Old Birch Road

The crackle of the fire spilled into the stillness of the tavern, one of those quaint old historical places, a slice of time, the travel brochure describes them. Some-place to go and relax, to catch up on your roots, possibly meet your ancestors and have them be none the wiser. It seemed idyllic, they all do, the perfect place for Tyrell and Hannah, newly-weds, to go for their honeymoon, rubbing elbows with old people, young people, people who actually died. Unheard of, nowadays, with the human population expanding to cover all corners of the galaxy, new life had been met centuries ago.

"Nix, they called her, Nacht, Nox, Night, the Dark Mother." The wizened old man was starting up a story, evidently, one of the local folk-tales, and evidently a well worn one judging by the groans from his surrounding listeners.

"Oh give it a rest you old geezer, every body's heard the tale and no body believes it the way you say." One grumbles, throwing a hot potato chip in his general direction.

"Oh sure Lou! You young'uns always think you know the best ways of telling things, of the knowing, but you don't know nothing, I know, I were there. I met her. And she aint like the stories say." 

Hannah turns to her new husband, a hushed squeal in her voice "This place is the best!! Folk lore, fairy tales, old geezers and drunken brawlers! It's so authentic!" Her hands grab onto his arm as the patrons turn to look at them, a frown on a few faces as though unaware of how, or when, the pair got through the door. "Shh honey, just sit and watch. You know the rules." They go over to an empty table, and order a drink. 

"Give it a rest. Nix aint what you think she is you old geezer. She's a night terror that stalks the roads at night. Woe betide you if you stop to give her a lift, you aint ever going to see the sun again, forever riding down that one road, keepin' her company for the rest of your life." Lou continues with a bored tone of voice, another chip tossed at the elderly man "She aint sweet, she aint caring, and she most certainly don't ever let you go! Once you walk beside the Dark Mother, you aint walking nowhere else."

"You kin just sit down and hush yerself Lou, you aint got nothing but prejudice and hearsay to back up your story, I was there, I saw her. Now you gonna hush yerself up so that the new'uns can hear the tale?" The wizened, wrinkled old man, with white hair sticking out of his ears, turned and looked towards the newly-weds, while waiting for one of the crowd to pipe up and offer their opinion of the situation, or commentary about the quality of his story telling. "Didn't think so." 

He coughs, and clears his throat, a swallow taken from the mug on the table infront of him, to clear out his throat. Even out the roughness of age and too much to drink, the singularly unique manner in which he speaks smooths out as the story rolls along, until the lilt of his hoarse words is simply the way the story is told, with dips and bends, of the corners and the hitches in the road, all there, embedded in the aged pit of his mouth and long suffering tongue. 


I was a young'un of a sparse twenty three, I'd gotten through my teen years mostly unscathed, came out the other side with an apprenticeship and a career well on the way to making me a very rich and fine grandaddy for the kids that I'd yet to find the wife to make. I had the world on my shoulders and the head to know what to do with it, all pomp and class and ceremony and ego that you young'uns wouldn't recognise, but anyone who's seen more'n three score of years would know exactly what all I'm talking 'bout. I thought I was the all that, back then, the man of mans, a somebody, an important somebody goin' places. But I weren't. She knew that, and so's she told me, one night while I were driving through a crystal clear night along the old Birch Road – you know the one, the one what that's boarded up, with 'no through road' signs peppered across the entrance and exit, where the teens and kids dare each other to run up to, to touch a sign and run off else the witch'll getcha. Or some-such silly nonsense. 

Back in the day, when no one knew of Nacht, it were a road free to travel, smooth as anything you see today, but it weren't done by the robots and the machines and everythin' done to quite close parameters, math telling each one how much to put where and how to shape it so that it fits, nope. This were a road that was made by man and with rolling pins with motors, flattening everything out. This were the road where Nacht lingered, where she walked and was first seen, not even a month after the last wheel rolled away and the first car touched rubber to surface. You aint never sure where she came from, or why she chose that one road to wander beside, stories abound, she were a bride, widowed before her marriage day, her husband comin' to a mishap on his way to the church, something to do with the buildin' of Birch. Others say she ran away from home, and Birch was the road she met her end at, hitch hikin', only to run afoul of some unsavory sorts. Another tale I heard tell, she weren't never anything, she was just a little girl who got orphaned from a crash, and she walks the road lookin' for help, or her parents, and you cain't ever leave till you've done one or the other. 

It don't really matter where she came from, or why she's where she is now. All that matters is that her bonny brown eyes hold the very fires of hell to burn any who think of scorning her. It's why you don't ever leave, not walkin' beside her, and old Birch was the fastest way from town towards the living houses for the lads who had got themselves a bit more ineberated than would be purely safe for them to drive. Course, now you got to go back around the other end of town, takin' the long way. Old Birch is closed to traffic, even foot traffic, and any'un with a sane bone in their head'll know you don't walk down Birch, not with only the night as company. No sirree, that's one sure fire fast way to get yourself a widow of a wife.

