One more night of visions, of that golden field, dancing about with an angel. The child had been beautiful. Her eyes were so deep blue they seemed black, and her hair was the same light straw honey color as her mother’s, but curled. She laughed as the woman swung her around, they ran through the wheat to the picnic basket, food all laid out on the blanket, her husband sitting on the edge, smiling at them. Then the woman carries her child to bed, singing. The girl grips her nightgown, begging to stay up a little longer. The woman frowns. This is unusual- Eileen usually goes to sleep without a sound- the child is always so content, but tonight she is unhappy. She sings to the girl, comforting her, and brushes her hair back, bends down to kiss her. “We’ll see you in the morning, Eileen…” As the woman’s lips brush the child’s skin, she dissolves, breaking up beneath her, and the woman jerks awake in bed once again, the morning sunlight shining down and making the room, her bed, her eyelashes, and the empty crib all golden once again.

art?

so there's this online particle simulator I've been messing about on, and basically I create something I like and then I screenprint it. As the title implies, I dunno if this counts as art, but I like it. So here's some of my screenshots:

tree-cave


Drown


Microcosm/macrocosm


whose fault


The end result, or, What I could make out of this


Take the heat


Dissolve, or, It would really be nice if you/I could stop hurting me like this


My eyes are bleeding, or, variations 1


No-name, or, variations 2


Despair, or, variations 3


Please don't take those pictures down


The forest, or, Faces


We're burning


Stars


Abstract


Mistakes, or Sand dunes


Nebulous one


The beginning of all things


Leaving


Bubbles, or, I guess that's going to have to be enough, or, My hair out your window


Uh-oh


We saw it coming, or, Oblivion, or, Maybe it's better that way?

Mute, rape scene

I could feel my heart beating in all my veins as I stood in front of the house at a quarter to three in the morning. The sky was at its darkest. The velvet shade of black-blue lay over the top of tiny, bright pebbles that were scattered across the sky. It seemed as though my mind had been stirred around and around until it swirled and melded into the night. My thoughts were vague and confused, trailing off before they had started like faces in a column of smoke. The ones I did keep were all of her. She never trusted me, not from the beginning. Even when I first saw her, a lovely child of six, with soft black curls and strange dark eyes, every piece of her held mistrust. I was angry. What had I done to earn it? What I wanted to see…her dark eyes large and sweet and earnest, the way she looked at her mother, or her brother. All I wanted was her trust, whispered the first me. Wanted….said the second. Now what do you want? A third argued; No, it said, you wanted more. I twisted away from the poison words, seeking inside me like living things to find what hurt the most. I had to stop them; I crouched and dug at my ears, trying in vain to stop what was already inside. She knew what you wanted…she always knew…I crouched and fought with the shadows in my head. When I straightened up several minutes later, ten bloody crescents added their number to the hundreds of identical scars that already marked my flesh. When I stood up, I was ready. There was no more thought in my mind, I had blanked it out with a strong white light. All I was, was the movement that carried me. It swung me up onto the pilings of the low roof from the trellis that climbed the side of the house. It pushed me smoothly into a crouch and crawled me up the roof to the ledge below her window. My fingers gripped the edge.
I woke up silently, the same way I lived my days. There was nothing in the room except the ghost of fear. He wrapped himself around me in his familiar place, cutting off my air once again. I couldn’t move. The room was silent and empty, sitting like a painting in front of my wondering eyes. The moonlight filtered down through the curtains and lit up the room with a murky blue light that shifted and changed as if the whole scene was underwater. The room seemed surreal, suddenly growing from the flat falsity of the painting to a full, overwhelming tide. Everything seemed both radically real and unreal. I felt glued to my bed, weighed down by sleep and fear.
My continuing motion felt strange, as if it was the only real part of me, and if I were ever to stop, I would cease to exist, blown apart on the winds of an angry universe. I pulled myself into the room and crouched on the sill, blocking the moonlight from her face. She stirred as my shadow fell across her, and suddenly the world turns. I see the scene from her bed. His darkness crowds the window with muscle. The moon sheens off of his skin and turn his edges silver…he swings down onto the floor quietly and crouches, a pile of dark muck on a clean floor, mud with glinting eyes. He scurries under her bed…As soon as my eyes broke from her face I was myself again, lying splayed face-up on the carpet, silently breathing, my chest rising and falling quickly, my face warm with the excitement of the break-in. I waited.
Slowly, a more rational piece of me surfaced from sleep. It was nothing. The small noises I had heard were nothing to be afraid of, just a mouse under the floorboards, an old house creaking in the wind. I sat up. The room said nothing, unresponsive to my act of defiance. Fear hung just above me, poised like a tsunami wave. I challenged it, moving the covers from my legs and swinging them towards the edge of the bed. Water broke over me, heavy with sweat and fast-moving lungs. I couldn’t get enough air. The fear spun me around in an inexorable current of hysteria as my feet traveled to the carpet and I stood up. In a hideous moment of disbelief and knowledge a rough, strong hand shot out from under the bed and took my ankle in an iron grip. The column of muscle attached pulled me off my feet and onto the floor.
I saw the foot, dainty as a doll’s, as it touched onto the carpet. I saw the bed rise with the lifting of her weight. I saw the moment where she could not get away. I pulled her legs out from under her in one motion. It was remarkable how silent her struggle was. We both knew she was voiceless, but even the way she moved was laced with quiet. She hit the floor with a muffled thump which seemed too small, even for such a slight body. I pulled her legs in toward me, my strength catching at the resistance of her hands clutching the bedframe. I felt her fingernails bend and break, scraping across the wooden board, leaving bloody scrapemarks I could almost see. She had gone to sleep in the dress, and exhaustion was painted on her tiny features as she struggled with me. Her mouth was a hard line, pressed together with effort. Her fear no longer showed, though it was brilliant the moment her face left the light. It shone with a light of its own, white and innocent, her large black eyes crowded with helplessness. But the light went out when she saw my face, once again, just like all the other times over the past eight years. It made me angry, how she shut down when she saw me, how the knowledge showed in her face. She knew the moment she woke what would happen. She knew I was there. I ripped at her dress cruelly, twisting the dark netting into her skin, which unrolled like a bolt of white silk where the blackness parted. The fear blazed again in her eyes and she fought me more strongly than I had thought possible. Desperation flew about her head like a cloud of flies, buzzing loudly. I could hear it. She was weakening. After all, she was a girl of twelve, and I was seventeen, nearly grown. And I was strong. Bonds of muscle moved with me, covering every weakness with a rippled tide. I was immersed once again in long hours of painful labor, the work that brought them there. Years of it. All for her.It had been so long since I had seen her last… my thoughts were an abstract picture above my head as my body pinned her down. I let them trail on. It hadn’t really been that long at all, spoke another piece of me, just a few weeks, but it felt like forever. My family said that I hadn’t been feeling well, and they kept us apart…It was difficult to take off my jeans while holding her down. They stuck and pulled at my thighs, and I thought briefly that I should have thought, should have worn something else. Frustration clouded my mind, closing in as quickly as a hurricane. She was still fighting. Why? Some part of me wondered, she knows she can’t do anything, why not accept my love? I pushed her down hard, anger getting the better of me again. Her mouth opened and closed quickly, like a marionette on strings, noiseless. For the first time I noticed the tears on her face. They were the only things that betrayed weeping- her face showed no softness. I didn’t know why- I felt soft for her. I tried to kiss her, but she bit me, hard, drawing blood from my lips. I laughed. “Rough is how I like it,” I remember telling one of my girlfriends, after she punched me, accidentally, during sex. I was remembering that night as I ground down upon the sobbing girl. I hadn’t heard her make a sound in two years, but she squeaked as I broke her, a tiny whistling of air as I pried her mouth open and stuck my tongue down her throat and blood stained the tip of my penis. It was wonderful, a singing chorus of pure ecstasy, and then it was over, and I felt finally, utterly satisfied.

