'New blood joins this earth
And quickly he's subdued'
He... never stood a chance, that kid. The deal was done, the contract signed, before he even breathed his first breath, before he was even born. That’s when his parents had agreed to give him away, and to take everything from him. The future would rely on him, but for him there would be no future.
Of course, they didn’t completely give him away. Not really, they were still around, when they weren’t busy. But they didn’t raise him. He called them mother and father but he felt nothing for them. From the moment he was born, from his earliest years, he was taught to follow orders. He barely knew the world before he knew that it was not his. No, it was his to take, for them. It was his destiny, his only purpose, to serve them.
He didn’t know in those days, just what that meant. But he knew he was an important part of their plans. He quickly learned not to question, just to follow. His earliest memory was pain.
'Through constant pained disgrace
The young boy learns their rules'
The tears burned as they fell down the young boy’s cheeks, mixing with the blood there. It was hard to think that just a while ago, he had been so happy. The snow was cold beneath his hands. It was the first time he had seen any, and would be the last time for many years. It had been so wonderful... before the pure white was mixed with the red, before the cold air was scented with dead flesh.
“I... I just wanted to see what it was like... to be like them.” The child whimpered. “Just for a while.”
In front of him stood a tall man; or maybe he only appeared so big because the boy was so small and so scared. He glared down at the child angrily, before a cold smile came to his face.
“You will never be like them. You are not made to play, or to have friends, you are here only to fight.” He said in an emotionless tone. “Soon you’ll see, there is nothing great about them. We hold the power, and you will learn to follow us or you will die like one of them.”
The boy shivered as the man walked past. After a few moments he stood, tears now freezing against his skin. Then, he turned and followed, knowing more than anything, that he did not want to be there when the mothers found their dead children.
They were the only children he ever made contact with; after the punishment, he didn’t dare approach another. With time, he grew to resent them. They’re lives looked so happy, yet they were so weak. He soon gave up any hope of one day joining them. The punishments continued though, as one way or another he always displeased them. Their punishments were always cruel, and often humiliating. Even from a young age, they set out to break him down. He was to be their prized warrior, and he would grow strong and powerful, but he had to know who owned him.
'With time the child draws in
This whipping boy done wrong'
Eventually, he learned. He knew that anything he did would never be good enough, so he always had to work harder. The hardest work, by far, was when they made him kill. They said he learned how to do it; to be violent and merciless, and to have no regrets. He would have to kill in the future, so they wanted him to practice on innocent humans. At first, he thought it was wrong. The idea of taking a life upset him greatly. Perhaps it had to do with the many massacres he had seen as a young boy. The first kill, was a girl. She was about his age, and he was twelve at the time. He hadn’t seen what they had done to her, though he could guess from where the blood stained what remained of her clothes. No, that wasn’t how he knew how badly they had tortured her. It was her eyes. She had the face of a child, but her eyes, they were far older. And there was a connection between the two, because he knew she could see the same in his own eyes. He had never met the girl, but he didn’t want to hurt her. But then he remembered everything that they had taught him, and he remembered everything they had done to him when he had failed or disobeyed. Then it was easy to slit her throat. And though she died, the connection stayed. He stared for moments after the life had left her eyes before he walked away. Nobody would see anything reflected in his eyes again, for now they were empty.
That had been long ago, many deaths ago, but he would remember it in clear detail forever. Something changed in him that night. After the killing, he was frightened. Then, he would sit in one space for hours refusing to move, he wouldn’t talk for months. He still had to work though, of course. Then, well, it was like he had been in a cocoon all those months. When that time was over, the young, fragile caterpillar had transformed. It was the day he realised that from that moment on, he would do whatever it took to protect himself, at the cost of anyone else.
'Deprived of all his thoughts
The young man struggles on and on he's known
A vow unto his own
That never from this day
His will they'll take away'
After that, he followed them obediently. Anything they ordered, he did and did well. He became the student and soldier they had always wanted him to be. They even had him going on missions and it wasn’t long before he was accepted into their meetings and learnt what was really going on. He found out why they had wanted him in the first place, and what for...