Now, as I said, I weren't walkin' down Old Birch, I had better things to do with my time than walk along some road in the middle of a crystal clear night, I was goin' places, had things to do and was in a damn fine hurry to get there. And even then, with the road only a few years old, still as sparse and shiny as the day it were laid, there were rumours. Of folks walkin' home along its smooth edges after havin' a few too many and sent home without their car, never to be seen again, though folks thought that were drunken idiots not knowin' which way was north and lacking the damn fool sense to stay on the road rather'n wander off into the scrublands and get hisself stupid lost. So there weren't no way I was goin' to be walkin' down that fool road. 

Not even halfway down did I see her, she were a damn fine beauty, skin the rich luxury of chocolate, a dress as white as snow, flutterin' in the slight breeze, long black curls of hair tangling behind her. She were a damn fine sight from the angle I saw her, it weren't the best of nights, crystal clear and as cold as the flute of a champagne glass, and she looked to be a wee bit cold, you'd be too, wearin' what she was. No shoes nor anythin' to keep the heat in, nothing at all. Against what woulda been sense if I had the mind to think it, I stopped beside her, just a little ways ahead, and opened up the passenger door of me car. 

"Hey there Miss, you headed someplace?" I leant over to ask her, the door was open, blocking her way. She stopped and turned to look at me, and somewhere in the back of my head I started screamin', something was screamin' up a storm, but I weren't listening to that, I were looking at her. With the dark pools of her eyes, the slight parting of her dark lips and the flash of white, white teeth as she hesitated.
"No place special." She eventually replied, rubbing her arms as though still chilled, walkin' against the press of the wind on this crystal cold night. 

"I figure that I'm heading someplace special, or even a little bit more ordinary than that, if you'd like to get a lift, so your no place is a little closer?" She was captivating, sweet and fascinating, I couldn't get enough of lookin' at her, and not in the way you'd all be thinkin', there weren't any leerin' involved, like the young lads are wont to do when facin' a pretty fine slice of lady. She were almost precious, I could no more refuse her a lift than I could refuse to breathe. 

"Sure." She said to me, still hesitating, her hands stop the endless rubbing of her slender arms, to tuck her long skirt underneath her, to slip into my car and pull the door shut behind her. I admit I sat staring at her, damn fool that I was, mouth open, stunned and amazed beyond all ken or even thinkin' that she actually took up my offer. A pretty thing like her, no, more than pretty, perfect. Beautiful. Not in the way that the actors and models are, with the high cheekbones and slender bodies and rail thin frames, no, she were beautiful in a more earthy way, not an angel, not somethin' unknowable, in just a way where you could get to thinkin' mighty indecent things about her, all bundled up in a near nothin' bit of white cloth, thinkin' that maybe, if I played my cards right, I might get a little kiss at the end of the road, where I left her, and maybe a way to contact this beauty of the night. That ought to've warned me, a little, but course, I were ignoring such common sense things, like the screaming warnin' crawling up the nape of my neck. 

I put the car in gear, finally managin' to stop staring at her, to drive down old Birch, which was just Birch then. "You come from somewhere? It's a bit of a cold night, for a girl like you to be walking down the road a ways on their own." Strikin' up conversation I was, just to get her talkin', distracted from bein' in a car with a stranger, and maybe she'd get distracted enough to relax, so I didn't feel like I had a damn jumpin' jack in the passenger seat, rather'n an ebony beauty of such lush perfection. 

Again she looked at me, it were almost like she was lookin' into me, knowin' and hearing the screaming that I ignored, listenin' to each and every little part of me, to see who I was, who I thought I was, and just how safe she is to be in a car with me. "Some place a distance away. Just felt like walking." That's what she said to me, that's all she ever said regardin' where she came from, it weren't some story, it weren't some tragedy, she just took to the road one night, feeling like a walk, and here she is, going no where special, in no particular hurry, just walking along the road for the walk. Course, now I figure she aint limited to just walkin' old Birch, but all roads, all nights, have felt the press of the bare soles of her feet, but Birch is just one of many places, lucky or otherwise, where she could meet folks, get a bit of company along in her walk. Perhaps a ride to the nowhere, making the distance a little closer, just for that one night. 

Now time had passed, and I were noticin', in amongst our talk about nothin' special, that Birch weren't ending. It was a short road, five minutes at most, end to end, and I should've come up onto the end of it by now, twice over in fact, yet from the land marks, I couldn't have gone more than thirty yards from the start of it. Just as I started noticin' this she started starin' at me, watchin' me like a hawk, or a predator about to take the silly little rabbit in its jaws and crack the life out. As though waitin' for me to make the connection, and demand that she get out again, and walk along the damn fool road on her own, to be so rude. I nearly did too, nearly made comment about it, but my fuel weren't goin' nowhere, and she weren't such unpleasant company that it were any bother to me. 

By and by, with the road growing no shorter, and nothin' changing but my awareness of the passage of time, and her watching me so close like, as though almost impatient for... well, I'm sure you can figure it. Finally, I made a comment "I've noticed something odd here, no matter how far I take you, the road doesn't seem to be getting any shorter."