Mute *in progress*

When I met her I thought that she was the most singularly silent person I had ever seen. She personified the word in every movement, in every strand of hair. She shone, but so quietly that it was almost impossible to see her if you weren’t looking. She was so beautiful that you could not believe you had overlooked her once you noticed. It wasn’t until much later that I realized how much she had to say, and how incredibly important it was that she be heard.
When I was first introduced to her it was with the whisper of mute in my head, and she knew right away. The moment she saw me, I saw disappointment unfold within and about her like a familiar flower. I was immediately taken aback by the fall of soft hair and the sweet features of the girl. I had expected to be on a date with a freak, a retard, and here was a lovely woman with the largest and most expressive eyes I had ever seen on a human being. But they weren’t directed at me; the girl looked at her mother once, with a gaze that communicated nothing but appreciation and love. Then she turned away and walked with me down the firefly-lit streets of our quiet little town. The wind was warm, and the stars were just beginning to show through the fading light. I walked beside her silently, both attracted to her and unsure of how to treat her. I didn’t know how to talk to her- she was so self-contained, so comfortable in her own silence. She did not look at me, but walked watching the light fade from the trees and sky around us, as the night opened up its softly lit mouth and swallowed us both.
I coughed awkwardly. She turned and looked at me, like she might be trying to figure me out or something.
“I, um, I was wondering…uh,” I said, trying to start some kind of conversation. “uh, so, do you go to Trenson Prep? ‘Cause, yanno, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you at Northend High…”
She signed quickly, hands moving so fast I could hardly make out the words.
“I go to Northend...it was almost Trenson, but we couldn’t afford the tuition.” I felt horribly awkward. My family had never had money problems… plus, it’s odd to be the only one speaking in a two-way conversation. I suddenly felt like I was talking too loud.
“Oh…uh, yeah, Trenson’s pretty steep…but you got in? That’s a really good school…” I trailed off, again. Why couldn’t I think of anything to say? She shrugged and turned away. I felt discouraged. Was that all she was going to say? What did I have to do to get this girl to talk?
“Uhm…so you’re a sophomore then?” I said, too quickly.
“yes,” she signed, “I’m In your math and English classes.”
“Oh…sorry, I guess I never saw you.”
“I sit in the back.” She said.