And when they thought he wasn’t around, because as a scared child he had become so good at hiding, he heard the things they didn’t want him to know. He hated them for it, for everything they had took away from him. He wanted to leave them but knew it wasn’t that simple. Wherever he went, they would find him and punish him for running. He had nowhere to go, nobody to turn to, and most importantly he realised that he knew nothing of the world. Besides, what would be the point in leaving now? They had already taken away his entire childhood, probably his whole life too, if he didn’t complete the ‘destiny’ they had given him, everything would have been meaningless. His life would be meaningless. That thought scared him more than staying did, so he stayed.
That was when the boy began to plan. He realised that while he was trained as one of the group, even though he was told what to do and say, nobody could force him to think or feel certain ways. He hated them for everything they had done to him. They had tortured him, and broken him down, and made him their slave. He decided that he wouldn’t let them brainwash him anymore, that no matter what they did, he’d never break for them again. He was going to follow through with their plan too, and do what they wanted him to, but then he would get revenge, destroy them and take everything for himself. He thought that was only fair.
'They dedicate their lives
To running all of his
He tries to please then all
This bitter man he is'
That vow didn’t last nearly long enough. Before long, he was back to serving them. They had broken him down again and again. Sometimes, he didn’t think it mattered whether he died or not. A part of him almost wanted to, to die before they got the chance to use him for their real plan. But he did as he always had, anything they ordered him to do he would obey. Once in a while he would wonder why it was they treated him as a slave when he was supposed to be the one who would lead them to victory. They said it was all about training. He’d been training his whole life. Sometimes, he was afraid of the fight that would someday come of it; not because he could die, but because he could succeed. Just as he couldn’t leave now because he would have nothing else to do, what would be his job after the fight, when everything he had worked for his entire life had come and passed? Would they keep him around, or dispose of him? Would they treat him like a hero or would he be a slave again? But none of that mattered, because it was his life now, and no matter what the outcome – he would have nothing left either way – it had to be done.
His whole life he worked for them, trying to please them. He lived for every rare complement and feared them when he had done wrong. To them, he was almost perfect. To himself, he was a tool. And as he grew older and gained a better understanding of just how they were using him, he began to hate them, and himself, and everything. In everything he did, he was full of rage and hatred, and nothing could seem beautiful or give him joy again. It was at that point he realised, he had grown up.
'Throughout his life the same
He's battled constantly'
It happened almost suddenly. He was lost when they told him the plan was about to go into action. He was now eighteen years old and had been preparing for this moment his entire life. To say he was shocked when he found out where he was going was an understatement. A school; when he was a foolish child, he had dreamed of going to a school with the normal children. That was a lifetime ago. Now all he saw was business. He tried to push what would happen next out of his mind, to focus on the matter at hand.
It was harder than he expected. He thought they were just going to go in and attack, but they wanted him to blend in with the students for a while. Among them, were the two sons of another vampire, one who in his time, had caused them a lot of problems. There were others too. And then there was the girl, the daughter of a wolf pack, his clan’s greatest enemies. They had to suffer.
Indeed, it was difficult. He found it difficult to befriend them; his lifetime of training had not taught him the necessary social skills. Manipulating them, however, was a different story. Still though, the wolf never trusted him, she fought him as often as she could get the chance. In a way, he supposed, she did know what would happen in the end. He had to admit she was clever. Then there were the others, always challenging. But the worst was yet to come.
'This fight he cannot win
A tired man they see no longer cares'
They were his enemies and he had tried hard to remember his training, to remain emotionless, uncaring. But they had broken him down, the way his trainers used to break him down, but worse. It wasn’t the fights and the injuries that came from them. It was the kindness. He had never expected kindness, barely even remembered what it was like. But there it was. And they destroyed him, the wall he’d built between himself and society, back when he had vowed to never get close to anyone again. They showed him all the things he had missed as a child, and he hated them for it. He hated them because those things were wonderful, and he loved them and they made him feel a happiness he had never thought possible. He hated it because he finally knew what he had missed his entire life, and he would remember it when it was gone. It was so much easier when he had no knowledge of those things. Now he cared. And worse, he began to feel something for some of the people around him, friendship and some maybe even, love.