"Its the way things are, when you're going nowhere special." She replies, almost instantly, as though she had the answer prepared hours, days in advance, knowin' what I'd say. 

"You in any particular rush to get there?" The passage of time felt as though it were days, hours, long enough for my wearisome lookin' forward to my home and warm bed, had turned into a burnin' ache behind my eyes, a headache in my head and a tremble findin' its way down my fingers. She shook her head, still watching me closely, her eyes widening as I slowed down, and pulled the car over to the side. "You have my apologies, but I fear I haven't gotten you any closer to where you were going, it's been a very, very long day. This road is endless and I'll be needing to get myself some sleep, though I would love to take you the distance, just for your company, I fear if I drive any longer, I'll forget where the road is."

She looked surprised at that. More surprised than you'd think, I made no move to get out of the car, nor to ask her to leave, just undid my seatbelt and laid my seat back, flattening it as far back as it could go. "I am mighty sorry, I can't keep my eyes open." 

Silence, she was just watching me, staring, I could feel her eyes on me, watchin',starin'. It was a long, long night, for both of us I like to think. When I finally fell asleep, it were a sleep of angels, as though I were on the softest down, held in the warm, lovin' arms of the wife I'd yet to find, and she were the sweetest thing on this side of the moon. "Nacht." I heard whispered in my ear, a soft, warm palm stroking over my head, the sensations weaving through my dreams, sweetness and sound and it was so very warm. "You can call me Nacht."

The dream faded, as it is normal for them to do, and I found myself in my car, condensation on the windshield, and a still warm passenger seat as the sun rose and warmed the cold chill on the metal. I weren't on Birch road, I were a mere stones throw away from my house, parked out front of my drive way. It were three days after I picked up Nacht, on old Birch road, judgin' by the number of calls on my phone, missed messages of folks bein' worried about why I hadn't done my projects that were due, in danger of bein' fired, which were a great worry when you're young, not havin' a job and no way to pay things. But I couldn't find it in my heart to be worried about it, course, I was still flushed with the sweet memory of Nacht. So mayhap I weren't in my right mind, but I couldn't much care.

Used to be, before they closed the road, from folk's disappearin' far too often for it to be coincidence, nigh on one a week, I'd go drivin' down there. Sometimes I found myself a sweet dark thing to keep me company on the long dark road, till I had to sleep, sometimes I didn't. She seemed to remember me, time came about that when I stopped and opened the door, she'd run up to it, to me, and I'd get that sweet kiss I dreamt of on that long ago first trip. Sometime, a little bit more. Nights we didn't really go anywhere, just sit in that one little patch of road, talkin' till my eyes grew heavy and I couldn't keep them up no more. Yup, Natch, Nox, the Night Mistress, she's one sweet lady, warm and soft and willing and oh so very beautiful. Never seen her like before, nor have I since, do her a disservice, tryin' to express with my old words, just how lovely she were, though I gave it a fair try.



There was silence for a few minutes in the tavern in the space following a story before a loud laugh from Lou spoils the atmosphere "He tells that story once a week, at least. Old timer doesn't know it." Another laugh, and the usual tavern noise resumes, and the newly-weds stand to filter out, subdued, just a little, and excited. "Oh my god did you see his face?" A few hushed whispers, sweet love words whispered, before the husband hushes, and points. The old geezer is starting to walk down the road, leaving the tavern. A walking cane under one hand, limping, towards the Old Birch Road, a pat to one of the many signs barring entrance, warning against it. 

A dark skinned beauty in a long white dress steps on the edge of the road, one hand extended towards the old, hobbling man. Though his words cannot be heard, hers travel clearly through the night. "You have come back to me."

A pause as he makes his reply, still limping towards the lush figure waiting for him.

"You forgot your car this time." The closer the geezer gets, the straighter he walks, until he is a young man with snow white hair, the cane hooked over his elbow, the ebony lady slipping her arm through his other "Walk with me?"

For the first time, as he nods, does his voice carry as easily through the night as hers. "Always and forever my dear Nacht." He lifts her hand and presses a kiss to the back of her hand, affection rich in the tone of his voice as they start to walk into the distance, fading from the vision of the newly weds, as though swallowed up, or a part of the night. 

"Tell me a story. You always had such wonderful tales to tell..."

Princess of Hell

As I stand on my balcony, looking out over the scenery -- Hell doesn't have to be all fire and brimstone you know, some parts are actually -nice-. Course, there's no light beyond the fires, as the sun doesn't shine here, so it's bleak compared to what humans are used to, but it has it's own beauty -- I realise that there is -alot- of hype over my mother and father.

I mean sure, fair enough, Satan and Lilith, the evil pair in the major lexicon of the mortal realms, but it's mildly irritating. Satan is one of the Lords of Hell, sure, he's got a bit more oomph than say, Lucifer, who is a asshole to say the least, who was rather stomping around in your great grandfathers day, or earlier -- time is a little confusing to me, or rather, the passing of it is irrelevant, who in turn is higher up than Beezlebub. Now -that- is a male you don't want to be alone with, not in the sense that he used to be the king of Hell, but in the sense that he is ...oily. Sleezy. A ...not pleasant male. Sure, Satan is slick and oily himself, but he does it with -class- you know?

