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 Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 9:33 pm
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Harmonics
Word Count: 754
He roused to a keen pounding in his head. Groaning softly, the creature stirred by first uncurling hands from chest and soon after testing the second shoulders that met wings with back. Everything ached, and a keening pain in his stomach drew his form to double over. He tasted bile in his mouth, yet found nothing but parched thirst. Even his eyes found difficulty focusing. Another strained grunt issued from his throat as he tried to pull himself to a seated position, which only awakened more stiff pains in every starved muscle of his body.
The nondescript room surrounding him, the echo of a typical dorm affair coated by centuries of misuse, of crystal dust and charring, roiled about him in a skewed spin. Wooziness overtook him soon afterward, and still long before full consciousness struck him. All movement felt almost automatic, often tainted by the lurching of a form still unaccustomed to its new center of gravity.
He didn't mind it terribly. It hurt too much to mind it.
Bischofite could not guess how long he spent asleep, for the Rift afforded no sun for a guide and no clocks or calendars to signal the passage of time. The condition of his body hinted at days, though he knew not how many, or even if it mattered to consider it. He supposed not.
Slowly the creature pulled itself along the ground in a crippled crawl. He called what last reserves of energy remained in his being to pull himself along stones by taloned hands. Strangely, his wings offered no audible support or reprimand, which leaded the silence of the place. And as he toiled away at his pained attempts toward movements, he never truly felt bad about it. Soon he even caught sight of his harmonica amongst the pitiably small pile of possessions he kept from his old life. It sat atop his folded clothes - the ones he wore on the night his life changed irrevocably. It sat next to his battered cell phone, which likely still worked if he had some means of charging it. It sat beneath the whittled crown of bone and husk that once belonged to Malicious. And in a fit of half-conscious pondering, he found reason to seize it from its home.
With coming awareness came an ease in his condition, a tolerance afforded by the mind regaining control over the body. Standing came easier, yet still sieged by dizziness. His limbs functioned well enough to walk, despite pain in the joints. He managed to stay upright, even when his wings eternally pulled backward. Small successes, minutia that gave him reason to smile, however faintly. Even if he was awake, he knew that sleep would follow in time.
Bischofite's slow meander led him to the Rift, where he soon found a crystal suitable to hold his weight. One of its spires shot out nigh parallel to the ground, and he sat readily on its dusty surface. Youma milled about in the distance, but offered him no recognition. Those that realized his presence regarded him with curiosity, yet ultimately moved on when the general issued no commands. The air still tasted sharp on his tongue, his skin still humming with the sweep of energy through the air.
Finally he brought the harmonica to his attention. An unimpressive model, something affordable and used that he purchased during the time he spent moving in with Quenton. Various scratches marred its chrome surface, the insignia denoting its brand faded slightly, but its weight felt solid and the tone sounded healthy when he first tested it what felt like ages ago. And now, as he held it to his lips, he realized he spent no further time with it beyond what was demanded in learning its basics.
In the first notes, it called a nostalgia so keenly to his senses that he found himself wholly paralyzed. It lasted but a moment, and when relief came rushing afterward, he realized the length of time he spent parched from all music and sensation. The touch of sunlight to his skin when peeking through leaves, how the smell of the air changed when transitioning from city to forest path, the tones that stemmed from hammered strings when he touched ivory keys... A myriad of missed sensations flooded to the forefront of his mind as he stumbled his way through a harmonica adaptation of songs he knew so long ago. He knew it sounded mediocre, but its tones alone quenched what food and water could not. |
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 9:29 pm
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Zähne und Gebeine [Teeth and Bones]
Dystopian Future
Word Count: 841
Long bone wings yellowed under aging light, where street lamps weathered with the slow creep of nature shone dully into the night. The black tar glistened in a muddled, muted fashion, ever dripping thick trails onto the sidewalk as bread crumbs strewn toward living nightmares. He knew buildings more than people - the great spire of the church in the historical district crawling toward a higher fate, its own tower of Babel amongst sordid dregs of dreams. Others peered out in horror with eyes shuttered, thick cloth obscuring the mind from what it never wanted to see. Others still stared outward, blankly, unmoved by the city's slow decline into the choked harrow of the state.
