T ʜ ᴇ W ʜ ɪ s ᴘ ᴇ ʀ ɪ ɴ ɢ W ɪ ʟ ʟ ᴏ ᴡ

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

T ʜ ᴇ W ʜ ɪ s ᴘ ᴇ ʀ ɪ ɴ ɢ W ɪ ʟ ʟ ᴏ ᴡ
ᴀ [ ᴡ ʀ ɪ ᴛ ɪ ɴ ɢ ] s ʜ ᴏ ᴘ

by PoppiHollaPuddelz

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

ᴛ ʜ ᴇ ʟ ᴇ ɢ ᴇ ɴ ᴅ ᴏ ғ ᴡ ʜ ɪ s ᴘ ᴇ ʀ ɪ ɴ ɢ ᴡ ɪ ʟ ʟ ᴏ ᴡ


It was a cold, blustery night - a shriek on the air warned of an approaching gale.
The breeze started, soft and calm.
But the Willow knew. It had stood guard over the cities, a silent sentinal throughout the ages.
Then the whispers began.
They say that the dead are the first to know of a coming storm,
and a white haze, near imperceptible to the human eye, began to swirl around the roots.
A last-ditch attempt to avoid the flood.
They didn't make it.

~Among the debris of floating rubble, a girl stood knee-deep in dirt.~
So many memories gone.
And yet the willow was there, a ghostly form painted into the scenery. The whispers continued.
Here was a scene of tragedy. The souls couldn't rest.
So she sat down on a piece of jagged wood and thought.

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

>>> !Title
by PoppiHollaPuddelz for !Username

!Textgoeshere

[size=15][color=silver]>[/color][color=lightgrey]>[/color][color=grey]> !Title[/size][/color]
[size=8][color=powderblue]by PoppiHollaPuddelz[/color] [color=lightpink]for !Username[/color][/size]

[size=10]!Textgoeshere[/size]

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

{ ʀ ᴇ s ᴇ ʀ ᴠ ᴇ ᴅ }

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

[ ᴄ ᴏ ᴍ ᴘ ʟ ᴇ ᴛ ᴇ ᴅ ! ]

>>>XxNightmare_DollxX / An Encounter by Moonlight: Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 2:26 am
>>>Teacup Sheep / First Date: Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 12:20 pm
>>>Pixel Candies / A Shadowed Christmas: Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:25 am
>>>Dax the Hero / A Faun's Footsteps: Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 6:24 pm
>>>thewoundedangel#2 / The Road to Ohio: Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 9:34 pm
>>>Juliet-in-Black / Truth Be Told: Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 12:07 am
>>> riot on the road / Penny for your thoughts?: Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 9:39 am
>>>Cinna101 / For Memories: Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2012 10:34 pm
>>>Cinna101 / Heaven, in regret: Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 12:11 am
>>>Prince Ciel / Snow Flowers: Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2012 7:49 pm
>>>Keeta Silverman / Of macarons and mille-feuilles: Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2012 8:51 am
>>>Dr Izaak Ingnatz / Through Amber Eyes: Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2012 7:20 pm

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

>>> An encounter by moonlight
by PoppiHollaPuddelz for XxNightmare_DollxX

The night was a frozen delight. Footsteps tinkled on a rush of wind.
And a girl slept in the transparent security of her own home.
The city slumbered on. Shadows writhed, coalescing to form a figure. Gone by morning, with only the vigilant moon a witness in the cold night. Stephen saw the girl, pale face illuminated in a sliver of pearly light.
A smile.
She was his.
Unlike most journeys, this one was swift, silent, and breathless. Breathless to the boy, a sweet savoured triumph in the cold night. Dawn cracked blood-red on the horizon. Night receded, paving the way for harsh daylight.
They arrived after the splattered-egg colours flowed across the sky in rivulets. The light hit, and Serena rose like a phototrophic blossom towards the sun.
Shock registered.
And then fear.
Oh, the fear that consumed Serena . . .
It was searing red, and mottled grey. A concrete jungle.
She lay motionless in Stephen’s arms, a mute, obedient corpse. The room was permeated with a dank darkness. He smirked. Fangs. A trickle of blood.
A suffocating tomb.
Sunlight.
He watched her run, a half angry smile etched into the gloom.
Until tonight, then.