Oh, who am I? I'm Dzeintra, or Xanthia, whichever tickles your fancy, youngest of the seven princesses of hell. I think. They might've gotten busy in the millenia or two I've been ...shall we say ... less than family orientated? I'mthe prodigal child, the black sheep of the family so to speak. And -considering- said family, it's not that hard to figure out -why-. See, I'm a seer. Not one of those white billowing robed things that are utterly irritating in their holier-than-thou attitude where you have to do impossible tasks to get an answer to your question, but ultimately they're on the Light side. That's the uh, 'good guys' for you mortals. Not that it's terribly accurate, but you go with the flow. See, I'm Dark, mother is Dark, we live in the shadows and revel in the destruction of things. It's rather fun actually. On the Light side, you have the celestials, the christian/catholic God -- arrogant asswipe as he is -- technically the Arcana, they're all about rules and whatnot, Gaeans, you know, Gaea, the green goddess of fertility, mother earth? Yeah, them.

On the Dark side, there's us, the demonic, (I'm actually of a different sort, Daemon), the vampires, and so on, all the nasty 'ghoulies' that haunt your nightmares. What was I saying? Oh, right, seer.

Okay, general run down, there are different power levels, as it would be pretty redundant to have an imp (essentially a paper shuffler) on equal power with say, cerberus'. It just wouldn't work, you know? Now a seer is someone (or thing) that can see into the future. Essentially speaking, they are Neutral. Dealing with the grey areas. But alas, the Neutral is divided just like the rest of things into Light and Dark. I, obviously, and a Dark sided seer, one of the rarer breed, Light sided are more common, as they find it ...shall we say... -easier- to align with the Light to get the path they want followed initiated. Some can only see the beginning of this path, others spot the middle, some eye the far end, and so on. Depending on the strength of the seer depends on how far, and how accurately they can see.

Take for example a spiderweb. At first, you wouldn't see it at all would you? But if the light hits it right, or if it was a cold morning and dew clings to the strands, you can see it clearly. A really strong seer can see -all- of the spiderweb, all the possible paths, those that are yet to be made and those that already -have- been made. This type of seer is called an Oracle. All-knowing, in theory. (Trust me, it's not that great). The weaker types will see say, the path they want, and one or two branches off of that path, but not much beyond it. That path generally tends to lead to the continuation of life as it is existing, if they are Light sided.

Remember how I mentioned I was Dark? Yeah, that's not the path I want. Oh don't look at me like that! Death is as much a part of the cycle as the sun setting every evening. The path -I- want (And the one, incidentally, that leads to the -least- tangles and issues later on, which is always a good thing) is one that has a major overhaul of things. Like, end of the world overhaul. Which would be seen as B.A.D by some folk.

But, out from the ashes rise the next generation, and it is towards -this- generation that I guide things. Yes, guide. Think of the Fates, in ancient mythology, where they measured, wove, and cut the thread of mortal life? I do that job, sort of. So, now you know about me, lets get back to Hell hmm?

It honestly isn't that bad! Sure, there is screaming, and fire, and hurting, and in some places snow -- yes, it -does- snow in hell, it's for those that didn't share warmth or something, they have to walk about in the cold without comfort -- water and so on. The only thing that is constantly absent from Hell is light. Sunlight that is, that's the province of Light, obviously, and we are not called Dark for no reason. Oh, and you recall how myths describe demons and such with glowing eyes? Nightvision baby, tenfold. But then....my eyes really -do- glow, they cast their own light.

So, there I am, musing over my balcony, idly toying with some of the flames, making them flare and whatnot, considering things, like how the fear of Satan, the dislike of Lilith, but above all, how much of a -large- part they play. Don't mention the Beasts name, for to say his name is to call his attention to you. Funny, how it takes only -one- person to say daddy dearests name for him to pay attention, but it takes at -least- seven and several hours worth of effort for humans to get the vague interest of Him Upstairs. Show you how much of an asswipe he is, huh?

Mother dearest walks in, my tail swishes slightly (yes, I have a tail, horns, hooves, the whole kit) before she speaks, informing me of a guest. I sigh, turn, bow, and make like a dutiful daughter to greet said guest. Did I mention that mother and I don't get along? Sure, we might both be succubi, but that doesn't mean I go for the whole 'sex 24/7' that she does...although it doens't have to be sex, in retrospect... Anyways, surprise surprise, my guest is actually one of her playthings. One that is mine as well, the gaean prince, so to speak. Next in line to take the throne from Gaea when that overhaul happens -- remember me mentioning it? Several reasons why it's necessary -- evidently just out of a session with mother dearest, judging by the bleeding and marks. Another sigh, and I grip the back of his neck, shadowstepping back to his glade so that he can heal -- side stepping the minotaur or two. You'd think these things'd learn, I mean, I've been tripping in and out frequently enough that the dryads have given me a gaean name. Ugh. But still, he's still their lord, and I'm just the adviser. Think grand vizier, -not- the going to kill him evil Jafar-esque thing, but the same powers.