Few still ventured beyond their homes at this late hour. The frequency of abject horror in his passing confirmed that his presence was not well known - either the public held far more pressing concerns, or the infiltration division managed a remarkable feat in quashing rumors of his existence. And, should luck side with him one rare night, he might find those belligerent and fiery souls that sought to stand up to him despite an unnerving appearance and an unrelenting outpour of tar. Like flecks of driftwood gold among an aging sea, they were, ever present and ever out of sight.
He often considered eating them.
Murder never held the same whimsical appeal anymore, not after the Negaverse instituted a cap by which he often neared. Laurelite allowed some leeway - given existence alone, some casualties came as expectancies over the course of a month. However, she expressly noted her disdain for superfluous action, for waste and excess and frivolous desires chased through the streets that proved counterintuitive to Negaverse domination. To Negaverse dominion.
Bischofite rationed them now, those few who met him with hate or fear or jealousy or pity in a chord resonant with his own. He never knew names, never asked - anonymity proved a greater boon than honoring a name no different than the last, the third, the three hundredth. No Julias, no Toms and no Davids - he knew only the scent of skin, the bob of hair in a whirl about her face. He knew the way his victim moved with a practiced grace unnatural to most. He knew a woman petrified, yet possessed of a measure of acceptance that stunned some half-starved remainder of humanity within him.
And the last one smelled of a scent so familiar... Cupping the starseed to his nose, he breathed a gentle test for remainders.
Sandalwood.
Rising his gaze to the spidering alleys surrounding him, they fanned out in a curious observation of the bony conglomeration before them. A snarl warped the features beneath the mask while he sought out movement among the shadows. Nothing more than youma pervaded the area from what his senses confirmed, but a sneaking suspicion left him surveying the darkness for some scrap of movement, some hint of breathing left in their whispered confines. Yet no trap sprung, no ambush rained down on him from the wretched stars burning their slow deaths in the sky.
Slowly the creature trawled his coat over the blonde's legs, thin and spattered with tar, before kneeling near what he recognized as the shoulders. From there, he leaned precariously forward, counterbalanced by the hefty weight of wings at his back, and brushed away stray strands of hair wafting about her ear. Shifting toward her until the length of his half-mask brushed just beneath her ear, he drew a long and steady breath. Still it lingered on her skin - the faint scent of sandalwood, of a clean-shaven man kissed adieu in the morning, of a lover met for night.
For a moment, he closed his eyes to indulge in fleeting images wrought from the depths of his subconscious - a midcentury bathroom outfitted with a freestanding claw foot tub, brass plumbing lining the wall before craning over the curtains with its broad head. A man stood with his back to the scene, the clear material still flecked with droplets from a recent shower, his hair still damp in a slow dry. A permanent neutrality dominated his features, but this moment offered a far different expression - with lips pursed and urged to one side, the his visage changed comically with each stroke of a razor.
And sandalwood. Always sandalwood.
His nose now pressed to her skin in nostalgic revelry, he exhaled slowly. Finally he withdrew, starseed still fitted to the palm of his hand. "Quenton," he began before casting gaze to his surroundings once more. "I wonder if you yet dream of my presence at your side, in the dead of night. I wonder if you ache for ze touch of a lover long lost in zis insidious war. I know I did, until I found Chaos proved ze better bedmate.
"Perhaps I will know ze very core of you someday, Lover." Turning from the mangled body, he folded tar over tar in his wake.
"I hope it tastes as good as your kiss." |
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Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 1:03 pm
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  Bittersüß [Bittersweet] Dystopian FutureWord Count: 1144
The metronome clicked tirelessly, its long arm oscillating to and fro in perfect rhythm. Alois struggled to keep up, working over the keys in an attempt to push himself toward further mastery of the song. His fingers hitched, they tired and keyed with pressures sometimes too great or too small, or altogether stumbled on chords played far too many times without rest. Finally he forsook the endeavor, hefting elbows onto the keys with a defeated sigh accompanied by cacophony. He drew both palms to his face while he listened to the same tick-tick that he failed to maintain with ostensibly effortless clarity.