Storyline:
Cancer of vocal chords when young, had to be surgically removed, totally lost power of speech. Was around….six to ten? Young enough to still be very innocent, old enough to remember and understand the loss. Man, perhaps uncle or mother’s boyfriend, or maybe even her boyfriend, is still in love with her after she breaks it off and bent on revenge. Already had some mental issues (modeled after colin) he is further twisted by the breakup. Eventually finds and rapes her/almost succeeds in rape? (She is in her bedroom, sleeping fitfully. This is narrated in his perspective. (“crept through the curtains, quick as the cold wind, slowly exploring the room where you sleep, the stare of your portrait, the passing of your scent, left me no choice but to stay…I will dissolve into the dark beneath your bed, my hands will wait for a taste of your skin…” she hears a sound and sits up sudden, wide-eyed and voiceless in the dark. She sits there silently, staring into the empty room for several minutes. Finally, a foot slips slowly, shakily out of the covers. She touches down to the ground softly as a feather, fear crawling on her spine, and a hand reaches from under her bed and pulls her to the floor. Screams echo in her wide-open eyes as she claws at the bedframe. She is pulled underneath in one smooth motion, her broken nails leaving streaks of blood on the wood.) After that is when she becomes so silent. Her lack of ability to scream for help traumatized her deeply and convinced her that her only refuge is in being unnoticed. Goes on blind date with narrator roughly 7-10 years after the (almost?) rape. This is one in a series her mother has set up, trying to get her to be more social, so she can have a semblance of normal life. Narrator falls in love with girl, and she likes him but does not love him. Eventually, they learn that the man who raped her is out of prison and is after her, narrator is forced to pack her up and secretly move her out of the country, perhaps Mexico or Brazil or something. They live in this remote location for a while. He is convinced they are safe but she is not, always fearful, which strains their relationship. Eventually, the rapist finds them and shows up with a big knife, narrator dies to save her, and she kills the rapist herself after she realizes that she is in love with the narrator as he dies. Story ends with her hope for the future.

On the narrator: (Allen)
He does have significant faults: very fixated on her from the beginning, much like the earlier man, which leads to her mistrust of him. (see “out through the curtain” for his feelings when she won’t see him for a while—this is because she realizes how he thinks of her. He is somewhat overdramatic, and is at the same time extremely sure of himself and very doubtful of his worth. Low self-esteem, but also a great confidence that he is right.

On the main character: (Lira)
She is mainly very self-sacrificing. Also low self-esteem, but expressed in a more conventional way, through extreme withdrawal from society. She does everything in her power to stay unnoticed. Her main fault is that despite the fact that she tries to put others first, she has very little empathy as a result of being an only child and withdrawing from society. She is terribly bad at seeing things from another person’s point of view, so although she tries to be kind, she often does the wrong thing. Irony-named for musical instrument but can’t make a sound. Not sure about her own soul- good or evil? Sees the good in others, they shine like a light, but she doesn’t see it in herself.

On the rapist: (Kaleb)

Rain

Rain in the morning;
draw shadows on my walls,
and fingers down my window.
Fill the world with your greying mist,
and bring ghosts to my doorstep,
and wraiths to my windows,
and spirits from my walls.
In the muted light of your passing,
show me the quiet tragedy
of this world.
Wash away my sins, and the dust from my journey.
Wash away the good and the bad,
the cruelty and the kindness,
the indecision, the unhappiness, and the doubt.
Wash away my heavy thoughts, and my world.
Leave me clean and alone, deep in your soul,
with nothing but the sound
of rain in the morning.

Sacrifice

The worst part is, I didn’t even care about him. Not even after. Even after this boy made the word sacrifice mean more than it ever has to anyone in the world. I never understood the true meaning of anything, until he came along. I guess that now, looking back, he changed my life. How could he not have? What happened between us, so strange, so powerful, and yet in a way it did not include me. He was the one who felt all of these insanely powerful things, and I never even loved him. I disdained to even speak to him, and it seems to me that I have been the cruelest person in the world, and yet I would not change what I have done. I suppose now, I should tell you the whole story, from the beginning, of what happened between me and Edgar Allen Poe.
My name is Annabelle Lee. We were both young, we met in such a small, normal way, and looking back, after all that has happened, it seems so ridiculous to have met this boy who would be such a catalyst in my life simply at a party. I was bored, glancing around the room restlessly. My eyes landed for a brief second on a skinny, unremarkable young boy, with black hair and black, soulful eyes. He looked back at me as though he had been struck dumb and deaf and blind at birth, and now for the first time in fourteen years, he could speak and see and hear. He walked over to me, as if in a dream.
The very first wrong I committed, happens here. I looked away disdainfully, disgustedly. Pride has always been my sin of choice. He came up to me and I instantly acted bored and annoyed.
“What do you want?” I said, impatiently, “You’re making a fool out of both of us.”
He looked at me, stricken beyond my capabilities to describe.
“I don’t know why,” he said carefully, “I don’t know how, but I am in love with you.”
I laughed. It is sickening in retrospect, but that is what I did, I laughed, sharp and mocking.
“Don’t be an idiot.” I said pityingly. “There’s no such thing as love.”
He looked at me once, solemnly. He seemed to be steeling himself for something. I think in that moment he knew what his fate would be and he accepted it. He didn’t try to steer himself off of that careening deadly path. He knew where it would end.
He followed me like a dog. He would tag along after me everywhere he could possibly be allowed. He never declared his love again, but he would do my bidding exactly.
One instance of this obedience stands out for me. I remember that he had always been a very kind soul. He would stop to untangle a dog from a leash it had wound around itself. He would sit with the beggars and help them forage and beg for food. He helped up those who would fall. I hated his kindness. It seemed as if he was rubbing his goodness in my face. I knew I could never be good like that. Once, he stopped to untangle a bird that was caught in a tangle of fishing wire along the beach. He stooped down to help it, and I turned, angrily.
“Stop.” I commanded. He stopped as if he could not disobey. He looked down at his hands, and spoke softly.
“I think he is hurt.”
I saw what I could do, right that moment to cause him as much pain as I needed.
“Then end it.” I said, coldly. He looked at me, stricken. Disbelieving. He reached toward the bird, slowly. I wanted to see him become a monstrosity. Just like me. I wanted him to be a sinner like me. He went to snap its’ neck.
“No,” I said, the triumph clear in my voice. “Make it suffer. Slowly. Pull on the wires instead.”
He looked as though he was about to cry. He pulled on the tangle of netting, slowly. The bird was already so ensnared it could do no more than struggle feebly. I saw him choke out a sob as its’ wing broke under the pressure. You could see the pain in its eyes. You could see it knew it was doomed. I rejoiced in the look on his face. He was trying to bury his empathy for the creature. I saw his eyes go dull as the wires sliced through the bird’s wing, broke off its leg, and finally snapped the little creature’s neck. He stood up slowly and placed the broken creature in my hands.

