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 Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 11:27 pm
[ Bradley Post ]
He couldn't do it any longer. He couldn't hold Excalibur - and that was what he was holding - and stay conscious. He apologized to the fabled blade and thanked it for it's help.
Then he let go of it.
The blade vanished before it clattered to the ground and Bradley's mind was suddenly empty and light for the first time since he'd picked up the fabled blade. Relief surged over him and he swayed. He'd lost too much blood, been in control (if you could call it that) of Excalibur too long. The sword had told him he was fragile and fragile he was. His body could not wield that power, could not withstand it. He was strong, proof enough in how long he'd been able to hold the sword to begin with, but not strong enough. No one was strong enough to wield that blade, except its true master. Bradley was not that. He was barely a trainee, been on less than a handful of missions. He'd come to this only to find sand, pain, and running around as Yzalin's captive almost.
(He felt her chuckle then, and it soothed his aching mind to know she was still there, still safe and still connected to him.)
All in all, Bradley Evans wasn't strong at all. He was tired, he was anemic and the ground was looking mighty comfortable right about now. The sky above him became tendrils aimed for Medea, to end this now.
His vision swam and he was only partially conscious of his body hitting the ground. His eyes flickered closed as Death itself attempted to tame Medea.
Open. Red shattered the sky. Close.
Open. A pocket watch fell to the ground. Close.
Open. A glob of black was shattered. Close.
His eyes did not open again.
Then they did. It felt like an eternity, but like an instant as well. It was unnerving and jolted him conscious enough to take a look at his surroundings.
He was sitting at a table. It was quiet, and he couldn't quite remember why he was here. But there had been... food, yes? Perhaps. Or he'd been meeting someone. The blood loss probably forced him into the chair, in all honesty. But how had he gotten here? Mm... he thought for a long time before giving a shrug. Clearly holding Excalibur had done more to his brain than he'd realized. He'd almost.... What had he almost done?
He contemplated starting a conversation with himself. Or perhaps Yzalin, but she was quiet. Too quiet. Slumbering perhaps. Or muted. He reached for her but did not find her at first. A hand touched his left ear to find her earring firmly in place. Slighty battered, but in place. Then it was like with Excalibur, he simply couldn't hear her.
He idly wondered if he was ....
A memory flickered to him then. Medea had enacted her influence and he'd already been on... who's door again? Someone's. Or some thing's perhaps. He'd almost .... there too. But he hadn't, clearly. He was alive now, wasn't he? He supposed he had to be alive, if he was thinking about this. He couldn't be vanished and have these thoughts. That wouldn't make sense, after all. He definately hadn't vanished from existence like his cousins. He'd not have Yzalin with him, if that was case. Weapons who's hunters vanished went back into being tablets, right? If he still had her, then he hadn't vanished.
Though two of those cousins hadn't vanished. One had. He'd simply just never turned up again. Bradley wondered where he was, that cousin. He was somewhere better than this place, that was for sure. Anything was better than the life of a hunter. Never knew when you'd ----, or if you'd survive to see the light of day. Two of his cousins were hunters as well. He'd seen Wilson vaguely through the fighting, dressed as a white king.
But that was neither here nor there. Bradley was getting off topic.
Compared to some, his experience with... With what? What did he experience? He tapped a finger to his lips in thought. If he couldn't remember it, he must not have experienced it. Why had he been going down that train of thought then?
He couldn't remember.
He was silent for a long while, trying to remember things that obvious hadn't happened to begin with. There was nothing to remember, after all. He lived then he simply... didn't anymore. But he had never not lived. Knocked out, yes. Not lived? No. No one ever had. They just went away to a better place. The description his mother had given him for his cousin's disappearance (the oldest one) was apt. No one stopped living.
They just went away to better place.
After a while, the table he sat at vanished. It too went to a better place.
[[ ... ley... ]]
... Right. He had somewhere to be, too. He stood from the chair and stretched. He stared into the nothingness for a while before closing his eyes.
Open. Awake.
WC: 838
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Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 11:28 pm
[ Hamika Post ]
Everything suddenly changed.
There was a flicker, a glimmer of hope and Hamika seised it. She poured her FEAR, her essense, Jack, her entire being into that one little glimmer of hope. A chance for freedom and for control had appeared to her, and she was want to take it. A crack formed in the mirror and she shoved her entire being into it.