Rain pelted the window, despite the midday calm. He watched between fingers, eyed the droplets as they pelted the window in bolder strokes until their individualization was lost to a sheet of warped visuals. The curtains stood open, sheer as they were, and strangely caught the flecks of sun dancing through their fine threads. His gaze softened slightly, and he shifted backward on his seat to look toward the shelving above the bed, unsurprised that Quenton's glasses case disappeared along with his keys.
I wonder if you ever take them off in the rain, he thought.
Does it always have to be one or the other? It's sunny while it rains today. He's been trying to spell that out to me, yet the meat of that realization came with a simple change in weather patterns. How... sad.
This waltz won't play itself, and he'll be home soon. He'll be home, and he'll hear every mistake I've made. He'll hear the half-step I missed, or the incorrect chord or a measure played pianissimo rather than piano. He'll hear the mezzo-forte too shy to graduate to forte. But that doesn't have to matter - he's an artist; he must find some joy in the mistakes made, the small informalities present in art or music. All the things I hate. No - maybe it's the journey he enjoys. The slow improvements crawling toward a more developed endeavor - elongating the bone, layering carefully the sinew with the circulatory system rendered in excruciating detail, the facsimile-skin a last portion to mark the project complete. It demanded a great deal of our time, and yet...
Hands found the keys again, embarking on the simplistic beginnings of a song that slowly built to its crescendo through careful weaving of melody and harmony. Tired though he was, he struck each note in the order read across printed sheet music, timed to the metronome still slightly too fast for his ability. The rain picked up slightly, though the sun still shone in a few caught rays across their street.
He'll be home soon.
Bischofite woke suddenly, the faded melody petering out in the slow advent of wakefulness. He knew, for a moment, a memory so vivid that it disrupted his recollection of his surroundings. A bleary glance toward his fingers confirmed the long talons he knew so thoroughly now, with every groove still ingrained to their very tips. Tar-fettered blankets encased in plastic crinckled while he sat up, and bone wings scraped across the linoleum floor. He stretched, but it offered little pleasure - little distraction from the lingering notes he could very nearly feel in the base of his fingers.
These godforsaken dreams should've ended years ago. I've not touched, or seen, or heard a piano in ages since my promotion - since Metallia elected to destroy what dregs of humanity clung to me so desperately with a final surge of power. I've found no want or need of it anymore. So why now? Why dream of days spent in tawdry, pointless activities when my duties to Metallia reside in the forefront of my mind at all times? Am I truly so accustomed to rebellion that I'm fighting my own decision? How maddening... Slowly the creature rose to his feet, searching about the floor for the half-mask he wore so commonly. The thick scent of tar greeted him while he adhered it to his visage, feeling slightly more settled in his own reality.
I never finished that song. A long talon traced the length of bone beak, lingering at the end for just a moment before disembarking entirely. He closed his eyes afterward, and for just a breath, heard rain pattering at the windows once more.
"You disappeared too long ago now, Quenton," he seethed with a lidded glance toward the window. Overcast weather offered no shadow muted into a pall - no rain, no sun, no hail or gale or calm. "You vanished when you realized your hold was slipping - when you knew zey would come in force to end what rebellion you stirred in me." He breathed a slow sigh before turning to the bleary, dreary, dull kitchen at the back of the apartment, still laden with default paint and only the barest of accessories to assist in food prep.
A single Keurig coffee maker sat atop the counter, plain white to match the walls in all their builder grade blandness, where uniformity was meted out in the form of pods deposited in its top. The same flavor, the same amount, the same strength for each day passed under - in - around the rule of the Negaverse. An exercise in obedience and uniformity. An exercise in killing myself as slowly as possible. With teeth gritted absently in concentration, the creature worked to manipulate each glossy portion of the machine, to peel back the foil intended for finger pads rather than foreign grooves.
For a moment, he swore he smelled Chai.
Do I have to kill you, Quenton? Must I end you to finally rid you from my thoughts? These days... They're not meant for you. Yet I know you still linger out there, perhaps drifting between benefactors, those aimless civilians who risk their lives in sheltering you for but a dinner, but a night of rest. And you repay them in the slow, dawning realization that the Negaverse encroaches ever closer, that these half-dead denizens of other planets scrape together no more ground in their endless war against Metallia. You don't fight for you, or them, or me.