197/200

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

>>> First Date
by PoppiHollaPuddelz for Teacup Sheep

The sky was impossible to describe in a single word.
Blazing, perhaps. But so many different types of blazing had never been known to man.
Murky-calm, as well. Solid with the ever-present clouds that could be just a barely discernible, wispy layer, or spread thick like fluffy icing on a sponge-cake sky.
Either way, the mysterious gloom was somewhat attractive. Away from the stark black-and-white world of hospitals, away from her element. There was no denying that Scott would look like less of a vision – again that harsh monochrome of a work day. Broken, flowing shapes rose out of the half-darkness of the park.
Trees. Mountains. A muted backdrop that reeked of another world.
And when the rain started to fall, – heavy leaden drops – Sam tasted a breath of wind like a frozen thought. Flash forward. Flashback. It was all there in the shrouded atmosphere.

That nameless shadow, weaving his way through the dense green. Dimming rays flared behind Scott, daylight’s curtain call. Knowing without a doubt that the sun lay like a hot, golden eye center-stage was not enough. What of the acres of uncharted sky, a barrier between her and the certainty of a burning sunrise tomorrow?
What could happen tonight?
What would?

“Scott.”
A calm enough greeting. Eager? Non-committal.
Sam liked the bittersweetness of the uncertain path ahead.
”Sam, hey.”
The warmth of his presence joined her on the bench. Sam shifted, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Any other human presence could do the same to anyone – the tightening of already tense nerves, a jittery staccato of heartbeats.
They sat in blessed silence for a while, listening to the evening’s symphony. A quiet glug-glug heralded the complete disappearance of the sun, and Sam grinned. If…no, when Scott became a surgeon, he’d delay the passing of hearts and crucial organs, and perhaps delay the descent of sun into night.
A childish metaphor.
But it was entertaining, all the same.

Surprisingly enough, it was Scott who initiated things.
“Shall we?”
A hesitant hand. That sweet, sweet, childish smile where it had no place – on a grown man’s face.
How could she deny him?
“Oh, all right.”
Sam listened in wonder to her bubbling, ecstatic laugh and the still wind that warned of fast movement. Almost as soon as she thought it, she was upright, and they were walking, tripping off into the bright city lights as the evening swelled around them.

From the mellow darkness, Scott brought her into a harshly-lit diner, tasting of raw city. He was pretty sure that the both of them had made subconscious mental comparisons. When you lived life and worked in a blank-slate hospital, noticing the tiny, bright details was inevitable.

Sam ordered a chocolate milkshake.
The rich brown of her glistening curls formed a nice contrast with the pale condensation on the drink. Scott took another, fleeting look, before unthinkingly ordering his own dessert. When it arrived, it was unsatisfactory. The glass flared out in a tasteless, graceful shape. The ice cream was a melting heap, and the brownies were rock-solid.
He forced it down while making tentative conversation with the girl.
Scott fingered the bill, exuding a slight reluctance. If he’d had to pay according to the quality of service, there would have been no bill whatsoever.
But deep down, Scott realised that what had really irked him was the fact that chocolate would never be rich enough or sweet enough to compare with a certain girl’s curls.

It was the same with the way the fluorescent lights beamed down on Scott’s halo of iodine black-blue hair. Sure, he was an angel, with the godly looks and hints of creeping childhood mannerisms.
He was also her best friend, her stumbling, bumbling baby brother, and her father.
But most of all, Sam felt this: a frission of citrus-laced strawberry passion.

Her turn again.
The amble led them back out past the crumbling lines of man-meets-nature, past gleaming steel and shattered brick, into the cool air. Sam recognized belatedly the significance of the diner visit – to experience something to the fullest required the person to chance on the other end of the spectrum.
Neon lights made the simple silver of peppered stars that much more magical, that much more precious. Obnoxious human company in the form of a diner waitress highlighted the delightful puzzle of their intertwined hands.
The last, weakening dregs of chocolate faded into the peppermint bliss of Scott, herself, and the soundless night.

He traced out their future in the constellations.
S and S. Scott, Sam.
Sometime, somehow, with someone.
The dark felt disappointed. The trees beckoned. Scott had seen enough television series and read enough cliché romance novels to know how this would, or should end.
A guy. A girl.
Stars, a cold clear night.
“Kiss.”
Scott almost admonished himself for not doing it. Each moment hurried on towards encroaching daylight, toward the ripe readiness of the end of a date. Come Monday morning, there would be nothing. Not a shred of happening to hold onto and think over.
Kiss her.
And he tried to.
Oh, poor Scott, he certainly gave it his all.