And then, he just stopped caring. And at the same time he cared too much. It was a strange, confusing feeling. Sometimes, he just didn’t care about the plan anymore or those involved with it. He wanted nothing to do with them. Occasionally, he thought, this was because he wanted to stay, but he wouldn’t allow himself to acknowledge these thoughts. He knew though, that when the time came, he would follow them without question, because he still thought his life would be meaningless otherwise.
And then, he didn’t care about the people there. They were just people, and he’d seen people before, seen them killed and he’d killed them before, and they died so easily yet there was always more. It wasn’t like a large number of them actually cared about him. He had gone in knowing they were enemies, aside from the few he persuaded to join him. He didn’t care about what would ultimately happen to them.
But then there were other times, times when he would worry about them, just one or two of them. He would worry about what would happen when they learnt the truth, of what would become of them when the plan went into action. Part of him wanted to protect them, but he knew it was pointless.
By that point, he was done. He just wanted it to be over. Then, all too soon, it was.
'The old man then prepares
To die regretfully
That old man here is me'
He... I... I never realised before. I’d had my chance to change the future, to betray them. I could have told the others why I had been sent there, could have told them about the plan and stopped it before this happened. I never realised until now that... they were my friends, one or two of them. Things could have been different. If I wasn’t so stuck in my old ideas, I would have seen I had the chance to make up for everything I missed as a child; I had the chance to... to have a life.
I had been shocked when they told me it was time to go. A part of me wanted to stop it. But then I didn’t see how I could, and another part of me didn’t want to. I told myself that when it was over I could finally get rid of my foolish dreams. After everything, I always thought I’d win. I underestimated her strength.
I fell to the ground and looked up at her standing above me, her weapon dripping with my blood. Then she was gone, off to fight another. I guess I knew the wound she’d left me was fatal. Of course, it had sliced right through my body. A lot of things went through my mind, mostly shock and fear. And then, irony. Because it was snowing. It reminded me of that first time I’d seen snow, and like that time the white was stained with the red blood of bodies littering the courtyard. This time, I was one of them. It seemed like it was always meant to end like this. Still, I hate them for what they did to me. They made me care. They made me want to live. And I was... no, I am dying... for a plan. A course of action I’ve trained for my entire life, which I failed. It seems it was all for nothing. I can’t help but think of how things could have been different.
'What I’ve felt
What I’ve known
Never shined through in what I’ve shown
Never be
Never see
Won't see what might have been '
I had so much potential in life. I can see it now so clearly, how innocent and beautiful my thoughts used to be, even though I’d always been trained by them to think as one of them. I can remember clearly when I was not a part of them, when I dreamed of better things. I used to imagine such wonderful things. I used to feel and understand those feelings. They always say kids are innocent because they don’t understand but they’re wrong; it’s because they understand things the adults can no longer see. I can see it now; I wish I could have seen it before it was too late. How beautiful the world really is, how things could have changed.
What would have happened if I had not become one of them? Would I still be in this place? Would I have friends, someone to love me? Would I have a real relationship with my family? Would I have gone to school and done all the things the normal children do?
It seems so pointless now. I could have been something, but instead I was a monster, and then a loser and a failure. And here I lie now dying. I’ll never know what I could have been. I can only hate what I was.
'What I’ve felt
What I’ve known
Never shined through in what I’ve shown
Never free
Never me...'
I was a prisoner my entire life and I was never allowed to be myself, or even to find out whom that was. I wish I could have known, I’m sure I could have been someone great, who did something meaningful with their life rather than waste it. I wish I could have another chance, but nobody would help me now or bring me back, and there’s no place in heaven for the likes of me.
'You labelled me
I'll label you
So I dub thee Unforgiven'
He’s standing above me, staring down at me. He grins, and then kneels down beside me.