So yes, I shadowstep back 'home'. I'm not comfortable around green things, it makes me want to burn them -- which is kinda frowned upon there -- and return to oh so patiently waiting for the time to pass. Things have a schedual you know, and at the moment, things are running on track for the overhaul, so I've got very little to do.

Oh, besides turn the enterprising invader back from the past, but those walkways are another story.

The Doll House

There was this village, out in the middle of nowhere in England. Rolling green pastures, a lake glimmers in the distance under the brilliance of the sun, and beyond it was a lush forest. It was a sleepy sort of village, the kind where you could walk into it in the middle of the day and there wouldn't be a soul to be seen, not in the creepy or frightening way of an abandoned derelict building, no, but in the homey, snoozy type of way, the way a cat napping on the windowsill feels.

Freshly moved into this sleepy, lazy, warm little town, was a couple. Brand new, off the honeymoon and first-home-for-raising-the-children-in phaze, where they vigorously and enthusiastically took part of the necessary 'baby-making'. But alas! The years roll by and still no pitter-patter of baby feet stomp down hallways in the wee hours of the morning, indeed, she doesn't even swell with the promise of those feet. A doctor is seen, and devestating news, both are infertile. The wife tearfully cries "I can't be! I've been pregnant before! I miscarried!" The doctor just shakes his head and shows them the result, decrying that both are unable to bring life into the world....but he cannot explain why.

It were almost as though he was tempted to say they were born barren, but alas...there is the miscarriage.

Distraught, melancholy and mournful, they return home, to their dainty little cottage at the end of the street, homey and warm, just like the rest of the town. More years pass, and the wife developes a passion for making dolls. China dolls, porcaline, the fine art collectors edition of every type, every race and breed, from the baby-kin, eyes screwed shut and toothless mouths open in eternal silent cries, to the toddler-esque, three feet high, bright eyed and curious. The husband doesn't really understand it, until one night the wife shows him a particularly pretty doll, somewhere between walking and not, sucking on a fragile porcaline lollipop, the colours smearing from her efforts, and whispers to him "Look honey, this is the baby we would have had." He blinks at her in confusion "These are our children, the ones we can't give life to, they are our darling ones...right?" A strange ripple at the nape of his neck, the hairs rising, prompt him to nod in agreement "Of course dear, come, have something to eat."

More years pass, and the number of dolls accumulate, their blankeyed stare filling the rooms, more dolls than furniture, all lovingly handcrafted, a dedication of the wife to each of her 'children'.

Twenty years on, from that mortifying news that they were infertile, and the husband dies. Or rather, is found dead by the cleaning lady one weekend, the wife was at a friends place, buying fabrics for her 'children'. There was a shattered doll beside him, what could be seen it was a younger one, perhaps two or three, eyes screwed up, tears down its little cheeks, and the shattered end of its arm imbedded in the husbands through, imbedded with such force that it came out the other side, the porcaline streaked with blood.

The cleaning lady screams and runs out of the house, calling the police, who upon arrival, before the wife returned home, found strangely, no shattered doll, no arm pushed through the husbands throat -- just a hole where it was, and a pool of drying blood.

The wife, with a few grey hairs now, is thrown into a fit of depression at the news of her husbands death, feverishly turning to her now, only solace -- her children.

Production of the unique dolls comes out as never before, a new one every week, and soon, she can't move for risk of knocking one of the life-sized, realistic creations over and risk shattering them. Two months later, she dies of a heart attack, an unfinished doll in her hands, older looking than any of the others, a girl of around eight, only half of her curling blonde hair was attatched, her face painted to hold infinite sadness, melancholy in her green eyes, and her dress half-sewn yet pulled on, tattered edges showing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Years after the unfortunate couple's death, the doll house still stands, complete with the fortune of now antique dolls, a silent guard, balefully glaring at any who dare try to enter, the door unable to open for the dolls shoved up against it, wedged tight so as to not shatter under a hard shove. Yet strangely, in one room, sitting at one window, is a single doll, half-finished, as though she had been set aside briefly, to be finished at a later date, alone in this one room, watching the comers, watching them leave, alone in the study.

Some say, that lone doll seems mournful when the visitors get turned away, her sad, sad eyes seem to weep real tears when people flee before the glares of the other dolls, all perfect, pristine, finished works of art, crying the innocence of childhood, yet how they glare! It's as though they blame everyone for their mothers death....but that can't be true.

They're just dolls, after all. Attatching emotions to the inanimate is a foolish human trait.


Right?

The Theater

It was dark in the cinemas, but that's not really the right word. Cinema is like the meaning of industry, or a building complex. It brings to mind grey chairs, set in rows on dull blue carpeting with those little flakes of colour, as though someone had shaken sprinkles out onto the blue in an attempt to lighten it, but all it really does is make the blue seem more dull, more grey, more industrialised. Lastly, a massive screen at one end of the room, infront of all those rows of grey, generic chairs, and voila, there is a cinema. Moderately well lit, impersonal, lifeless, just one of a million.