It felt like a brush.
The smiling, earnest schoolboy was there again. Clear, unblinking eyes and a flush that would light up the night.
Sam didn’t hesitate. The intent was clear, and she approved.
Lips met in a warm, prolonged embrace. They didn’t part until many minutes afterwards, when the fireworks began to fade behind Sam’s eyelids.

Two shadows in the moonlight.

Twin surprise.

And again, the lovely bittersweetness that weaved a tangible question in the air.

It wasn’t a question of how, why, when, or where.
It was a muddled confusion belonging to a first-timer: what comes next?

Of course, there would be forever to find that out. Tonight, she was young, and the turbulent darkness embraced her to acknowledge it. Even with the shadows lengthening, trees with needle-thin branches ticked on towards eternity. Another round on the clock face of life.

Just another day.


1000/1000

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

>>> A Shadowed Christmas
by PoppiHollaPuddelz for Pixel Candies

Lumen was your average girl.
Never mind the wings and the tail, and where she was from.
Never mind her strange curiosity about things her parents didn’t agree to.
Never mind the fact that she had recently run away from home.
What we’re interested in, is just where she went.

The first memories were hazy.
It was strange, considering that the world had been so bright, so blazing azure. She had stood in the beautifully scorching sunlight and burned with happiness. Surprise.
Away from the muted grays and rich, rotting mahoganies of her homeland. Siren hadn’t followed, and for once in her life, Lumen was free to just be. Not overshadowed. No pressure.

Freedom.
She tasted the word again on her tongue, gave a carefree whirl.
Lumen looked into the never-ending blue and tasted pine needles in the air. It was summer. Off-season. Too early for the evergreens.
She loved them, all the same.
While she was marveling at the hard, clean sky and dusty ground, a flash of gold caught her attention.
A large, silent shape to throw shadows around in the bright world she’d entered. Lee would always be there. Calm, silent. His eyes glowed with the sun.

As she stayed longer, Lumen learned to approach the earth from this perspective.
First the colours. And the shapes. Then the petty squabbles of the humans.
So it was in this fashion that red passion, white-blue freedom and green beginnings flew by. Lumen lived the same life as the schoolgirls around her, shivering from a teacher’s harsh words, or nearing that crucial breaking point from test stress.
But not quite.
You see, this world was too whole, too beautiful for sadness or misery.
So Lumen smiled and continued.

Spring turned to scorching summer, and summer to rust.
Happiness flew away on autumn winds, as Lumen was called back. Back home, they said.
Home.
Certainly, it couldn’t be denied that it was her home. Her birthplace. Where she’d lived for so many long years.
But a home implied some warmth, a hint of teasing affection from those she cared for and the ones that cared for her.
In this sense, the only home she had ever known was a place where she had been a guest to everyone else.
Lumen’s home was the earth.

At least, Lee would be there.
First thoughts.
Such misguided assumptions.
Such silly, optimistic thoughts.
Lee was but a flickering flame in the renewed darkness of her life.

Occasionally, Lumen would see hints of light, shreds of memory stream in from above.
Hello. I missed you.
A nod. A blink.
Yes, the light could acknowledge her love, too.

When she was there, sadness crept back in. Shadows cast a dull sheen on the golden eyes of memory. Love and lust, melding into one for Lumen, and she felt that she would cave sometime soon.
Now that she thought about the situation, it was pretty funny.
No, funny was the wrong word.
More like dramatically absurd.
It was absurd, that she, as a succubus, would ever claim to know of true love. To separate the lush lightness of pearly, innocent love from dark red lust.
To set herself apart from Siren.

There were the grueling tasks that came with being a demon – there were the stares, laughter.
There was the feeling of incompetence born of mockery and a refusal to accept her, for what she was. For what she believed in.
She thought that humans were better than her fellow demons?
Sheer, utter stupidity.
She thought that the world above provided more entertainment? More love?
Well, that was indisputable. They had to give her that.

In the gloom, there was a brilliant spark of green.
Metal on metal amounted to a jingling melody.
Oh, sweet sleigh bells.
Flashback: to that first breath of the earth, out-of-season pine on the breeze.
Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?