The Garden

The front gate was ornate, steel wrought and plated with extravagant designs of gold leaf. The tall stone gateposts each held a stone flowerpot overflowing with bloated, sick-red blooms. Fat tendrils curled sinuously about each pillar. A girl stood curiously by the gate. The old mansion that had once looked over the vast gardens had now been swallowed by them. They had pulled down the house piece by piece, wrenching and ripping, dismembering the once-proud building until it was no more than a crumbled ruin. The girl considered the gate, with almost comical seriousness. After a few moments of silent contemplation, she walked up to the gate, and unhesitatingly slipped through the bars.
They say you choose your own fate;
And that is what the girl has done. There are still skinny cobbled paths through the gardens, overhung by crooked trees. She takes the one that winds its way between thick holly bushes, heavy with their ruby berries, their sleeping berries. Their fragrant branches brush past her, hoping to tempt her with the poisonous fruit. But she is not hungry, and she walks on past the gripping spiked leaves.

The Church

A girl walks into the old church, shiningly happy. She almost skips over the dark stone of the threshold, calling out brightly into the empty room.
“Father?” “Father Prishna?”
No answer. Her call echoes off the gilt walls. A massive figure, much too large to be dealing with such a small creature, steps out from behind one of the decorated marble pillars. He wears a mask. She steps back, almost unconsciously.
“Where is the Father?” she asks, hesitantly.
The man does not reply, but steps forward suddenly and grasps the girl by her hair, jerking her to her knees, smashing her against the flagstones hard enough to draw blood. He bends her head back so that her horrified eyes see only the mural on the ceiling. It is beautifully painted, and as everything in the church, it is heavy with obvious value. He pulls a smooth silver executioner’s axe from the shadows behind the pillar, and hefts it in one hand, with practiced ease. The muscles in his arm ripple with effort as he swings it smoothly down.
The girl has no time even to scream before the soft white skin of her neck is broken. Only a hard gasp comes from her severed windpipe as the blood pours out of her. Onto the floor it spills, soaking into the mortar and staining the flagstones. The faceless man picks her up, and her head lolls back. He carries her to the alter and sets her in the arms of a statue of Mary. The blood drips in rivulets from the gaping wound in her neck. Hours later, Dark beings begin to stir beneath the soil. The blood of innocents, violently spilled and unwillingly taken, soaks into their souls, giving them life, until that time when a vengeance is taken on the murderer.
The big man cleans his axe methodically in the small porcelain sink of the closetlike bathroom. He is so tall that he must bend his head under the small roof. He looks even more massive in this tiny room. It barely contains him. He strokes the shining blade with thick fingers until the last stains of red are rubbed away. An emaciatedly skinny man with thinning hair and an unpleasantly false face stands in the doorway behind him.
“Come,” he says, “We must prepare for the demons.”