“Looks like you’re dead kid, well too bad. But hey, you’ve done enough. It looks like we’ll still win after all.”
I smile back, and while I still have some strength left in me, I tell him what I’ve always needed to say.
“You took any chance I had for a life and stole it away from me. All this for something I never wanted to be a part of. Everything I’ve done, all that I’ve suffered was for you and you made it so that I could not belong anywhere. Because of you, I will always be... nothing.”
“Well I’m sorry kid, but that’s just the way things are.”
My fingers clasp my sword. “Yeah, it’s too bad. But I’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done.”
His eyes widen in shock, mouth open as he collapses beside me, my sword through his chest.
I collapse back onto the ground, out of energy. I can hardly breathe and know in a few minutes I’ll be dead. Perhaps it’s for the best. I was never made to fit into this world and they’ll probably be a lot better off without me around. Even if they somehow saved me, which I don’t see them even wanting to do, they’d never accept me knowing what I was a part of. One last minute betrayal to my former trainer won’t change that.
Just like him, I will always be... unforgiven.
[Written based on the song 'Unforgiven' by Metallica because I thought it suited Miles, one of my characters from something I do. He's his clan's chosen one to lead the vampires to victory over werewolves (and probably to take over the human race too). Yes, sorry for the cliche vampire/werewolf war thing.]
Monday 24 October 2011
Sickness (Short Story)
“He was never right in the head." Said the sadistic bitch who raised me. The sentence was told to her friend on the phone as they discussed what a problem I was. As this conversation took place I remained on the floor watching the blood flow from me. That was when I knew I would one day kill my mother. I was eight years old at the time, and this was before any demon. No, rather it was before the demon that resides within my own body. How could anything other than a demon open her own child's flesh claiming it was for the one she called God?
Let me explain. My name is Ventre Vey... Well, it is now; my name has changed a lot over the past. At the time of my birth and on the certificate they produced I was named ‘Kyle’. As I grew, it was ‘Child’, ‘Useless’, ‘Worthless’, ‘Thing’, ‘You’... well, those were the words that most often escaped the woman’s lips when she spoke to me. Now, before you go all righteous on me, I do not blame God for the way my mother treated me... I only say, because it is true, that my mother did what she did to be using Him as her reason. I never knew my bastard father and if I met him today I would not hesitate before applying a vice-like grip to his neck. After he left my two month pregnant mother she turned to the church as some do at their worst moments, and the priest there had told her to raise me ‘right’. To ‘remove all evil traces’ from me so that I did not become like my father. So my childhood was spent as her faithful servant, cleaning and even cooking for her once I was big enough to reach the stove. Any time I did or said something she didn’t like she beat me until I bled then made me wash it all away. She said that if she beat me then the evil would leave my body and if I washed it away then it would not be able to return. When I was a child I believed her, I was stupid. As a child I decided I’d rather be evil than live a life of pain. I truly wanted my mother to die.
At eleven years old my dream came true in the form of what at first appeared to be a nightmare. In an effort to reject my mother’s holier than thou lifestyle I had begun spending time around a group of stereotypically gothic teenagers who went to the school I had just started. They seemed fairly nice despite the names my mother had called them and I never suspected they had other motives for keeping a child around. I hold no grudges against them; they gave me my greatest accomplishments. They took me to a forest one night and told me that we would be meeting with demons. I was happy. If my mother had seen me it would have made her so angry. However, that night ended with me tied naked to a tree, a long gash having been cut down my chest with a dagger. The teens gathered around me, one of them reading from a strange book. Tears ran down my cheeks, knowing that I was to be sacrificed to the creature to make it come. I was afraid but as it continued I became angry and wished for the demon to kill me. My life had been nothing but worthless so far so I saw no reason for staying alive. The only one who crossed my mind at this time – Spike. Spike, formerly Anthony, had been my neighbour and best friend since we were babies. He was the only one in the world who knew and understood me. It was him alone I would miss.
A fog descended over us at that point. My vision, my thoughts, began to blur slightly, and I felt as though I were drifting to sleep. I saw someone in front of me but due to my impaired sight all I could see was a dark shadow.