650/650

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

>>> A Faun's Footsteps
by PoppiHollaPuddelz for Dax the Hero

There was rough bark and fading starlight, and the nocturnal hum of the forest edge.
There was a rosy fireball in the sky, and the cacophony - monotony of human life.
There was faun, and there was endless green.

Among the speckled emerald, dappled shades danced. They were muted, barely visible to his eyes, not to mention a human's.
There was no question whatsoever. He was a faun, and proud. He set himself apart from the humans, lounged in the lofty rafters of branches and laughed from the heights. He scorned the strict, everyday rules of a society.
It was a little risky, maybe. Perhaps illegal. Certainly not mundane.
And he was content.
For now.

And as it always happens, change came about.
It crept along. It idled in the short, hot daylight hours and lingered on the silver tips of moonlight.
It hovered, danced in circles to the clear, reedy melody of his tapping fingers, whispered out on a careless breath. Glimmers moved about the trees, weaving and ducking through the maze of foliage.
A knowing smile. A glint of the eyes.
Wood elves and humans, fauns and men.
What defined them?

Head against rock, eyes filled with starlight, Timanthes dropped his flute and mused aloud to the night sky.
It occurred to him, then, that the moon that smiled down at him was the same silent guardian of the humans. Two peoples with a shared sky.
What if?
Why not?

Suppose, now, that the faun dared venture out of his forest.
Yes, that was quite a tempting thought. Timanthes was curious, filled with an utterly flaming desire to see, hear. To know the humans.
To walk the footsteps of a stranger...
And so away he went, tracing the heavy human footsteps deep into town.


303/300

9300g [300w+OC]

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

>>>The Road to Ohio
by PoppiHollaPuddelz for thewoundedangel#2

They say life’s a journey, and that it’s the trip that matters.
But personally, I quite like the destination.
It’s the destination I’m going for, with all my wishes and fears pinned on a single, nebulous hope.

I’ve thought about it many times.
If that one destination fails, if that light at the end of my dark tunnel flickers out, I’ll have nothing.
But I digress.
And I’ve made it through quite nicely so far, haven’t I?

It was hard to say what the twin expressions of apathy masked on the road to Ohio. Autumn would have affirmed that both their thoughts converged at a single point – the future. On that tremulous note, their hearts were fluttering weakly in their chests and sightless eyes stared.
Dissecting the environment.
Blindly struggling into the unknown.

Whether they saw the sights will remain a mystery. The miles of clear blue sky flashed past, over hedges of green speckled with an occasional sun-browned slab of concrete. Speed was exhilarating, but Autumn felt nothing of it.
John Doe sat still and silent in the seat beside her. Pondering. Obervant.
The one thing Autumn would pride herself on was her boundless hope. She felt the sun-warmed air like trails of liquid gold on her and her immobile companion – tasted notes of her namesake on the crisp air.
Winter was coming.
Soon, they’d both feel alive again.

Dear John.
Dear Victor. Just what are you thinking?
Could you spare a thought for me?
The speedometer trailed, stuttered. Roads ceased to flash by at breathless speeds, and Autumn's wandering eyes came to a complete standstill. Synonymous with the car.
"Victor?"

No response.
Well, how utterly unexpected.
She reached a tentative frail hand out, surprised that he let it stay.
"Victor...I do wish we could confide in each other some-"
"Understand, Autumn, that we'll never be the same. I'm beyond repair. Missing the crucial parts. You, however..."
His hair glowed the white-blond of a halo in the sun. If anyone were missing a soul, it couldn't, wouldn't be him.

It couldn’t hurt to try again, could it?
At least, that’s what Autumn thought.
“Victor…”
That endless note of longing, sorrow, and dependence etched into the creased syllables of a word.
Victor…
Why won’t you tell me?
Why can’t we try?
And a tiny, hidden, grudging truth.
I desperately need you.
And you need me too.

She saw, belatedly, the harsh angles of his face. Closed-off eyes. Blank expression.
“Let’s just leave it at that, Autumn.”
When she refused to move, he did it for her, spurring the car into action. Autumn grasped the steering wheel with a hidden desperation, feeling his hands – blocks of ice, cut into her fingers.
He was sliding, sliding away into the rough darkness ahead.
Leaving her behind.

She could only hope, to see him again as she had at first, somewhere on the long road to forever.