The Black Forest

I pass a yellow streetlamp pouring out its light between dark pines, leaning so as to make an archway, menacing the butter-golden light, which passes between dimmed and anxious. The light meanders meekly on, lighting a path between the tall trees. I walk in. the forest curves over my head like a cathedral. I feel like Hansel or Gretel, peeking in between the trees set like teeth in a comb, shadows falling like matchsticks. The light fades behind me, barred with trees, and now it is almost gone, a beacon to guide me back. I look forward into the dark world. it seems almost like I have stepped into a fairy tale; not the sugary-false tales modified for children of today, but the beautifully woven, dark, and menacing tales of the Grimm brothers; the children killed and eaten by witches, carried off by faeries, raised by bears and wolves. I shiver and imagine a spiteful wing flutter behind a tree ahead of me, green and yellow eyes surrounding me as Spanish moss suddenly grows long and hangs down from every branch. Suddenly I feel the urge to turn around quickly. I force myself to walk on, a little more quickly than before. There is something about these woods, something magic and haunted, something faerie tale, dark and beautiful. I come to a little bridge across a stream. A curved little bridge, with carvings all around and through it. I almost expect to find a little girl here, lost and crying, or a troll, or an old woman (who's really a faerie) begging for food. I cross it, with the strange sensation that I am crossing into another world.
As I step down onto the ground on the other side of the little bridge, the world seems to gather and twist around me. I stumble and try to catch my balance but it's the world that is dizzy, not me. Suddenly, the universe snaps back to clarity like a giant rubber band. I rub my eyes and look around. The bridge has disappeared, and in the place of the stream is a deep gorge and white water barely covering jagged rocks at the bottom. I step back from the edge, and I see the forest transformed. Colors seem both brighter and more unreal. Small golden lights float like motes of dust in the sunlight- except no sun filters through the thick canopy. Only silky moonlight finds the forest floor. Florid flowers larger than any I have ever seen open before my eyes, pointing towards the crescent moon. The world seems deceptively pretty, danger lurking just beneath the overpowering sweet scent of the flowers. Suddenly, a fluttering, a soft pair of wings twists into my view. The moth is iridescent, glowing softly with a light of its own. It is so beautiful as to be almost breathtaking. I gasp, captured by its loveliness, and I feel a wondrous floating sensation, so soft, so beautiful. My brain protests for a moment, tries to regain control, but it's too late. I stumble after the gorgeous creature, helplessly following in its winding, seemingly aimless path. It flies faster, higher, and I am running urgently after, following the light of its wings, the sparkle of glowing dust, and it is gone, flown into the moonlight, and I am surrounded by a dark glen. Here the trees grow high and block out the moonlight. A perfectly smooth, black pond gleams, sinister in the center of the clearing. Dark roots and vines seem to twist about my feet, holding me back as I walk warily toward the water. Suddenly, a rock half in the water moves, unfolds in the darkness. I stumble back too late remembering the black vines at my feet which twist around me as I fall, oh so slowly, crash on the ground, caught by dark roots which twist inescapably around my arms and legs as I struggle they grow tighter cutting into me, and a dark form leans over me and laughs, dark and vicious. As the vines grow over my head, muffling my screams and covering my eyes, he leans close and whispers to me. "You will never escape...shall I help you?" His tone is mocking. I struggle ever more violently, and he chuckles, and draws a sword, holding it toward me, blade first. The metal drips with a dark liquid that burns my skin. The vines pull me completely underground, and I dimly hear him sheath his sword. I am dropped down onto a cold stone floor. I look around. I am in an underground room, cobbled with stones. It is empty except for a torch on the wall. I take it, and search for the small pack of kitchen matches I had taken from the hotel bar earlier that day as a keepsake. The torch flared to life, revealing a low, damp dirt ceiling, and stone walls. I see a dark patch on the opposite wall, and walk toward it. The flaring light shows a hall, leading into the dark. I follow it, for what do I have to lose? I doubt I will ever return to my own world. The tunnel leads on, twisting and turning. More tunnels branch off the sides, and I know I am in a labyrinth. The maze is so complex that I begin to doubt my own senses, and wonder which tunnel I came from. But there is no way out behind me, so I walk on ahead. The tunnel branches again, but now I see not another twisting hallway, but a room, filled with light. I walk in, wondering if I will see a way out or just another mystery. As soon as I enter the room, I know that I am not seeing daylight. The light comes from a strange globe, like a miniature blue sun floating in the center of the room. I am mesmerized, drawn in like a moth to the light. It pulses softly, and seems concentrated on an object, spinning in the center... I reach in, and the light flows around my arm like water, pricks my skin softly with a cool fire. My fingers close around the object in the center, and I pull it out. A set of panpipes, formed from the same material as the light, but hard and solid and real. They sparkle with an unearthly light, and on them words are traced in light. "A fickle friend; use me wisely and I am yours, use me wrongly and I shall become your master." The words fade even as I read them. I loop the cord around my neck, and walk back to the labyrinth. Now I have an ally, and I feel stronger already.

storm

The wind is blowing so hard I can’t stand up straight. The rain lashes my body, driving me back into the walls. I can barely see through the rushing water, but I look up anyway, baring my teeth into the storm. Lightning flashes, striking at the ground, drawing a responding wave of adrenaline from my nerves. Wind rushes past so fast that it shakes the house to its foundations, making it creak and groan beneath me. I crouch until the moment passes, so as to not lose my footing on the steeply angled tiling of the roof. I climb further out, higher up, until there is nothing but the roof of the sky above me. And it is angry. Storm clouds boil above and lightning flashes and thunder rolls. I look up until I feel the vertigo tiling me. I fall into the sky, rising swiftly into the seething fury. I am out of control, whipped this way and that by gusts of wind, ripped away from my earthly bindings. Gravity, it seems, is no longer paying attention. I am rising at an alarming rate, through the melee, thunderheads crowding around me, pushing me back and forth between them. I am caught between them as they battle for superiority over my small, nowhere town. I am buffeted more and more roughly as I rise. I ride out of the storm clouds on a final barrage of hail-strewn wind. The night is clear and calm above the clouds, the stars shining so bright I can hardly look, blinding points of light in the darkness. I fall through space, suddenly seeming to be standing still, until I look back at the earth disappearing into the distance. I dance on the rings of Saturn for a breathless second, and then the solar system is gone. I fall forever into darkness, watching the stars move further and further apart. Suddenly I find myself wavering on the edge of nothingness, a chasm too wide to cross. I try to find my balance but it is already too late, I am falling from the edges of the universe and nothing can save me now my vision swims as I twist desperately toward the edge which seems now so treacherously far away it slips through my fingertips and there is no one and nothing here to catch me as i fall............