This wasn't a cinema, it was a theater. This had scarlet carpeting, maroon chairs, set in rows, but curved towards the 'stage', where the screen sat, taking up the entire front of the room. There was an upper balcony, where more seats were set, above the lower rows, sectioned into four. There was beige painted murals carved into the woodwork of the ceiling, curtains covered the walls, and the walkways were lit with small lights. This was something alive, built from an era when you went and sat in those cramped rows to see a play, when movies where half an hour long, silent, and something of a treat. When the very act of going to the theater was a social occasion, not a spur of the moment decision. It wasn't well lit, it didn't have generic bulbs set into the walls, the ceiling, no, it had rectangular boxes to mimic the holders of a torch in a medieval castle, giving a murky, shadowed light at best.

A lone individual walks into this atmosphere, the murky, old-seeming lighting, blue jeans, sneakers, and a white t-shirt that says 'your village called, they want their idiot back', a backpack over one shoulder. She -- definitely a she, with breasts pressing against the white cotton, and the curve of her hips within the jeans -- scans the seating before turning and leaving, ascending the stairs to that upper balcony, to see what it felt like sitting where the 'upper crust' would have sat. She sat, leant back in the chair, listening to the imitation classical music with a few lyrics thrown in here and there, not particularly interesting ones, that came from everywhere, and nowhere in particular. It was dark, close, almost claustrophobic or comforting, enough to encourage a doze, and it was empty, from her brief scanning gaze.

She starts to drift off, the soft music, not very riveting, lulling her into dozing, leaving her ignorant -- she's just an average person after all -- and deaf to the soft brush of fabric against the soft felt of one of the seats, the quite whump of a footstep, followed by a couple others as a darker shadow in the murky, isolated lighting moves down the row. Sleep, so soft, soothing, and close, beckons seductively.

A soft thing startles her out of the beckoning arms of sleep, at first, she is unaware of what it was that changed, and she frowns for a few moments, before sitting up, still not seeing the shadow almost at her back. Ah, now she realises what it was that disturbed her, the music was no longer playing. Strange, the previews hadn't started. It was as though for those few seconds, the world had stopped.

She was still confused when a leatherclad hand reaches around from behind the seat, closing over her mouth, another braced against the side of her head, and the soft leather of the cowhide covered hand slides off of her mouth, grips her jaw, she has time for a shrill scream, building to the crescendo but never getting there, cut off abruptly with the harsh crackling of her neck being broken. She is left to slump against the chair, head resettled, staring eyes closed.

Not so empty after all.

A Summers Evening and an Autumn Morn.

(Read the post 'On a Summers Day' first. Then this one'll make ALOT more sense.)




The body was Andrew McPhearson, the child, one Julie Andrews, and enither were the same. One, obviously, went to the morgue to be identified by dental records-- that's all they could use -- the other went catatonic, in order to save itself the mind rejected the cruel world around it and created one of its own devising.

Outwardly she was a silent, simple girl, no interest in interaction of any sort, she ate when forced to and broke her mothers heart by refusing to look at her, but through, always through, fixed on some distant point where crimson-black blood pooled, where dark blow flies droned and the sickly sweet scent of decay filled the air, where all the noise in the world couldn't break the shattering silence of an unvoiced scream.

The media behaved as it is wont to do, flocking and fluttering, scavenging and prying, delving sticky fingers into badly healed -- barely begun to heal -- wounds and pulling the ugly, foul, tittilating bits to a harsh and unforgiving spotlight. As expected, the summers day, bright with life, was replayed, repeated, displayed in a thousand different ways until public opinion deemed the entire thing a hoax, just some family's craving to be on television.

Never mind the shattered family of the deceased, never mind the previous happy, healthy child driven to seek her own world. Neve rmind the anguish the fluttering, craving, prying, uncaring fingers -- and eyes -- of the media caused. It was all a hoax, a plot, a conspiracy, a trick.

The medias loss of interest was a blessing that came too late -- too late for Andrew's family to have the required privacy to mourn, too late for little Julie, who having to relive, and then witness it from a dramatised perspective, listen from a thousand different mouths -- why would anyone desire to remain in such a heartless world? So little Julie refused to make even the little progress she had out of her self-imposed prison, retreating in so far that she barely had any desire to eat, each mouthful swallowed was a hard won victory.

Life went on, as its wont to do, two months passed, three, and the media forgot about Julie Andrews and Andrew McPhearson. Summer changed to Autumn, dusky and brown from bright gold.

It was a crisp Autumn morning, the mist was clinging to the ground and every breath fogged in the air. The scent of winter was in the air, it was a taste on the back of the tongue, crisp, icy, chillingly close with the illusionary softness of snow. Rosy-cheeked from the cold, laughter and playing in the piles of fallen leaves, the child, a little boy, six or seven, ran behind a tree, out of his parents' concerned and watchfully indulgent gaze. All was well.