Phymi was too focused on watching Medea fail to notice. She watched in horror as the barrier was struck, and then everything around Medea collapse in on itself. Even she felt drawn in to the power that the being wielded. How could their glorious priestess fail? How could any of this fail? No, no, they would not fail here. They could not fail. Phymi took a step forward, then another, trying to reach their priestess before Death consumed her.
"Enough, Phymi. I am reclaiming what is mine," said Hamika, through her own mouth. The shadow wavered and flickered and for a moment, both Hamika and Phymi in the same space at once. They watched with mismatched eyes, one orange one shadow, as Medea was consumed into a tiny red shard. They watched as the sky exploded in red and Death found itself on the receiving end. Phymi shrank and Hamika firmly placed herself outside of the mirror. Half in, half out as it were.
"Watch Phymi, watch as your priestess destroys everything, for the sake of her precious Clans. " The zombie felt smug, felt empowered. She was going to die here and she couldn't care less. She was done, she was over this, and even if Medea won here, she couldn't win forever. Someone would take her down.
Hamika was, after all, the first to sacrifice herself before anyone else. She had not been crowned the Ancient of Worthlessness for her ability to think depressively. No, she was the embody of worthlessness. She was a zombie, a reanimated piece of flesh. Creeple were repulsed by her, creeple avoided her. There was no ending where Hamika would find companionship or a partner in life. There was no 'happy' ending for Hamika. She had accepted this long ago, back admist the battle against the Red Queen, when that memory had turned up empty.
So if she was going to die here, she might as well greet it like an old friend.
Snap. Both halves were jolted as the mirror shattered in Phymi's hands. The phantom horseman's eyes widened and she dissolved into distortion again. She was fuel for Medea's rage and was helpless to avoid doing her bidding. Hamika had full control of herself again, all of it, and then watched in horror as Medea contained Death.
And then destroyed it.
Orange eyes widened. The tower rumbled, then cracked. It swayed, then broke, and she went tumbling, tumbling, tumbling.... Everything faded to black.
She was sitting at a table. Hadn't she been here once already? Surely she'd been here once. Right! She remembered. She'd turned to stone then ---- . Yes of course, of course she had. She'd left that room however. She had other things to do at that point. How she'd convinced herself of that, she'd never fully understand, but she had.
Yet, here she sat again. Alone. She'd been alone last time too, right? Had to have been.
Did this mean she'd ---- again? The zombie thought about it. No. The last time she'd ----, she'd... what had she done? She'd tried sacrificing herself to escape, hadn't she? But then the puppet had ended it and she'd ----. Or had she just switched places with the puppet? She'd woken up, so she couldn't have ----.
Well, no. That wasn't true. She may not have then, but she had once. How else would you explain her un------ness, her zombie form? But... it was silly to try to remember something that hadn't happened! She'd always been a zombie. Creeple vanished, but they just dispersed and came back again. No one ever dispersed and never came back, that was silly. And she'd never dispersed, not once. She was going quite well, considering the mess she'd gone through.
For someone so self sacrificing, she ended up alive an awful lot. Perhaps she never did disperse ever. Perhaps she wasn't even awake during all of it. Yes, yes it was a terrible dream.
(No, my dear, that's a terrible road to go down. Shush. Don't think. Don't worry. )
Still though... why was she here again?
She couldn't remember. Maybe it was best to not remember these things. Pain was associated with the things she could not remember. Agony, despair, Grief, these things all bubbled up when she tried to remember things she could not. It was easier to not remember. She wouldn't remember.
There wasn't anything to remember after all.
Sometime later the table disappeared. There hadn't been a table at all, nor chairs.
Soon too, Hamika disappeared, for she'd never been there in the first place. She couldn't have been. She'd never ----- . So she wasn't.
If only all memories were as easy to wipe out.
WC: 840
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 1:13 am
He wakes in the room that he did not go to sleep in, reaching for a girl who isn't there, and then he remembers her and he thinks: she did not read my text.
A red-haired figment; a character; fictional, populating a strange dream. Crazy and wonderful, all hyena laughs and red lipstick, and she reminds him of someone (of fighting shadows; of snapped banter to cover over fear and embarrassment) but he can't quite think of who.
A little story.