493/500

13k+600 [2OC's]

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

>>> Truth Be Told
by PoppiHollaPuddelz for Juliet-in-Black

The Konoha dawn was no fiery, vibrant affair – just a lone gray wisp of twisted-rope cloud seemed to highlight the shadowy shape of an azure sun. The dark-haired girl could feel a decidedly autumn-toned breath on the wind, a hint of beginnings and endings. Autumn was, for Hinata, a new point on the circle of life. A time for goodbyes, a time for greetings. A bittersweet, melancholy melody, foreshadowing possible hope.

A spectre had joined her on the brink of the earth, his hard black silhouette outlined on the horizon as winds whipped his clothes awry. She didn’t even have to taste the faint, acrid regret like an afterthought to know instinctively just who he was. Always the afterthought. The careless, too-late, blush-inducing impulse that swept a heatwave along her body.
Too late.
Well, there's always next time.

Too many times.
Too many weak, weak, unsuccessful attempts.

Flashback, if you will, to an earlier time. Where the fuzzy childhood impressions ended and the sharper, defined memories seamlessly caught on, Hinata remembered the stern looks, the confident stances and voices.
From all but herself.
As the heir of the Hyuuga clan's main branch, there was always the impassiveness. Coolly in control, unflinching from dangers and threats.
That was her father.
It was Neji Hyuuga.
It wasn't her.

Of course, they'd tried.
Pushed a glittering set of kunai into her frail hands at the age of three.
Surrounded her with the best of the best - jonin instructors came and went, and Hinata never learned a single thing.
And yet, for all the preparations and strict encouragement, she'd never been prepared.
And so, with her naive smile and open heart, she'd ventured into the world of genin. Leaves danced by, flowers glowed and branches made disapproving tut-tut-tut motions at her.
There was big world and little Hinata. There was also Sasuke Uchiha.
Tut-tut-tut. You aren't ready, my girl.
Sure enough, she wasn't.

On that fateful summer's day, the air was salt-drenched with notes of sea, a brief foreshadow of what was to come. She heard the names being announced.
Naruto.
Sakura.
Sasuke.
And just like that, Hinata's heart gave a stutter.
It was stone-cold and silent in the room.
A million female eyes stared daggers at the lucky pinkette who had claimed the ultimate - a place next to him.
Her thoughts warred, a clamouring, noisy group of children.
Naruto. Sasuke. Naruto.
The blonde boy was easy to love.
The dark-haired male was easy to adore.
"H...hinata?"

Amidst the thoughts, his face loomed clear. Sasuke's lips formed the word, a slap back to reality for the hapless, lovestruck fool of a girl.
But he had stuttered.

Now, Hinata could only wait, and wonder if his heart had done so as well.

Love, at a glance, was a supremely weak and useless thing.
Not a even a thing. A concept, that by all rights, seemed nonsensical to Sasuke.
Well, that was justified, given his past and childhood. Not even with a blonde, perpetually esctatic frenemy could Sasuke learn about the comradeship that had brought his village so far.

Now, love was only one part of the perceived weakness. Indecision and lack of confidence were present as attitudes to be scorned and avoided too.
And Hinata Hyuuga, the very personification of such weakness?
She was a fool and an easy target.

On the first day, he hadn't noticed her, silent and unimportant as she was.
Nor on the first week.
Or the first month.
In fact, it wasn't until Iruka-sensei's sick day that Sasuke realised the presence of the little dark-haired kunoichi.

The replacement was an imbecile. A useless, bumbling fool who had no right to command a classroom of eager students. Suffice to say, he was not half the shinobi that Iruka was, and barely up to standard as a chunin.
And of course, he struggled with the names of all present.

"Hyuuga Hinata?"
There was no response, none that he could hear anyways.
There was the general craning of necks, a snickering from the obnoxious side of the class, and uninterested glances.
He wasn't interested.
Until his brain processed the word "Hyuuga".

Now, Sasuke had to remind himself that the idiot of a teacher had every reason to stumble over the illustrious clan name. The Hyuugas were a clan as famous - or infamous - in Konoha as his own, maybe even more so. The two clan with mystical Kekkei Genkai and a silent, all-pervading strength.
This was the one clan that his family had never failed to verbally abuse, perhaps of the very reason that they were on par with his own clan.
A frightening enough thought, but the girl was something else.