Dropping the pod, its contents spilling out in a browned jumble across the blank white counter, Bischofite wrenched the half mask form his face and covered his eyes in a single hand. The talons wrapped around a portion of his face, a single finger lingering against his still-pierced ear. His grip tightened on the mask until he felt a portion of the recently-glued bone break beneath the pressure. He licked his lips, the sorrow still thick in his mouth between gums and lip. No amount of wicking away fully banished the fetid, salted taste.
No - you still fight for me,
And that's the saddest portion to stand. |
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Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 7:05 pm
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Do you mind if I smoke [Pt. 1]
Word Count: 724
A certain brilliance came with the first flecks of consciousness, for once spreading a sense of invigoration through his bones until he knew an excitement that felt both relieving and entirely foreign now. He knew the sheets before he felt them, the shelves before he looked at them, the sound of his voice before he heard it himself. He knew precisely where he slept, privy to his own grueling nightmare that ground his spirit into blackened waste long before the tides of misfortune ebbed. Yet as he sat up, the gnawing weight at his back loosed all swell of relief and brimming brilliance with the realization that the nightmare never ceased - it blended with reality in such a malign fashion that he knew the darkest portions of his dreams before sleep knew them.
But with sleep came an irrefutable renewal - he knew not the same weariness that settled into his bones upon moving to Destiny City. Food waited in the fridge. His mind functioned with a modicum more sense than what drivel churned out the night prior. The world's thorns wore away during the long hours of day, leaving naught but a hilly but surmountable landscape for him to navigate over longer nights.
As he slipped from the bed, he found great pleasure in his bare feet touching the worn, flattened carpet. He considered sitting still indefinitely, spending the precious moments to memorize what he could of the fibers between his toes - how easily manipulable they were, pulled taut or relaxed. It felt easy to reminisce of days spent barefoot and indoors, oscillating between books and Quenton's ever-intermittent presence. To reenact the feeling of sheets pinned between lovers, or of a thick parchment page poised between fingers, or fresh coffee passed along lips.
All felt too easy, too familiar. Am I rehearsing the past for my own distraction, or is this another manipulation? Perhaps I'm letting my own motivations deter me. I cannot linger here, then.
After absconding with an apple and orange, after leaving behind his own note written in shaken print, Alois departed from the apartment in a breath - the door still locked, the windows still closed.
In transit, the harrowing reality of his position spilled over his thoughts during a pace across a parapet. The wind batted about the din of a city beneath, laden with horns and shouts and throaty engines missing their mufflers. He paused, a gust catching his feathers while the gravity of it all settled upon him. I remember what I said last night - and I was dreadfully wrong. This isn't a simple rebellion. Metallia stands not as my admonishing parent, and Quenton never served for the 'bad boy' pulling me about. No - my situation is far more dire. There aren't any social situations left to spell out the exact parameters of how I stand with the Negaverse. If nothing else, they've built a bomb about my heart, and they hold the zip line through the detonator. Quenton wants to cut it all away before they wrench out what remains of me.
Borrowed time is an understatement - I'm gambling every second. With my actions leaving telltale deviations for SpecOps to follow, it's but a matter of time before one of the General-Soverigns take it upon themselves to neutralize the deviant general. There are not many, and for some time I've stood out among them; even one with tepid intelligence can deduce who's missing from the lot. I announced my new loyalties when Vespa purified, and those present would be fools to squirrel away that information for themselves. The trail is thick with clues now, and the Negaverse stands far more powerful than this truant band of dipshits known as the White Moon.
I need a cigarette.
In early eve, the sun only freshly descended, far too many stores stood open for purchase of packs. However, he knew of one location that housed such a necessity without demanding the necessary social channels to obtain it. He remembered far too well taping a pack of Marlboro Blacks to the underside of one of Alexandre's greenhouse tables before he endured the long tribulations of ending that addiction, and he wagered that the blonde never found his stash.
Quenton would murder me, came his last thought before the feathered creature blinked out of existence. |
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Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 7:06 pm
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I don't care if you burn [Pt. 2]
Word Count: 759
Utilizing Lellouch's safe haven provided a surfeit of benefits to the normally exhausted general. First, he now harbored a location to sleep with some modicum of success - the more rural portions offered far fewer of the senshi populace to poke about where they never belonged. It doubled as a base of operations, though a simple ranch-style home offered few tools belonging to those of nefarious pursuits. And lastly, a working set of stove and refrigerator vastly expanded his options for food to put an end to constant starvation.