--
He can't remember why he signed up for this. He left her behind, and he does not know why.
--
Bix hands him the pendant. He remembers this: he remembers Bix's strange, resigned smile. He remembers pushing it back towards him, and he remembers hating himself for not wanting to do it.
The memory is invested with a strange sense of grave importance, but it is clearly trivial: two boys politely refusing the last bit of cake.
--
did you hear the news about ( )
no, what? oh god.
not sure how. found him in the back of the house. <******** hell.
there a couple days, they think.
( )
yeah. i saw him six months ago.
( )
--
He saws at the noose around his neck, and he thinks: I will do this on my own terms, not gasping. Do what, exactly, he isn't sure. The ground yawns open beneath him, waiting for ( )
--
(how many lives are worth your own
how many ( )
worth)
--
you're here because you have a death wish
you're here because ?
you're here
she's there
because ?
( )
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 1:13 am
[ leslie ]
1. It's evident in the way they move that this battle is larger than you'll ever be-- than you can ever hope to be, outside of nightmares and horrific visions-- and it is, somewhat, a relief. At least they're focused on each other.
2. You don't know how you know it, but you know that this is Death, that this is the embodiment of the end of the line, the blissful release that your loyalty to, as an ideal, has locked your hands in manacles and chains. You are a slave to the ideal. You are a slave for a brief time, because no one lives forever.
3. Not even ancients.
4. Just like in Wonderland, sometimes your vision is overlaid with the sight of another world, where you are civilized and are eating dinner, life is full of pleasantries and hor d'oeuvres, small talk and.
5. The clock stops.
6. The platform crumbles and the tower falls, disintegrating and you feel like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, the falling is eternal, and you don't know what you just saw but it can't possibly be good. What happens when the final destination is wiped off the map? Where do you go instead?
7. There you are, at the table, and the small talk is gone because you're eating alone surrounded by the comforting din of a restaurant, and you're staring down at a piece of black forest cake, the colour of his hair, the way he looked just like you in the way your scowls form, identical because of petulance, of bitterness, of quiet rage boiling beneath the surface.
8. You are at his ------- and he isn't there: everyone is crying or morose or empty-eyed and you don't know why. You're too big to clutch at your mother's skirts, but she doesn't want you touching her anyway, because you've been playing in the dirt and running around causing as much trouble as you can in a --------. You stare and know that you should be sad as his ----- is lowered in the ground.
9. Where did Stacy go?
10. Later, you are being hit and it's not a new sight and it's not a new wish to be away from it, you are full of so much hatred and wish that your brother was ---- and that you were ---- and that everyone on this miserable ******** earth was ----.
11. But it all rings hollow: like saying that something is red when it's just pink and washed out like blood circling down the drain. You stare at against the porcelain and resist the urge to put your fist through the tile. Yes mom, you say, it's not a big deal. It's not like I'm ----, give it a rest.
12. You wake up.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 1:36 am
[ lurks ]
She isn't your Mother, but for now, you think she is, the all-encompassing promise of power greater than what you are, to unlock a potential in you and yours like you've never seen. There's strength in numbers, you have seen it in the nature of hives and swarms and colonies, it only makes sense for life to imitate art and there's no purer art than insects thriving. You are Lurks Beneath but you are the Many, a thousand creatures thinking in synchronized beat, and from above you watch the Mother stare down Death.
You watch, poised to strike if he hurts her, but she is strong and capable and mad in the way that all the Mothers are-- several thoughts short of a collection-- and there are a dozen just like you, waiting to rise up in resistance.
She does not need your help, and the boring end where everything fades is eliminated from the equation, struck out from the records, forgotten. The ground fell out from beneath everyone, and you are too curious not to follow, to see what waits at the bottom, to sing amidst the rubble and prey upon those that have lost.
It is his right, as the victor, but the world fades out in piecemeal disarray, leaving only--
You are at a table and it is too nice for the likes of you. It isn't often that you're self-conscious of the way you dress and hold yourself, but you squirm on that chair and wish you were not here, in this fancy place of eating, all alone.
The table is set for two but you are the only one there, and you stare down at your food in a quiet fury, bristling, and it hits you:
1. Your mother and your father left you and Waits a long time ago, but where did they go? Why did they leave to never return? Why have you never heard from them for a millenia and more? Did they defect? Did they fade away? What could you have done that was so boring that it made them go away?