Their first real meeting would have been the night just before he had left. Like a worthless fugitive, now that he looked back, and yet so poignant, so important.
It was one of the best memories he had ever - or would ever - have. Though the thought of escape had been in his mind for countless years already, Sasuke Uchiha had never felt more at home.
He was watching her watching the sunset, and for a moment, all was well. The light was enticing, as if begging him for a moment to stay.
To rethink his decision.
And it was all because of her.
Silent, breathless wonder at the sky. It was ebbing and flowing, painting a new, brighter day into the heavens.
A one-day delay.

He hadn't known, however, that she had known.
Felt his invisible, brimming presence.

And she couldn't know, however, that he now knew.
Watching him, watching her.

"Hinata."
His voice didn't tremble this time.
Her heart didn't waver.

He held his hand out to her - a strong, steady grip.
She held his gaze - a long, steady stare.
And yet, for all the outward calmness and serenity, both hearts were stuttering in a disjointed, sporadic, erratic dance.

They met in the middle, in the dead centre of acres of wind-blown territory and the silent dawn. There was something quite magical about the unsual silence and clandestine nature of it.
And now, staring straight into a pair of gemstone-white eyes, Sasuke finally managed to fathom the delicate tenderness that was love.

Truth be told, there wasn't a single trace of weakness in her eyes.


1054/1000

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

>>> Penny for your thoughts?
by PoppiHollaPuddelz for riot on the road

Rowan Vicente, the child of filth.
A paragon of perfection and order, born of the lowest of the low.
It gives me just the tiniest inkling of amusement when I think of how others must see me.
Inhuman?
Quite possibly.

Give me a world, and I’ve seen it all before.
Give me a stale silence of an austere, white-bleached detention facility and I’ve walked those very halls.
Low-class, a face among millions to the glory of recognition.
Filth to filth.
Rising among the faceless ranks to new fame.
I suppose that should make me happy.
In all truthfulness, it does not.
There is myself, and there is this war-ravished place. There is work to be done, and done well and efficiently.
It makes perfect sense, does it not?

We’ve all dabbled in flirtation.
Grudging respect. Hopeful, eager compliments tossed about to test a stoic eye.
I’ll concede that it’s effective, to some extent.
Though you can make it to the top, don’t hope to breathe a sigh, secure in your throne.
They’ll come.
All hell will break loose, intent on toppling your seat of power.
For me, it’s a mere trifle.
Let them come.
But let me send my condolences to those who tricked their way to the top.

The eye of heaven spares no-one.
With a bird’s-eye view, you can divide the world.
Unlike the stark black-and-white, myopic view of many others, I see the shades.
Grey. Silver. Dark tar-black.
Waving. Ebbing. Flowing.
Do you know the beauty of ink diffusing in a crystal-clear glass?
See the twisting, curling, splatter-marks on the faces of men?
It’s what I come across every day.

This said, I must acknowledge the discrepancies in the lines that are justice.
If you’d like to be pedantic, I’ll have you hear this:
Strict performance of moral obligations.
A definition.
Why do we limit ourselves so pointlessly this way?

They speak, I follow.
It’s the simplest way to be rational.
A blank slate. Input your commands.
That’s why humans are such trouble.
We all have the rules. Just throw in some emotions, and you have it.
Utter chaos.

But for all my words, I am human.
We all are.
There is a capacity in me to feel, to think.
A thought-jarring, menacing, personal Pandora’s box, if you will.
The pressure amounts, and is ever-expanding.
Count to three.
Feel the dulcet bell-tones escaping the gaping fissure.
Let a smidgen of building pressure escape.
And taste the bittersweetness of unshed tears on your stone heart.

Maybe it’s better not to think.
Perhaps it is the answer.
Quiet the cries of outrage.
I may yet be proved false.
Calm the wailing of a screaming heart.
Blind myself to the sights of the innocent.
But for now, I’m incapable of it.
And in the future?
Only time will tell.

Give me your thoughts, and I’ll return more than a penny.
I swear it.
I’ll show you something, to make you change your mind.


493/500

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

>>>For Memories
by PoppiHollaPuddelz for Cinna101

This waiting was getting on his nerves.
Always this ******** waiting.
Storm the place, weapons out and shoved into their faces. Hyper. Loud. Obnoxious.
That was Nazi’s style.
If he were an AK-47, with his rapid-fire speech and bullet words, then the chick to the right of him would be a rainbow glitter party popper.
Or something of the sort, at least.