A peircing scream split the air. Followed by two more, then naught but helpless, hopeless sobbing.

Rushing to look, the mother added her screams to the shattered peace, before dropping to her knees to embrace and rock her sobbing son.

Strung out between two trees in a crude X, head lolled back in the limp, absolute relaxation of the dead and unconsious, was another body.

(Warning for those with tender stomaches, it gets graphic)

The skin, rather than removed completely, had been peeled back to expose the muscle and sinew beneath. Strung out, stretched thin by fish-hooks through the nearly transparant flesh, the light shining through, illuminating veins, capillaries, arteries, trails of brilliant red -- fire-engine red -- blood trailed down from the wounds, slowly seeping lower with each painful second.

The internal organs had been painstakingly, lovingly, removed and strung out, netted and woven among the branches of the two trees, the metres of intestine almost braided, intricate, lace, the stomach caught in the dark grey webbing. The lungs were pulled out of the chest cavity, the ribcage pulled open like some glistening, banded, red and white butterfly, the sternum cut clean through. The heart stretched out, the lungs likewise exposed, two pink sacks hanging, stretched in the air. In this mass was the body, the skin a backdrop for the macabre web, where the own internal organs were the bands that trapped the 'fly'.

It was too cold for the flies, so their droning swarm was absent, no moving black tide of hungry bodies swarming, moving, writhing over flesh and skin alike. The blood dripping, slowly seeping down the skin to plop ever so slowly onto the dry leaves was still wet, still fresh, still warm, still flowing. The strung out, web-captured body jerked and a helpless, hopeless whimper of pain sounded, silencing the sobbing into a gasp of horrified shock.

"Oh Dear God, it's still alive!"

On a Summers Day

It was the height of summer, the sky was a brilliant, breathtaking blue, the sort of blue that reaches up and DEMANDS your attention. The distant, merry laughter of children filtered through the air, mingled with the birdsong and the drone of busy bees. The world was bursting, overflowing with warmth, life, happiness.

And then the screams started.

Down a little way from the bees, just around the bend from the children, there was a droning. Not the almost musical buzz of the bees, no, this was the heavy, bloated droning of fat blowflies, their brilliant blue back sparkling in the sunlight like morbid jewels. The black with flashing blue tide crawled, buzzed, and swarmed over the ground and a single tree.

The first scream disturbed a few, not many, but enough for their meal to be seen.

A puddle of thick, black as tar blood on the bright green, rich, vibrant grass. More crimson black smears marred the smoothe wood of the tree, splatters and painted strips. But that wasn't what drew the scream, the second one, not of fright like the first, but of horror, of a deep abiding disgust.

Oddly enough, apart from that single, thick puddle, the grass is clean. And it is only the one tree, smeared, specked and caked with the sludgy, viscous, crimson black blood in the small thatch, the rest are clean, pristine, unmarked.

But the source of the blood, concealed beneath those heavy, hungry, shifting black bodies, the lone figure hanging from the branches, bloated in the heat, almost bursting, like some obscene fruit begging to be plucked, that is what drew the second horrified scream that shattered the shocked silence following the first.

For, it wasn't just hanging, covered with droning flies, bloated, tied by the ankles, no, that would be bad enough. But it -- not a man, not a woman, not a child but a dead, bloated buzzing thing -- had been skinned.

(Warning for those of tender stomaches, it gets graphic.)

The head was featureless, eyes gouged out, or rather, surgically removed from the orbits and yanked free. The nose removed, lips likewise, ears, scalp, then each slender strip of flesh carved from the face, leaving a morbid mockery of a skull, blood caked and writhing with flies. Oddly, morbidly, the tongue and throat were left intact, the skinning starting at the collarbones. The arms stripped of flesh as well as skin, bones visible, connected by gleaming sinew and tendon. The ribcage glittering, gleaming through the flies and the thick, black blood. The stomach retained the muscle, holding the bloating of swollen organs within, but the pelvis glimmered. A dark grey rope slithered out, wrapped painstakingly, almost lovingly, around the bones. The legs were simply skinned, simply used as they retained the meat, the flesh, but linked together with steel rods bent around the bones. Just the merest scrap of skin at the edges of the rods give the hint that maybe, just maybe, the victim wasn't dead when impaled ...or worse.

A third scream, high, wild, piteous came from the child, an innocent who went searching for the ball, the peircing, poignant scream of encroaching madness. Because dangling there, bloated, skinned, mutilated, the dead writhing with a mimicry of life, induced by the walking, crawling, buzzing black tide searching beneath the flesh, it seemed to reach for the child, reach with those skinned, fleshless arms.

A fourth scream came, hard on the heels of the third, ringing louder, higher, madness shattering. And as the child screamed, the body swinging, buzzing, bloated, flies taking their crimson black meal, the corpse screamed too.

The Future

In lieu of something decent to say, have a story. Written in word, so excuse the proper formatting.

It’s a time beyond memory, a time beyond reason. A time where the good guys are allied with the bad guys and the bad guys are just wrong. When every step could be the last one you take on your own feet, where you can’t turn to the authorities for help or even medical assistance, because they’re no doubt worse than the people you need help from...