2. You have made a few humans go away, indirectly at most. Nest said to you: don't ---- the Original, and you wonder what it was she was worried for. What was the point? She would not give a pointless order, but you cannot place her logic. Ah, well. Thus is the nature of Mothers.
3. You want to hold them all together, to create a new place for you and yours. It is the chant of the scavenger: Watch. ----. Replenish. But what is part two? Why not take them all, forever? If they have nowhere to go, then why wouldn't you?
You snap to, no longer a god or an ancient or a swarm, but skeleton-bone and flayed back flesh, you are tatters and a cloak, you are a brother and you know that things are going to change. Medea is not your mother, but during a time of strife she granted you strength and power, and that was something to think on.
Maybe you could be loyal, if it meant getting more of what you wanted, by doing the things you wanted to do anyway.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 2:37 am
There is an empty chair and this is correct. More correct than previous table when you had -left-. The other had -left you- and they probably weren't ever going to come back. Probably. People were always leaving you and the difference between leaving you for a day or forever did not exist. They left you until they returned again or they simply did not. There was no way to be sure.
When auntie had -left you- her voice continued to ring in your ears even years later and when you are sentimental, you wonder if perhaps she did not -leave you- but instead turned into a voice and so she was not gone at all. The sentimental parts of you are not without influence, but the majority overrules it this time, claiming bullshit. Bodies don't just turn into voices. Everybody knows that. It's science.
So they -leave you- and you don't know where, exactly. But you hope it isn't nice. You hope they aren't having fun. (You're achingly bitter that they are. That this is the truth of your existence: everybody is going to leave in order to be happy without you.)
And then one day you leave yourself. You follow a man who says he will show you how to -leave forever-. And that your life will be better for it. And you take it. Because of course you do. There is nothing for you here, only other people that will -leave you- too.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 3:32 am
There is something that Qarah has never been afraid of. It has been proud of this fact, a little haughty; it has never ever believed that this idea applied to it. Sitting alone at a table where maybe it has been alone all along, where it was most certainly not eating (Was it eating? It never eats. It cannot have been eating), it stares into the darkness and realizes that it can no longer remember what the thing was of which it was not afraid.
How very silly, it thinks, to be proud of not being afraid of a thing. There are so many things that are not frightening, so many things in the world of which it is not afraid, and it is not proud of those. The lack of fear is a fact, not an accomplishment. It is neither ashamed nor proud when it does not fear, except in this one thing, this one thing that it no longer recalls.
If it has forgotten, it thinks calmly, what it has forgotten cannot be very important.
It sits alone in darkness. There is no table, and it was certainly not eating. There was never anyone there with it, and it is not afraid. It sits and it waits, calmly, peacefully, as near to content as it is capable of getting, until eventually, eventually, the darkness swallows it on up too.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 4:09 am
There was a triumphant feeling in the air as the converted horsemen watched his priestess succeed in taking down death, raising his hands up and laughing in delight. The sky had cracked and opened up into hellish chaos, and he drank the scene in. Medea had persevered, and now the horsemen would be the rules of a new world-
----
Why was the table so empty?
Jason waited with some concern for the other occupant to show up, the desert menu in his hands open but unread. He was sure someone was supposed to be here but he couldn't for the life of him remember who.
Thoughts turned in his mind, the familiar sadness clutching at his aching heart. Why hadn't he spent more time with Killzone, or even Julie for that matter? It was shameful how little he had known about them, and how he would never get the chance. Constant worries always plagued him of who would be next to fall, because there was always someone else who would perish.
His body began to tremble as he began to recall something else, something more terrifying then he had ever encountered. Shadows had engulfed him, warping andchanging him into a creature had had never wanted to associate with and yet there he was, killing the very hunters he had been working with for so long.
But as he sat there, he began to wonder...just what was troubling him. Wasn't he just thinking about someone? Or something?
And wasn't there a table here?
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 4:48 am
She sat by herself at the table, watching the empty side opposite to herself. Someone should be there but they weren't, and she hoped they would get here soon. Pokerus wanted to eat something, especially meat. She was hungry.