In a group like theirs, no one bothered with names.
The personalities were extreme enough to warrant just a short phrase as an accurate description.
There was Rainbow Pony, already up ahead with her crazy head like a ******** lighthouse. No cars would be crashing into her anytime soon, but that was the least of their worries.
If there was one thing Nazi had learnt the hard way, it was that people – however defenseless – were in no way blind.

And Rainbow Pony was off and running.
Just his luck to be paired with this chick. She’d take most of the bullets, if there were any to be had.
His red hair had nothing on hers.
Nazi dodged pillars and doors, ending up in the main hall of the bank, where he proceeded to shoot the windows.
Ah, so pretty.
Glass rained down as he grabbed the nearest guy in a suit. The intent was pretty ******** clear, as Pony had done the same exact thing to another one of his colleagues.

The guy was babbling some garbled, incoherent form of terror-speak.
No movement yet.
His gun was up against flesh, as was hers.
Didn’t have the guts to fire?
Nazi’s grip tightened on the trigger.
There was a muffled thump as the man landed on the ground and he tried for a new victim.

Nazi grabbed another one.
Rinse, repeat.
Again, this ******** waiting.
Story of his life.

[9k+600]/2 =4800

300/300, booyah.

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

>>>Heaven, in regret
by PoppiHollaPuddelz for Cinna101

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people,
but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

They say that power corrupts, and I don’t disagree.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember an earlier time, a time before my father’s power.
This fateful era is ongoing, and it wears away at my faith.
Can a son of a monster be pure?

Spoken truthfully, I have been largely unsullied by his greed.
Even so, it feels wrong to speak of him, to think of my father in such a way.
Blasphemy against God. Against my father. Against his men.
While he stains himself red in the battlefield, in the highest reaches of the palace,
I bow my head and meditate, silent and reverent as a holy man in the far mountains.
But I am no holy man.

While he conquers,
Innocents breathe their last words, cursing this plague of a man.
Cursing his family.
Cursing me.

“Ah!” They exclaim.
“Is our prince not one with God? Will he not end our suffering?”
One blow. Smite the head from his shoulders.
Let the children see again, and stem the rivers of blood and tears.
“It is our prince who is able to, but does not.”

My good subjects, let me tell you this:
Only a despoiled soul can end a nation’s misery.
Were there another way, it would have been done.
I lack not the power, nor the courage, nor the heart.
I lack only His support.

Lucius, bringer of light.
Will you bring us light?
Will you forever extinguish your own?

Forsake God, and bring peace unto the world of men.
Quell their cries. Quiet their fears and tears.
And from the ashes of a splattered-blood sunset, a new hope shall arise.
These demons whisper the sweetest things.
Kill him.
Murder your father.

Stand by the roads,
and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls.

I’ve wandered down the lonely twilight crossroads.
Remorseful. Self-pitying.
Either fate hangs in the balance.
Trapped in this cruel cross, a mockery of heaven itself.
Undecided.
Still I wander, sightlessly gazing, weighing, gauging the fork in the paths.

Through cold wind, rain and storm.
I feel the ocean breezes.
Salt-drenched dawn.
Bloody skies.
The still and silent moon a gleaming scythe in the abyss that is night.
The hours dawdle and meander their way past.
In the stillness of the morning, a clock chimes.
Once, twice. Ten chimes.
I can’t help but recall the funeral knoll of last night.

The sword is in my hands,
Another one at my throat.
And like a coward and fool,
I continue to linger,
As if those last choices
Could be delayed.

Would I rather watch the world burn,
Or plunge myself into the fiery pits of hell?
Run to the devil with bloodied hands,
And claim to know the work of God?

In regret, I choose heaven.


Pwnage. 500/500

[Angstbucket Edgelord]

>>> Snow Flowers
by PoppiHollaPuddelz for Prince Ciel

The child had noticed, increasingly as he became older, the common usage of the word “morbid” around him. More often than not, it had been linked – strung along a sentence with the word “curiousity”. Quite curious indeed.

Gabi, or, Viv, as Roma would often call him, was largely adept at being the agreeable little child he seemed. Even the nickname, which smacked of rebellion and revolution, was shortened to a monosyllabic, common call.
Roma understood him – understood his preference for silence, and for the sweet, musical night air over the stoic façade shown to most other grown-ups.
She was curious, as he was, about the grave-digging.
She was not obnoxious, or contemptuous, or scornful.
She did not use that hateful, hateful word : morbid.
In her words: Adults often need the advice and guidance of a child.