A spatial shift left him at the entrance to the great room, sprawled with hardwoods and warm furniture themes inclusive of thick blankets and a large, carpeted rug set somewhat beneath an oversized couch. He swept around the knotted wood coffee table in his pursuit toward the smallest of the bedrooms. Much of the same decorating scheme flowed through the remainder of the house from what he could tell - a full-sized bed sat snug against the wall with a rich cherry desk offering just enough space to roll out a chair. It felt cramped, and Alois recognized it immediately as one of his wings caught the back of a wooded chair, pugging it off its front legs just slightly before he felt their drag against his movements.
The bed itself sported a thick navy blue comforter in solid design, with only a trimming of white and sky blue stripes to offer a pop of personality. There, Alois dropped the pack of cigarettes still wrapped in cellophane before he retreated from the room altogether, headed for the bathroom once shared by Lellouch herself.
In flipping on the light, he discovered nothing ostensibly out of order - fresh lilac hand towels hung dusty from brushed nickel hangers, and a single shaded light above the large mirror flooded the room with fluorescent tones. For a moment, he felt blinded by their brightness; snarling slightly, he cut the lights in favor of milling about in the dark. First he rifled through the medicine cabinet, finding very little of interest beyond a tube of travel toothpaste, some floss, ibuprofen, and an unopened toothbrush. In rifling the drawers, he found a lightly used hair brush alongside a hair dryer and straightener - common items found even in Katarin's possession. Yet in rifling the remaining vanity tray, he finally discovered a tube of felt tip eyeliner that served perfectly for his purpose.
As he returned to the bedroom, Alois snatched the flip-top box from the bed and hastily unraveled it with the use of his teeth, discarding the wrapper to the floor without a second thought. Shaking, he pushed open the pack and held its contents just beneath his nose, drawing a long breath to sate his senses with scent alone. Sighing gently, he plucked a cigarette from the set to purse between his lips while he tucked away the remainder into the ornate horn case provided by Schörl herself.
She'd murder me in a heartbeat if she knew what garbage I just bought. The thought offered a little mirth, and gave him just enough pause to begin reconsidering his decision.
The lighter bought for him by Xenotime still sat on the nightstand, untouched.
No - I cannot dally on distraction. There's no time to consider whether the stalling is of my own volition or of hers.
Finally he shook the eyeliner, listening for the minuscule ball's passing through the tube before he unscrewed the cap. Out came the felt brush, blackened and glossy, and he gripped it between his fingers for a moment to familiarize himself. Finally he took the cigarette from his lips and began work on its white paper casing, carefully tracing letters across the shaft of it. In all caps, shaken with a mix of anxiety, unsteadiness and anticipation, the letters spelled out a word far too charged for expression.
M E T A L L I A
With the first done, he hastened through the remaining nine until all cigarettes bore the same shaken text sporting the name of the Negaverse's thrall and savior. He shut the case immediately, capped the eyeliner, and tossed the initial cigarette atop the case while he ran his hands thickly through his hair. Tugging at the ends, he considered having a cigarette agains the printed name across the breadth of the paper.
Finally he tucked the final nail into its coffin and tossed the case atop the wooden nightstand, though the knot in his stomach and the wretched need for a cigarette never fully abated. |
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 6:40 pm
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in the alcoves of the dusk
Word Count: 1202
Sleep wove dreams too troublesome, lurid and vivacious and stark all the same, in the feverish mind of the boy-turned-youma who now slept on beds and benches like they were home. He knew, in those moments stretch to eternity and recompressed, the wings on his back melted to naught but tar and bone. He knew the yoke grown stronger, and under it the command of an army like rotted fingers spread across the horizon. He knew a city occupied rather than under siege. A hundred million instances of interactions, missions, murders, orders, battles bloomed across his mind in such a short period, each systematically building on the last to a crescendo so palpable, so climactic that he woke in a veritable state of drowning in his own tar.
He felt the thick strands of optic organ cling to the very base of a bone. He remembered breaking delicate china beneath lengthened claws. He knew the breath of flames roiling about his body, a crematorium building from the base up to burn him to a phoenix fate.