Her thoughts then turned dark, the dragon closing her eyes against the unwelcome memories. Meat could be many things, come from many sources, but in the end it always had to come from something alive. A fact her Aunt Theodora would always point out as she talked about that story of hers. If the dragon ghoul thought hard enough she could hear the dying screams of the humans, or even worse, the gurgling noises of the drowning victims.
She sat there and pushed away the thoughts, looking down at the menu on the table. She frowned, suddenly unsure as to what she had been thinking. Something about her Aunt and a story? Had it been a important one?
With a shrug she looked around, realizing there wasn't anything there. Had there been something there?
She had no idea.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 5:11 am
He has been hurting for a very long time. Jordan stares at the menu without really seeing it. Shouldn't there be someone at the table with him? He thought there was, but nobody's there now. He puts the menu down
He climbed down out of the tree, ashamed of himself (but why?), wishing Mom would get mad, wishing she would get anything but sad and dignified (why are they sad? The feeling begins to hollow out and lose its meaning), and he took her hand and they turned to go back inside, back to the ------.
and folds his hands, looking down at how his fingers fit between each other. It's kind of weird, if he thinks about it. Weird having a body at all, though he really can't think of any alternative
He took the CD out of the house and threw it into the ravine, flinging it like a frisbee, as far as it would go, because he never wanted to hear that song again (but why?). It had been Mom's favorite, and she'd sung it to him at bedtime, and he'd sung it to her while she was in the hospital, and now she was ---- and he never wanted to hear the song again (but it was a pretty song, a nice reminder of Mom; why wouldn't he want to remember that?), and he watched the disc vanish down in the summer-seared grass and cried (but the memory of crying holds little meaning, the pain leaching away with the lack of comprehension), and eventually he wiped his face and went back inside.
at the moment. Maybe being weaponized, but he's a human. That doesn't apply to him. He is recalling a series of separate moments that don't really seem
He received the email the day after the -------, and angry still, unable to imagine ever living a normal life again (but why?), responded, went to meet the mysterious sender. Agreed to the offer extended to him without much detail, went back to his room to pack (why had he left without a word to the family he loved so much, left forever with no explanation? What had they thought? Perhaps they had just forgotten him), and simply walked out of the life he'd lived.
to be related, that he doesn't quite understand. Maybe they are connected by the absences in them. His father, his mother, his brother, and he remembers the shock and numb incredible joy of finding his brother on the island, finding him asleep in a pod, but he no longer understands it. His brother had been absent, but he doesn't understand why this catalyzed a huge and cataclysmic sorrow.
He unlaces his fingers and lays his hands on the table. The menu is gone, if it was ever there in the first place, and there is little significance to its disappearance or its nonexistence. It is gone. He has, he realizes, lived nearly half of his life structuring himself around absences, as though they were significant. As though what is present is less meaningful than what is not.
He has made himself into an empty container, a shell wrapped around an absence, and then wondered why he felt so hollow. It's absurd. Not even the funny kind of absurd you can laugh at. It's just nonsensical, and maybe a little sad.
The table is gone. In time, everything will be gone, and he wonders why that certainty ever hurt.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 6:29 am
Uru sat there, arms crossed his chest, head held up, eyes closed tight. He was sitting there at a table and he hadn't known why. He could not recall the last time he actually shared a table with someone to eat. Perhaps a drink or two, but not to eat proper. The sensation - this feeling of loneliness, it was no stranger to him. He thought he was getting better, growing accustomed to the point that the feeling was just a constant underlying thing, but he felt it. And it sucked. He hated it.
The hellhound rolled his head back, his thoughts swimming in the darkness of his mind that had suddenly grown more vast than the ocean it was before. His eyes fluttered under closed lids as memories swam in his head when it became focused on just one.
A wolf, a large creature with fur of auburn and hues of grays and blacks. Its ears calm as a hand rested on its horned head, eyes of shimmering blues as it looked at the being beside it. The pair walked onward, the being spoke of its fears, its regrets, its unfulfilled dreams, its thanks for the creature's company, its questions for their destination. The hellhound glanced over its shoulder to his point of view, its eyes - her eyes shimmering brilliantly. He could almost make out a twinge of a smile as she nudged the being forward onto their final destination. She was guiding him to his end - in comfort and companionship, voiding him of his fear, his anxiety, taking for herself for he would no longer need it.