One winter’s evening, Viv had taken her by the hand. A brother to a sister, or a father to a child – and led her to the graveyard. Just beyond a little strip of raw brick wall, an unkempt tangle of green spanned the world outside. Inside quarantine borders, they were supposedly safe.
Out there in the wastelands, they were not.

As he stood silhouetted against the beautiful frost-crystals in the sky, Viv smiled.
The grave-digger, the shadow of the dark. The burier. The grim reaper on earth. Backlit with the last rays of cold sun, he began his work, Roma watching in surprise.
There was a tenderness in the way the boy gripped the corpse, a profound hope and simultaneous savagery with which he chipped at the crusted dirt.
He seemed to be wheedling, begging, threatening the earth to give up the secrets of its very core.

In the event of snow, you must make sure you use a good shovel. You must dig deep; you cannot be…
As for Viv himself, he buried them with the sentiments one would associate with an old friend, or a wise, respected man.
They were old friends.
They’d fought and died alongside Viv, in the invisible war against the Disease, as well as the visible, unavoidable one.
They hadn’t mocked him, interrupted, or patronized. Only sat, listened, and contemplated.
They were wise and respected.
They’d kept him company in the frosty fields, taught him to stay calm.
It was, for Roma, a snowflake kaleidoscope into Bambi’s unknown, decidedly melancholy past.
And from the teachings laced with fingers of ice, Roma watched her little boy grow.

Pointless. Futile.
Viv had often mumbled the words to himself to the rhythmic slashings of the shovel – at times it became almost a mantra.
Lost, cold, and wet. A little boy hardened beyond his years was out where no living soul was, digging graves. Digging into the superfluous past. Digging into the bleak future.
Digging to his own demise.

At one time, the sheer wonder of thin ice had stopped him in the monotony of putting the souls to endless sleep. The ice flowers creeped, entombing corpses on their own. A web of crystal spanned the fields, turning mounds of dusty earth into diamond heaps.

"Do you like the cold, then?"
A remark carelessly tossed out into the frozen air.
Only Viv could understand the unspoken assent of the ones around him.
"Me too. I won't be getting cold feet about burying you guys anytime soon."
His crinkled-nose laugh echoed around in circles, and at that moment, he truly didn't want to break his promise. For his aching legs and frozen appendages, Viv wanted to be the burier of the dead, the nameless face of death itself until he was taken.

In due time, the pointlessness came back to haunt Viv. A boy with no fear of death, with a fear of wasting his life.
In due time, he came to think: The sheer numbers are frightening.
One last goodbye, a last grip of the eyes. Viv bowed, clumsy, akward, to the corpses before him.
So many friends to leave behind.
So many memories, and lessons learnt, and childhood bantering.
Know that I hate to leave you, and to break my promise to you on that clear winter's day. But understand that you are, after all, dead - and I am alive. I'll cherish the memories, and someday, we'll meet again.

Only reluctantly did he take his shovel with him, receding into the darkness with hope in his mind and ice on his tongue.

Many years later, Viv saw the snow flowers in a flurry outside the musty glass again.
Turning. Revolving with the agonizingly slow motion of a clock, or a funeral knell.
Then he knew.
Roma, the kindest person he’d met, was among his fallen friends.
Sprawled out in the glittering cold, a snow angel.
It was far too late, too hopeless for hurrying now.

Taking up his shovel again was a hard thing to do.
Like a retired man long out of his profession, there was the initial loss.
Stings of rusty agony coloured the darkness ahead.

It was almost a strict replay of the night when Roma had ventured a little deeper into the dark crevices of his past. And she was there, unmoving, not questioning, and curious as ever. As before, her Bambi took her by the hand.
I’ll show you something, Roma. Something new.
It was a little too poignant to be labeled déjà vu. The stars twinkling a sweet symphony in the blazing sky above had a humbling effect on the boy and his motionless companion, and under the cold reaches of moonlight, Viv began to to chip away.
So loving. So precise.

And in the dying light, he breathed out a sigh of reverence.
She was as beautiful in death as she had been in life.
Persevering. Strong, wise, and gentle.
Morbidly beautiful.


/1000

17k+300