And, perhaps most poignant, came the memories of the early hours when he woke to a plastic-covered mattress and memories of sandalwood scents clinging to his nostrils - the fading hints of humanity.
For the stretch of minutes he could only bring himself to stare through the wall beyond, his gaze fixated so far in the distance that he no longer saw this world but the next, five long years after this very moment in time. In an unknown year, crystal erupted about his figure in battle to cage him into total servitude, and within it filled a layer of tar so thick that it obscured the whole of him to onlookers. The blackened crystal stood jutting and ominous, a plagued marker on the battlefield, until somewhere within the general drew so much tar and defiled chaos into his body that he finally knew the power shared by other sovereigns. It cost him the meat of his wings, he knew, when he felt a shell of the agony channeled through memory painted vivid in mind.
He remembered corruptions, a lot of them. Murders, even more. Patrols, to number the stars in the sky. Operations, managed and micromanaged and puppeted into a hollow joke of what once accounted for ‘genius’.
Persephone, he remembered, stood as his equal - and adversary in her own way. She maintained the ongoing surveillance appointed to ensure he expressed no second desire to purify - that much he remembered. Shadeite also managed some modicum of involvement, in that she enacted plans to kill Quenton alongside him. She knew somehow, but… Bischofite never fully remembered who might’ve told her. Suspicions lingered, from Aludra to Schorl, yet none stood at the forefront of the suspect.
He remembered the stars littering the ground. The smoke, the fire, the pomp and circumstance. He remembered meetings, so many meetings, all propped up from cardboard with their tinsel and their fireworks and their bands too loud for thoughts of the gaudiness, the insulting mockery of it all. The speeches littered with their pleasantries, their placating words meant for those of lesser mind. So much flooded into his thoughts that Bischofite himself nigh passed out from it, adrift in such swaths of memories that he might’ve drowned in a lesser state.
And he wondered how much of it was real.
By the time Bischofite exhaled, stars gathered in his peripherals to encroach on his consciousness. His muscles shook with tension maintained far beyond their limits. His heart beat through the cold sweats that drenched his body. Covering his face in shaky hands, he parted warped fingers to stare toward the unearthed gravel scattered just beyond his feet. They sat defiant in their irregular shapes, dagger shadows extending beyond their bases - small bastions to mark each of the moments that now littered his mind in a cacophony slowly turning symphony. The roar of waves soon assumed rhythm.
“It cannot be,” he whispered to the winds and the shadows and the penumbras of stomach bile fluorescents. What I knew but moments ago could be no mere dream - it felt too lucid, too disjointed, too stark and utterly real to amount to a mere fancy of the mind. Is it so? Muss es sein? Is this what awaits for me in the five year stretch? My fate… Only in time can I determined if this is a path required for pursuit. And if it isn’t… There’s little use in assuming such for the ennui it entails. I cannot sit idly by. I cannot lull myself into complacency.
His breath hitched while the world adopted a haze, and in a blink came a clarity too sharp to maintain. So it seems I am one of Metallia’s mouthpieces come the future, but how bleak and utterly pointless it is. What am I but another dirty secret brushed under a rug? A general entrusted with far more power than the rest? I might’ve known some modicum of effectiveness with the use of tar, but beyond that… I become little more than Natron with an acerbic tongue - a stubborn grunt consistently handed b***h work. Tea with Schorl, routine patrols to ensure the lack of senshi presence in the city… Is this supposed to be a life? My life?
If this is my fate…
I have little time. If what I saw constitutes the future, or a proposed inevitability, then it won’t be long until Laurelite lobotomizes me with Chaos energy. I will not bend knee to her as some slavering attack dog. If purification cannot be managed with Iris, then I must look beyond her - reach farther, go higher. Someone must possess the strength for it - I cannot afford to believe otherwise. I have no time to bide for the lot of their kind to puzzle out my starseed. Even if it kills me… It should amount to a better fate.
I knew flame dancing across my skin in the end, heat so blisteringly great that it boiled away my blood and peeled flesh back into sickly sweet bacon. The tar… Betrayed by my own manifestation of oppression. I don’t want that fate. I cannot abide by it. I would excise these wings from my body with rusted fence spikes sooner than I’d capitulate to that end.