The light blinded his vision as the memory fell away from his mind. He was falling away. The weightless sensation of falling.
Was he sitting?
Was he at a table?
Was he even awake?
Was he really falling?
Falling.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 6:49 am
mmur
"Stop."
Silence. Everything was quiet to an unnatural degree. Nkosazana at his side, the angry Halloween boil attacking a second horseman of Death nearby, even the head priestess. But serenity only lasted a moment.
Death itself was subduing Medea, enveloping her and her insanity in darkness and ending the chaos that had consumed enemy and ally alike. The fight was over, order was restored, until...
Mmur tensed as the first crack shook him from the inside, and he watched in curious awe as the horsewoman broke free of the ancient's grasp, striping the sky with blood. The tide was turning in the wrong direction, and for the time it took to inhale, Mmur was drowning in all-encompassing despair. He had chosen poorly. Under Medea, he would never be more than a caged dog, released only to cause havoc and pain. Her hands were stained red. They were descending, reaching in through his mouth and eyes and nose and puppeting his body even as he struggled.
This time when the world lost its sound, Mmur didn't know if it had for everyone or just him. Death fell, condensed, and shattered into nothingness, and Mmur's awe turned to horror then emptiness as he watched from his eerie vacuum. He hadn't killed all that many humans in the grand scheme of things, but he forgot every ----- in that instant, floating through the darkness its absence left.
- - -
He exhaled.
The elderly gentleman had returned, perhaps from a trip to the restroom. Mmur smiled at him, nodding when dessert was mentioned. He looked down at the menu, carefully weighing the deliciousness potential between tiramisu and chocolate mousse, and when he looked up again, he was alone.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 6:50 am
brenley
Brenley froze when Piper released his hand and ran off, barely hearing Ignatius's enthusiastic battle cry soon after. He wanted to be brave. He had told the ghoul that he would have her back in situations exactly like this one, but too much had happened in the weeks since for him to uphold his end of the bargain. The boil was muddled and more than a little frightened. He still had no idea how he had arrived here, and with each passing moment, the world grew more and more grim. He saw student fighting student, horseman fighting hunter, and above it all, a blood-red priestess pulling the strings. He could only hope nothing here was real, that he hadn't failed Piper and that she wouldn't hold it against him.
Unfortunately, he was staring skyward when Death decided to strike back. Medea's barrier was overtaken by blackened fingers of taint, and rather than witness what happened next, Brenley did what any sensible coward would do. He closed his eyes. He only dared to open them again when everything had gone silent and stayed that way for some time.
At first, he could see nothing but a gently undulating blob, but eventually it solidified into an odd, bony man seemingly transfixed by the menu in front of him. The man felt familiar somehow, but Brenley was quite certain he had never seen him before.
"... decide what you wanted for dessert? I really wouldn't want to miss my favorite part of dinner."
Brenley swallowed, his fingers twisting together in his lap. He looked down at the menu on the table in front of him, unable to make out any of what was printed on it. He cleared his throat, intending to ask what the man wanted of him, when the figure flickered, a pocket watch appearing in his place. It was cracked, and when the boil reached for it, another hand smacked his away.
That's not...
"It was a good meal, but the lack of dessert makes it lackluster."
...yours.
The boil jumped in his seat, arms shooting out to his sides as if he was on an elevator that had suddenly dropped out from under him. The man had returned, and as he slid his broken pocket watch forward in lieu of payment, it appeared to move in slow motion, melting and shifting as it went until it was nothing more than an ebony marble.
"Some things take time, perfection unfortunately cannot be rushed. Please do enjoy dessert for me."
He watched the marble drift to a stop ever so slowly. He wanted to reach out again, but he didn't dare. It began to crack, to fall to dusty pieces right there in front of him, and as it disappeared from existence, the boil felt the heavy sensation of peace envelop him, cocooning and sheltering him from the outside world.
"I hope our meal together has at least been entertaining. It has been a while since I've invited guests over, for the first and last time."
- - - - - faded away, but the warm, safe feeling remained. Bren shuddered back in the real world where he lay, feverish and alone, on the floor of an abandoned teacher's office, while in his mind he rewrote the time he had spent in that awful house, burying the truth under Medea's lie. He hadn't run off. He had worked with the others. He had escaped nobly and without violence. He had never picked up those jackdamned pliers.