“Do you want me to help you?” He asked, his voice sending a strange shiver through my body. I could not form words, so I simply nodded before passing out. I awoke at sunrise, early in the morning, untied and curled up under the tree. The cut was gone and so had the strange blur that had affected me. In fact, all of my senses seemed clearer than ever. So it was fast that the foul stench reached my nostrils and I looked around to find all seven teenagers dead. I ran home and jumped into bed before my mother found me missing. The deaths were mentioned on the news but no trace of me was ever found and the only person I told was Spike.
I was fifteen when my mother died. Strange things had occasionally happened to me but nothing like that night had happened before. I was knelt in front of my mother after she had beaten me. She was shouting at me about what a terrible son I was and that she should have never had me. I wasn’t really listening to her. I looked down at the floor I was on, feeling her hate flowing into my body as the hate I felt for her burned within me more than I remember it doing so before. Ever since the night I had decided to be evil, I had tried not to cry in front of her, not to show her I was weak. But now as the blood seeped down my skin as she stood above me, tears seemed to cut my cheeks as they fell. A strange feeling filled my body and I realised it had been there before, I was only just noticing as it increased in power. It felt in a way like the night four years prior when I was tied to that tree. I fell to the floor as a sudden pain hit my side. The weird feeling grew in strength again as it felt like my insides were contracting as if to crush me as I convulsed on the floor. Sweat coated my body and I realised my mother had frozen. I managed to catch site of myself in the mirror and was shocked. My eyes had turned a violent shade of red. For just a moment my face contorted and took the shape of some hideous creature and I heard my mother scream. The convulsions stopped as I returned to normal, aside from my eyes, which remained red.
I looked up at my mother as I rose to my feet, suddenly knowing what had happened, and of the power that I possessed. I knew what was inside of me; I felt his claws on my brain as I stepped toward the woman. She was no longer my mother. For the first time in my life, she was a simple human, and for the first time I felt her fear. Not just felt, I could smell it, I could see it. She was afraid of me; our positions had finally been reversed.
“What are you?” She whispered to me. “You aren’t my son.”
“Are you surprised?” I asked. “You never treated me as a son; you treated me as a slave. You wouldn’t have cared if I died. Somebody will die tonight, but it will not be me.”
I smiled as she backed away.
“You make me sick, you terrible creature.” She tried to sound angry but her voice shook. “You wouldn’t hurt me...”
“The world is a scary place for a young boy.” I told her. “Young boys need their mothers to show them everything will be okay. You never did that. You told me that there was evil within me and you hurt me. You weren’t destroying the evil in me, you were putting it in place, destroying the good, the innocence that all children are born with.”
The woman who used to be my mother moved backward again and fell. She screamed as I walked toward her. In my head I could still here my own screams from childhood, the way that I used to beg her to stop hurting me. Tonight, she would be the one to beg.
“You didn’t have to be such a bitch my whole life.” I said just loudly enough for her to hear. “If you had shown me even one moment of kindness, I may have considered letting you live. But you forced me to live in hell, so that is where I will send you now. I don’t believe that your God will spare a woman who hurts her own child in such a way when he created mothers to protect the children.”
I came to a stop, standing over my mother. I knelt down in front of her and saw the look of horror in her eyes as I continued.
“Tonight you’ll find out what it’s like to be beaten as you beat me. You will never raise your hand to me again.”
My senses returned as I awoke in a pool of blood. I slowly stood, paying little attention to the corpse, and as always when I awoke in blood I went to the shower to wash the evil off my skin. As I washed myself I smiled, knowing that I was finally washing away the greatest evil that had been with me since early childhood.