I will not idle any longer.
Slowly the creature rose, tremor-stricken hands absently coiled to his chest in some bastardized echo of insecurity crossed with defensiveness. He shambled toward the darkness of the alley, wings hunched around his shoulders, head bowed as he eyed the ground passing beneath his feet. Quenton must know, even if he doesn’t believe me. Despite his lack of exposure to the supernatural lives we lead, his intellect still proves useful - more so than Iris, or her fat cat, or her team. More than Kairatos. More than even Hvergelmir.
This fate will not be mine. I will disown it, even if it demands death to fully divest myself from it.
I will not dally any longer.
And should I find success in purification…. Then vae victis. |
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Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2014 9:23 pm
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All Saints' Day (backdated to November 1st)
Word Count: 1642
Draining water continuously hummed outside from its forays through the gutters. Cool autumn rains started in earnest last week, he knew. The soft patter filled the room ubiquitously, save for the sharp and ritualistic interjections of the wall-mounted analog clock that hung to the right of the dresser. He always thought it strange that a clock of that nature hung in a bedroom, but he never bothered to question Lellouch of it - he already knew her answer would consist of a shrug and mumbled indifference, or heavy objections to her family. For every night he spent wondering about its existence there, its placement, he suffered through yet another Dali dream of melted time and other weary, misunderstood visual metaphors.
Tonight he lay on his side as he would any other night, but his body knew a buzz of restlessness normally absent. Since his fall, courtesy of Ida, he recognized strange and seemingly unrelated changes in his mental state - small gaps of short term memory lapse, or seconds lost to zoning out, or an altered sleep pattern. While the clock was regrettably not military time, he could tell by the waning light that early nightfall approached outside - 4PM.
He shouldn't be awake for another hour.
Finally Alois sat upright, practiced well enough now that his flight feathers (should they even be called such) curled dramatically and immediately straightened as they passed the rim of the bed. Sitting up still promised its own surge of heavy, throbbing pain and dizziness, but it grew more passable by the day now. One wing still felt impossibly agonizing to move, and while Lellouch's experience with birds helped, the skeletal structure differed vastly; the whole affair demanded high-strung collaboration between the pair as Lellouch manned the computer and Alois teetered between overbearing instruction and pained objections littered with colorful expletives in two languages.
Alois checked his cell phone out of habit, hoping to see indication of a new message from Quenton displayed across its dented and marked screen. Instead all that showed was a nondescript background of a clay cup sitting atop its saucer with a small banner across the bottom displaying time and date. Initially he figured to text Quenton to prod for a response, but intuition kept him staring at the default display. Hastily he wracked his brain for any reason that the undeniably boring screen might herald some importance, and a full minute passed of shifting gaze to the irritatingly bright light of the cell phone and the more soothing portions of the room before he finally understood the significance.
Today was the first of November.
Slowly the creature started to laugh - it was a soft, whistling sound, obstructed by a hand that quickly retreated to cover. Of course it is. Alois Scholz made it to 21 years old, though not in any condition that he could've foreseen. And to think that two years ago, I thought I could predict all possible circumstances to befall me now - from accidental parenthood to living as a hermit in the woods of Germany. How floored I would've been to know what I know now...
Well, then. Let's celebrate.
He needed no further rumination to know his course of celebration - it's been a tradition apparent since the age of sixteen, and offered a grand span of reactions that would greatly enrich his afternoon. It required some preparation in withdrawing his old clothes from the safety deposit box of subspace, wherein he rifled through the pockets until he procured his wallet. Afterward he stuffed it into the only surviving pocket inside his coat after checking the contents for some bills. He hadn't found a great amount, but it was enough for a decent night given his wasting state of health.
Teleporting still proved risky in his current condition, so he opted for the long and slow walk from the suburban neighborhoods and their picturesque posture and picket fences into the slowly growing urban apocalypse waiting in the distance. The cusps offered by street lamps looked murky in the light rains, likely caused by the mischievous fogs that whirled and settled into place. Few cars passed while he managed his slow venture on the sidewalk, some undisturbed by catching his appearance in headlights while others swerved or sped up immensely. By now, those of the city knew well the horrors that walked at night; how many months had it been since he was counted one among them?