He hadn't been able to recall more than drugging Pachua in the first place, but he knew, deep down, that he had killed him as well. Now that word held no meaning, in fact, it didn't even exist. Brenley embraced this new world that was missing the concept he now despised, wondering why he was suddenly so happy with it.
The good times didn't last.
He awoke in an unfamiliar place, his limbs curled uncomfortably under him for warmth. Everything he had forgotten came back to him in an instant, and he lay there gasping, tears mingling with the grime that caked his cheeks. As it turned out, death was not what he despised after all. What he hated most was murder.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 6:51 am
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 6:53 am
"Stop."
And it all stopped.
The words from the black, daunting figure were more powerful than anything she had ever heard. The chaos of the tower seemed to instantly stop, a darkness overtaking the room so pitch that no one had a chance to see. She did catch one thing, though, as she saw the red fragment drop to the ground, clicking harmlessly. It felt like a weight was lifted off Nkosazana's shoulders. Finally. Finally, sanity would come back to their people. Finally, this chaos would end, and they could go back home, because Death was here. Death was there to take care of all of them, and punish Medea for such insanity and insolence as she showed--
Crack.
What was ... that?
The sky began to shatter, the pitch black fading into a deep red of blood that left chills running down Nkosazana's spine. Death seemed small in comparison to the tendrils leaking from the sky, worming down and down to grasp Death and take it within their own hands.
Chaos.
Destruction.
This was pure destruction.
This power felt nauseating to just watch. It was nauseating to witness. Nkosazana nearly keeled over and emptied the contents of her stomach right then and there, but she kept standing, kept trying to watch, kept hoping that Death would show how truly overwhelming he was and would always be, but nothing came. Nothing followed but booming, echoing voices and cackles of destruction, even as Death became a pocketwatch, and then a ball of the pitch he brought with him, and then pieces.
Infinite pieces.
Shattering pieces.
Nothing.
Naturally, dessert was Nkosazana's favorite part of the meal, too. It would be false to say that she didn't have at least somewhat of a sweet tooth, and it was probably more accurate to say she had more of a sweet tooth than she let on to the ordinary mare of stallion. So when she was presented with the menu by Death, she chuckled, murmuring that, "Desserts are such a hard decision!"
But why was there going to be no dessert? The waiter seemed to be coming, and he commented that the lack of dessert was lackluster. The golden pocketwatch, she recognized. That was what was being used to pay for the meal.
"It was a pleasure to have dinner with you," she spoke, naturally, tilting her head and offering a smile to the other, pleased. This had been nice. This had been pleasant --
Why was his voice fading?
Remember?
Remember what? What was she supposed to remember? Was there something she was supposed to understand?
She remembered a face. Was it a War Horseman? So much more used to warmth. She remembered them vividly, how they would come visit and talk with her, even on the coldest days. It was pleasant, and she felt a smile spread on her face every time he let him in. But then, one day, he disappeared. Eventually, his visits stopped. He never returned to her humble abode and she never had the chance to enjoy his different ways of seeing their world ever again. Why had the visits ended? She couldn't find the word for it, couldn't even explain what had happened. Had he just decided he didn't like the Death Clan after all? Had he gone on a mission?
The what clan?
She was of the --- clan. She could feel it, on the tip of her tongue, but the word was gone. Everything she stood for was gone. It had disappeared, just like --
Just like who? Was there someone there? There were two chairs at this table, but only one was occupied: the one she was currently sitting in. She was the only one there, no one else was there. Had anyone else been there? It felt like there was, because the table was for two, but --
No, no one was ever there.
It was only her, looking at her dessert menu, admiring the food which jumped from the page.
No one else had ever been with her.
Nothing else was there. The menu faded, falling into the abyss. Was there a table? She could have sworn there was once a table in front of her, or was there? Perhaps she had always been alone, in a dark room all to herself, sitting in a chair that soon disappeared as well, leaving her falling, falling, falling to the ground, curling up in herself as she looked up to the empty, black ceilings and the empty black floors. Why was she here? Was there a purpose to her presence?
Eventually, she remembered nothing. To her, the meal had never happened. To her, the very concept of Death had never happened. It was gone. Everything was gone, and everything was silent.
Her vision even seemed to melt away.
Gasping, she awoke.
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