Roses

There was a rustle from the sweet-smelling bushes of the black roses that grew behind the campfire one calm summer night. The girl walked over quietly trying not to disturb the leaves at her feet. She parted the bushes, but there was nothing there. She walked further in among them as her friends called her back from the firelight. But now she was caught, her mind ensnared by the sweet perfume of black roses, and she walked further and further into the forest. By the time that a wisp of fresh air came down and returned her to her senses, it was too late. The branches had already started to grow up around her, strangely long thorns tightened about her lungs, and drew blood while stilling breath, slicing long gashes in her soft white flesh. Velvet petal twined about her face, softly silencing her screams, and she fell among the other bodies in the rosebush.

Forest

The long vines clung weblike to the tops of the trees, woven among their branches. A few long fringes descended delicately to brush my shoulder, or my hair. I shuddered and flicked away their clammy caresses. The journey to the heart of the forest, where the black river Euphres flows, and widens into first a bog then a cold, flat lake, is a long one, and a hard one, but not impossible. It was the fear that made most turn back, clinging fear perhaps brought by the way the close, tall trees blocked out even the tiniest shaft of sunlight, or perhaps by the myriads of tiny berries that hung from the vines like drops of blood glittering in the silver starlight. Maybe it was the cold yellow eyes that stare from behind seemingly every bush and tree. Or maybe it is the mushrooms- knee-high, cold, damp, and strangely like a human hand when they brush your leg. But most of all, I think it is the black river itself, which cuts the only possible path through the forest. I ran swiftly and silently through the trees, conentrating absolutely on where my feet must go to make no noise at all, for noise was frowned upon in this forest. Stepping swiftly on a bed of moss, I failed to notice the sharp, flat rock underneath, and suddenly i felt heady pain rush to me. But i did not cry out, knowing that crys lasted only seconds in this forest, and brought the crier no good, and much unwanted attention. I knelt and examined my foot. A dark line arched along my skin next to the bone, weeping blood. I bit back a curse and looked stealthily about for a bandage of some sort. Blood in the forest was little better than screams; it brought weres, ghasts, and even (if the old tales were true) sometimes a Sable. I quickly found a peice of dried moss, which could ooze none of its potent or maybe poisonous juices onto my wound, and a length of vine to wrap it with. I stood, testing my weight on the foot. It was no good. I would have to move slower now, and that meant spending the night in the forest. But i began to step forward anyway, just as quietly, if not as quickly. I continued to move forward, for the alternative was unthinkable, and just as dangerous. As I traveled on, a clinging white mist began to envelope me. The first of my trials had begun: I was entering the bog. within a few paces the mist covered everything. I felt dizzy. i could not see more than a few inches. vertigo sets in fast when you cannot tell which way is up. but i had to move forward, and the ground grew ever softer beneth my questing feet. Soon i had to bend low to the ground to find a solid path. there was no sure way through the thick bog that covered the center of the forest. I clutched at a stand of reeds, using them to guide me. I knew that they could not grow in quicksand or truly deep water. The rotting scent of the place rose up and choked me. the dark perfumes filled my lungs and stole my air. i felt faint. spots rose before my eyes, but i shook them away, and began to walk faster. that was the worst of the bog- it panicked you. and if you ran, you were lost. and if you were lost, you never came out. if the klin didnt get you, the lack of air would. i forced myself to slow, pushing the panic down hard. The bandage on my foot was coming undone, unravelling like the water snakes swimming just below the murkey surface. I stopped to retie it, crouching protectively over it with deft fingers flying. it was dangerous to stop for too long. I walked on, knowing i must keep my head or all was lost. I followed the beds of reeds, from one to another, feeling my way like a blind man, for what seemed like hours. I began to wonder if i had gone the wrong way. Suddenly the air turned cold. I froze, heart beating faster til i was sure he could hear my blood pumping...i was standing just a few feet from a ghast. i imagined i could see him through the mist, though his pale form would have been nearly invisable to me anyway. The cold was not going away. i felt as though it was incresing, imagined the ghast slinding toward me on insubstantial air, enveloping me with his clammy arms, ever so softly stealing my breath away, keeping my cold body to carry out his bloody rituals, always stronger when human blood, thinking blood, was used. i felt his presence....his dark thoughts clouding my mind. he must be very near now, i thought in a detached and careless way, he must be very near indeed...in fact, i thought, as the dim light seemed to grow dimmer, perhaps he has me already... it is always said you cant feel their grip until youre almost gone...and then it is too late. my thoughts spirialed off to find a happier world, and i began to sink downwards, slowly, as my oxygen was cut off by two shivery arms...NO! and suddenly NO i knew what was happening NO i knew what had to be done and i remembered the patch of red silk tied to my waist i took it and with my last breath of air blew it out into a tiny sail, whispering the strange words my mother taught me, those words of fire that would light up the night and burn this ghast to bitter grey ashes. The silk caught, and as my eyes darkened with the ghasts final, desperate attempts i saw it spin up and catch on something only slightly thicker than the air, and bright light branded the night. I sank to the ground, covering my eyes a little too late. When i looked up there was nothing but a burnt pile of soft, insubstantial ashes, and a black, charred rag. I walked on, fast as i could. I had broken the first rule of the forest: i had made myself known. nothing but speed could save me now.