Maybe I have two birthdays now - one on the second of May, and the other on the first of November. Curiously spaced at a day shy of six months apart... All the better for me if the Negaverse intends to curry my favor with gifts and trinkets. Fat chance.
By the time he reached his destination, his feathers grew heavy with water weight and his clothes clung clammy and drenched to his skin, which was stricken with gooseflesh. The door handle felt greasy to the touch, but he hardly cared beyond entering a warmer establishment - if only by temperature. A bell clacked against the surface of the glass on the inside but he paid it little heed. Neither did the servers, as they didn't have to; one dropped an entire platter of pub food upon spotting him.
For a moment he lingered in the dorway, taking in the sight of a rather cozy and unusually designed establishment - long and narrow, a bar ran lengthwise down the middle of the room before curving prematurely before the end, which allowed space for a few tables. The majority of the stools were the typical style of heavily ringed oak, each upholstered with burgundy pleather and painted gold riveting in typical cheap style. The bar itself boasted rows of assorted liquors, from Svedka to Grey Goose in the vodka section, widely recognized brands like Captain Morgan of the rum, with their widest selection featuring whiskeys. A few beers were made available in a cooler display nearby with a built-in shelf lighting, offering mostly brands that he fostered no recognition for or interest in. However, the tap just behind the recoiling bartender sported at least one brew of interest - a Captain Lawrence beer named Captain's Kolsch.
Finally he started toward the bar, but the initial shock of his entrance already started to subside. The group of friends toward the back of the establishment tried to console a traumatized girl, who began to scream at painful pitches upon recognition of a monster in her midst. Other patrons of the pub either clutched their drinks in fierce grips, studied their poison of choice in a look of incredulity, or reached for harbored guns smarty carried for instances exactly like these.
Either way, he wasn't terribly welcome.
"Hi," he ventured, figuring that speech might buy him a few extra seconds before getting shot to death by firing range in Dr. Feelgood's Pub. "Halloween costume left over since last night. Haven't slept since zen." The explanation felt flat and drab, but it offered a perfectly acceptable solution to those that had a few beers already. For the rest, they still sat rigid, with renewed interest in their liquors to drown away the sense of abject unease.
The bartender hadn't yet found his tongue - instead the man stood stock still behind the counter, terror evident in young eyes, and plastered himself against the shelving behind him.. Alois found this fortunate, and found a perch toward the middle of the bar, while other patrons soon sought alternative seating. "I'd like to try ze Kölsch you haf' on tap zere." A nod toward the direction of the tap offered enough of an incentive for the man to free himself from his temporary petrification. The bartender's hands, curiously laden with rings, shook visibly while he edged toward the drafts.
I wonder what's going through their minds right now - is that real? Do I shoot him? I imagine a few around here still ruminate on those questions. The man in the red mechanic's cap looks far more skeptical of his own drink than my presence here. As for the rest, a predictable mix of terror and revulsion, with a few that are much more alarmingly predisposed to attack. I won't exactly have much time to visit, if any at all. A shame. Alois began to tap his fingernails against the counter while he reflected on his current standing in the abnormally quiet bar (save for the screamer), but a stern and wild-eyed glance from the rank man next to him offered enough interest to halt the action immediately. Alois sought eye contact afterward, interested in any responses that the man might present, but an unexpected retaliation before him soon caught his attention.
"How about you get the hell out of here," the bartender shot back with newly steeled nerves, thanks to a respectable shotgun touted in his calloused hands. The weapon already sat ready with the stock leveled against his shoulder and his right index stiff against the trigger. It looked as though even a twitch might set the weapon off, which caused the man to Alois' right to lean absurdly away from the creature.
"If zere's going to be lead in my liquor..." Alois mumbled under his breath, though he compliantly shifted off of the barstool at a slow and deliberate pace. A few steps backward heralded a brush of feathers against the wall, and he kept his gaze steady on the bartender who trailed his movements with the business end of his shotgun. Only when Alois reached the chillier threshold of the establishment did he wrench attention from the man, and pressed through the bell-laden door to the equally disdainful November weather.
Adrenaline-laden laughter sprang from him afterward, once he reached a safe distance from the bar. |
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