Where murder is rampant, robbery the course of the day and hatred oozing in the air. This is where he grew up, in this mire of misery, this swill of self-pity and hatred. My brother, my only living relative and the worst of the lot. He moved from the mire to the shadows and from there became one of the ‘good’ guys. The public love him, he seems to be genuine in his promises but I know better.

This is the tale of my brother, the story he doesn’t want told, not now, not ever, so I cannot speak but I can write and the world knows that he’s my brother so he can’t make me vanish. I’m the mute, the freak, the one he pulls out when he wants the sympathy votes yet in his eyes is the hate, the hate that is instilled from birth into each and every one of us.

He’s my brother and I love him, but mostly I hate him, for what he’s done to me, to the world and how nobody ever notices. I can’t let him see that though, not from me. I’m his only support, the only one he feels he can count on. I’m the only one keeping him human because he knows how much I hate the ‘bots, cyborgs and the AI’s. Everyone else loves them. In this age, with these advances, you don’t get sewn up, you get a transplant, a substitute, a mechanical, electronic replacement.

He’s my brother and I love him, but how I wish he’d left me my tongue! I can walk, I can see, I can write, I can hear but I cannot speak. I am pitied because I –could- speak, I’m one of the few that the techs would love to get their hands on, there’s only about one hundred of us, out of all the billions of people in the world. We can be formed, improved, into something more, something that is like a god, or even higher, yet I refuse to get the transplant, the substitute because I know the techs wouldn’t be able to resist going further and ‘improving’ me. Because I refused to let my brother pay for my improvements, I am both revered and pitied, I am both more and less than them, in their eyes. Sure, I could be more, but I would lose my humanity, my me-ness, and that’s too high a price to pay, for some bits of metal.

This is the world I live in, where the quality of your electronic ‘improvements’ and the quantity of them matters more than who you might have been. This is the world my brother was born into and the world he rose to power in; this is reality, one of science and fantasy. This is what I hate, the cold impersonality and this is what I want to change, to give Mankind back its humanity.

Enjoy. Oh, and things are better with mother dearest, she's gotten over her pique and is leaving me alone, i'm still walking on eggshells but yeah, it could be worse I guess.

The murder

Red.

A red stain on the cobblestones.

Red, red spreading over the cobblestones, as red as her red, red lips.

~

She, Tsairenn, was the girl, the young lady, that everyone either wanted, or wanted to be. She had everything, or so the gossips said, looks, money, men begging for her favours. Her circle of friends, those that she trusted, adored her and would do anything that she desired, catered to her slightest whim in the hopes that her popularity, her charm would rub off on them.

Deep green eyes, the rich colour of oak leaves set behind sparkling, captivatingly long lashes. Curiously coloured hair, like all the shades the precious metal could be, gold, rose, white, shimmered together into Tsairenn’s thick coiled locks. A heart shaped face, with high cheek bones and an ever present, warm smile curving those red, red lips. A swan like neck, long, delicate, dainty, from her head to her shoulders and from then on her body is formed. Lithe, curved, soft; perfect.

To her suitors, she is a goddess, to her rivals, a porcelain doll but though they do not care for her, they still cannot fault her beauty. And it is her beauty that is her downfall.

One man she scorned when she shouldn’t have, one proposal she should have politely declined rather than accepted, and then rejected as though his heart, his feelings, were as nothing. Two men, both burned by her, and a lady, who she once thought was Tsairenns friend, a small knot of darkness under the glow of Tsairenn’s life.

Two men set the scene, broke the balustrade, cleared away the plants before vanishing into the night. One lady, beguiled the enchantress, leading her onto the landing. One girl, leaning against an unsteady rail suddenly trips on the hem of her skirt, the fabric torn and left behind, fear in her green eyes as she turns, desperate to reach out to something of safety, only to find that her companion was out of reach.

She wobbles, almost catching her balance before the broken balustrade gives way, cracking and dropping the two stories down onto the cobblestones, a loud, sharp CRACK splits the night air, but no one can hear over the music within. Multiple shades of gold, rose and white spin through the air, losing the pins as she windmills her arms, flailing, trying to keep her balance on uneasy heels.

One lady, leans forward, Tsairenn gets the light of hope in her eyes, only to have them return to a darker fear at the blade that appears in the lady’s hand, cutting a nick in the hem of the skirt, tearing it and dropping the little scrap of fabric on the balcony. A cold smile curves pale lips and a gloved hand gives the beauty a push, not much of one but enough to set her off balance and down.

Down, down, following the broken balustrade, those red, red lips open in a wail of fear and ignorance, “Why?”

The last word Tsairenn speaks before her head cracks on the cobblestones, cracks with much the same sound as the balustrade as it shattered. And there is a red stain on the cobblestones, a spreading red pool.

~

Blood.

Red blood on the cobblestones.

A red, red stain, a spreading pool of blood on the cobblestones.

As red as Tsairenns red, red lips open in the slackness of the wail, the final wondering why.