August (poem version)

Poem version/edit
August in a troubled mind, and leaves are falling.
Lightly, and with a swish, they swirl darkly towards the
ground to pile up against her vision. They are black and
rotten:
it makes her want to cry.
World shouldn’t be this way.
leaves brush against her like spiderwebs.
She hates spiders.
Bands of gold reach down into the water like elongated fingers,
stretching for the mystery below, but they can never touch it.
Clouds like another world, cleaner, blanker,
vastly more,
complex and beautiful.
The loneliest place I ever saw was just
beyond my reach. From behind an airplane window I watched this world go by.
Piled spires like castles of white-and-grey cotton
spun from the finest and softest of thread, so fine and soft
that it wasn’t even real.
the not-me sees it from a different point of view;
great caves and tunnels and mind-numbing drops into the green
land below.
green, so pretty, but wounded too,
Diseased. Something grey with lights that shone too bright,
and rude.
saw it, the eternal they:
crawled sickeningly, growing, spreading
glad she was not there, like the mud in a microscope,
no matter how strange and lovely. Here, in the cold palaces of the sky,
nothing touches her.
And the clouds are so beautiful they hurt.

August

Chapter One- Rosemary


August in a troubled mind, and leaves are falling.
Lightly, and with a swish, they swirl darkly towards the ground to pile up against her vision. They are black and rotten and it makes her want to cry. The world shouldn’t be this way. The leaves brush against her like spiderwebs. She hates spiders.

Bands of gold reach down into the water like elongated fingers, stretching for the mystery below, but they can never touch it.
Clouds like another world, cleaner, blanker, but vastly more complex and beautiful. The loneliest place I ever saw was just beyond my reach. From behind an airplane window I watched this world go by. Piled spires like castles of white-and-grey cotton spun from the finest and softest of thread, so fine and soft that it wasn’t even real. Great caves and tunnels and mind-numbing drops into the green land below. Green, even lovely sometimes, but wounded, Diseased. Something grey with lights that shone too bright and rude crawled sickeningly, growing, spreading…she was glad she was not in the Land Below, however beautiful it was. Here, in the cold palaces of the sky, nothing could touch her. And the clouds were so beautiful they hurt.

castle in the sky *in progress*

It is late evening. The sun has smeared his last bloody rays across the lower clouds and then sunk into oblivion for the night. I watch as the sky sinks with him, from blue into black. The world is grey.
My small traveler cloud is about to dissolve, so I take up my rucksack and jump onto a long, low cloud bank. It spreads off into the horizon. I sit on the edge of infinity with the wind at my back, and look out across forever. The gale whips this desolate plain into small crests and troughs. They stretch on and on across the endless ocean in front of me. I know what lies before me. I leave my tiny pack of provisions sitting on the edge of nowhere, and I walk out into eternity.
In the beginning, I didn’t even know what eternity meant. I thought I was invincible. The rain spirits fell in the morning on the day I left, a rare occurrence. I woke up to the fresh smell of a banquet. Mother had harvested the broken bodies of the rain for a midmorning feast. The sharp sizzle and crack of frying food reached my ears as I stepped into the common room of our little cottage. She smiled and dished me up a heaping plate. As I ate, I watched the clock. Today was the day of my brother’s naming ceremony, a great occasion for the whole family. He would become a man, and be able to help our struggling family. He could work in the marketplace, or even be apprenticed to a craftsman and live in the castle! The possibilities overwhelmed me.
I gobbled the last bit of my breakfast and rushed out onto the carrier cloud which would take me to the castle gates. Mother came after me, fussing and clucking over me, the last of her brood. Once we passed the guardsmen, I raced ahead to find Geoffrey before his ceremony began. Skittering around the corridors of the castle towards the robing rooms, I bumped straight into the back of a stately old gentleman. He turned, and grasped my arm. “What’s the rush?” he hissed, baring a gruesome smile. I muttered into my shoes, and made to go off. “Wait,” he said, suddenly commanding. “Look at me.” I looked upwards into the intricately woven patterns of his deep grey eyes. He nodded judiciously. “You will have need of this.” he said. He took a small piece of yarn out of his pocket. In a few deft twists, it took the shape of a cat. He jerked out a piece of my hair with a swift movement. I yelped and held a hand to my head. “My apologies, Miss.” he bowed. “But I wouldn’t want to leave ye without a means of controlling him, now would I?” He winked as he wound the strand of hair around the cat’s neck, and handed him to me. I tucked the doll into my pocket. “Thank you very much sir,” I said, remembering my manners, before ducking off around the corner. I couldn’t find Geoffrey in the robing room, however hard I tried, and the tailors kept shooing me off. I sulked around the door until Mother came bustling about and caught me to go sit with her in the balconies.


*scene1*
The cat still slept in her pocket, and she knew what she needed. Or rather, she knew the name of what she needed. Blood. How hard could it be, she thought, to find this blood? Perhaps she could ask where to find it in a marketplace. But as she walked on and on across the soft, white desert, she saw no signs of a market, or even a house. Late into the night she wandered, finally falling asleep in a small nook of a carrier cloud from sheer exhaustion. Trying to wake cat-needs to think of blood(feeds off of thoughts) but doesn’t know what it is. Falls asleep on cloud that drifts down to form a thick fog—she can walk on the ground(happens once in a lifetime, about the odds of a human being tossed into the air by the wind. Walks through fog a few inches from ground. Stumbes into scene of a crime—someone is dead, jeweled dagger in heart? There is a streetlight by the scene with the top half of the bulb broken off. It is filled with blood, dripping slowly down the sides between the jagged glass. Electricity still runs to the light, and it gives off a sickening red glow. The blood is beginning to evaporate from the lamp, curling up in red-tinged swirls to poison the rest of the fog. She hears voices from the blood-wraiths. Screams and pleading and the faintest sound of the darkened thoughts of the murderer. His satisfaction as the lady slumps dead in his arms. Finds chest of jewels, covered in blood, dripping sinister almost reflective coating. She is hypnotized by them, (cloud-people cant touch anything solid, it will cut/disperse them) and reaches out to touch them, despite knowing they would take off her fingers. However as soon as she touches the blood (wasn’t expecting it to be so sickly, didn’t knw what it was) she cant think of anything but the blood on her fingers, stares at them in horror, and the cat wakes. Yawns showing bloody teeth. Speaks, dark and cruel, dishonest and brutal cold. But must guide her true because of the cord around neck. First meal in a long time. Tells her to get back to clouds if she wants to survive, (shell be cut off from her world when clouds evaporates) makes it back just in time to catch a low traveler cloud.

*scene2*
Just left city,(shaken) stowed away. Now has been thrown off by captain, because she has no money. Left dirty and shaken on godforsaken cloud bank. Sees black globes rising near the other edge. Walks over and watches them rise, almost hypnotized. Reaches out in trance and catches one. Looks into it, perfect black. Then feels surge of emotion from within the globe, and darkness begins to melt away. Sees child, starved thin, cut all over, hears sound of its death, loss of innocence is instant. Tortured soul scrabbles at the now-clear globe, trying to get out. Clearly it is a torture chamber for him. Stunned, lets globe float away. As she releases it, the black seems to pour onto it from unseen source, as the creature within struggles.

*3*
Thank god for that low-hanging cloud. The fog rolled in three days after L’rael stepped out of the sky. Three days after the blood spread over the street, and oozed over the cracked edges of the streetlamp that cut her when she tried to reach inside. Three days since human blood mixed with her own.

photograph

There's a picture on the wall in the upstairs bedroom of the house on the cliffs. The glass is broken. The girl in the picture is laughing, happy, in a long white dress, holding a glass of wine that is threatening to spill. She's not there anymore, run away from a father who hurt her, and a husband who drank. The one man inside prowls like a trapped cat, angry, a beer in his hand. The dog he would have kicked was gone, taken by his wife, the cat long since run away. He kicks the walls and furniture instead. Another picture of her; he holds it up, looking quietly at her face. He drops it, stepping carefully on the back of the frame. Glass crunches beneath his feet.

Belladonna

The dark towers of the forest were silhouetted against the lighter sky as she ran, dodging trees as big around as her father's truck, as tall as the skyscrapers in her old hometown. She ran easily and fast; the trees had shaded the forest floor so nothing could grow but giant boulders, and pale mushrooms as tall as a man. On and on she ran, her long black hair tumbling around her legs, her deep blue eyes alive with fear.
And as she ran, the shadows chased her; of her own making, they could do no less, goblins and ghouls, witches and haunts, shaped from the night and her fear. What did she fear? not her own death. She would never fear this, and she gambled with her life often enough to know it. Her fixation with death was absolute. As a child she had played with it, lovingly running knives across her flesh. The tiny blades she had made herself were pencil thin and brought death with a touch, killers at her command. But they couldn't cut shadows, and that was what she ran from, a dark secret, a terrible memory, a twist of fate, a bloody blade, and the stricken face that she could never, ever forget, one word playing over and over to the drumming beat of her footsteps: murdurer, murdurer, murdurer...
And as she ran, the men chased her. Big, strong men with hearts and hands of cold steel, their souls as black as the ill-fitting stealth suits they wore, their minds only large enough to hold one task. These were the men that tracked her, these were the men that caught her, too many for her, since she would not, could not use the knives; and they caught her and held her between them, helpless, but struggling as strongly as she could, biting and kicking and pulling at them desperately until one of them came up from behind and struck her a devastating blow to the head. cold steel crashed against her temple, and she crumpled into blackness. She woke up in a cell. Bare stone walls. Thick cell door with a barred window opening out into the moonlit night. That was too cruel. Then she remembered the one thing, the one precaution she took before she ran. With shaking hands, she reached up and unclipped the brace that held her smallest, poisoned blade to the roof of her mouth. She pulled it out slowly, carefully, knowing one tiny cut would end her. Finally the blade was in her hand. She held her breath and jiggled it in the lock. five minutes later, she was out, smiling, embracing the brilliant night. She reached in, through the barred window, to retrieve the knife that had saved her. With a sharp gasp she pulled her hand back, staring wide-eyed at the blood on her fingers. They found her the next morning, curled up outside the open cell door, free but no longer living, and the golden morning sun shone on white cheeks, red lips, and a crimson blade.