As I stepped out of the shower I fell to the ground again, convulsing as I did a few hours before. I felt a massive pressure on my body then something was flowing out of me. As the feeling lessened, I looked up to find myself staring at a demon. He didn’t look quite as the warped face I had seen in the mirror earlier, but he was not quite human either. He spoke to me and finally introduced himself. He was Necat. (Necat, I later found out, is ‘Kills’ in Latin. Why is it always Latin?) He explained that he had been living within my body since the night four years ago. He had let me live because he felt sorry for me and because it gave him a way to reside in the human world. He showed me how to make myself appear innocent when the corpse was found. After that, there were many nights when Necat would take over and make me kill. He, and as a result I, developed a taste for blood. After he tried to make me kill Spike I tried harder to control him. It was many years from the night I killed my mother that I was able to gain some kind of control over Necat. But all of this is irrelevant here. It is all for another story, this one is simply to tell of my relationship with my mother and the truth about how she died.
[Note: I'm not sure I like the way I wrote this one as much as I did when I first wrote it, and it isn't exactly in my normal style, but I wrote this more to figure out exactly how Necat entered Vey's body and how everything around this time happened, rather than to be an actual story. Still, I thought I'd share it and hope you enjoyed reading it.]
Let me explain. My name is Ventre Vey... Well, it is now; my name has changed a lot over the past. At the time of my birth and on the certificate they produced I was named ‘Kyle’. As I grew, it was ‘Child’, ‘Useless’, ‘Worthless’, ‘Thing’, ‘You’... well, those were the words that most often escaped the woman’s lips when she spoke to me. Now, before you go all righteous on me, I do not blame God for the way my mother treated me... I only say, because it is true, that my mother did what she did to be using Him as her reason. I never knew my bastard father and if I met him today I would not hesitate before applying a vice-like grip to his neck. After he left my two month pregnant mother she turned to the church as some do at their worst moments, and the priest there had told her to raise me ‘right’. To ‘remove all evil traces’ from me so that I did not become like my father. So my childhood was spent as her faithful servant, cleaning and even cooking for her once I was big enough to reach the stove. Any time I did or said something she didn’t like she beat me until I bled then made me wash it all away. She said that if she beat me then the evil would leave my body and if I washed it away then it would not be able to return. When I was a child I believed her, I was stupid. As a child I decided I’d rather be evil than live a life of pain. I truly wanted my mother to die.
At eleven years old my dream came true in the form of what at first appeared to be a nightmare. In an effort to reject my mother’s holier than thou lifestyle I had begun spending time around a group of stereotypically gothic teenagers who went to the school I had just started. They seemed fairly nice despite the names my mother had called them and I never suspected they had other motives for keeping a child around. I hold no grudges against them; they gave me my greatest accomplishments. They took me to a forest one night and told me that we would be meeting with demons. I was happy. If my mother had seen me it would have made her so angry. However, that night ended with me tied naked to a tree, a long gash having been cut down my chest with a dagger. The teens gathered around me, one of them reading from a strange book. Tears ran down my cheeks, knowing that I was to be sacrificed to the creature to make it come. I was afraid but as it continued I became angry and wished for the demon to kill me. My life had been nothing but worthless so far so I saw no reason for staying alive. The only one who crossed my mind at this time – Spike. Spike, formerly Anthony, had been my neighbour and best friend since we were babies. He was the only one in the world who knew and understood me. It was him alone I would miss.
A fog descended over us at that point. My vision, my thoughts, began to blur slightly, and I felt as though I were drifting to sleep. I saw someone in front of me but due to my impaired sight all I could see was a dark shadow.
“Do you want me to help you?” He asked, his voice sending a strange shiver through my body. I could not form words, so I simply nodded before passing out. I awoke at sunrise, early in the morning, untied and curled up under the tree. The cut was gone and so had the strange blur that had affected me. In fact, all of my senses seemed clearer than ever. So it was fast that the foul stench reached my nostrils and I looked around to find all seven teenagers dead. I ran home and jumped into bed before my mother found me missing. The deaths were mentioned on the news but no trace of me was ever found and the only person I told was Spike.
I was fifteen when my mother died. Strange things had occasionally happened to me but nothing like that night had happened before. I was knelt in front of my mother after she had beaten me. She was shouting at me about what a terrible son I was and that she should have never had me. I wasn’t really listening to her. I looked down at the floor I was on, feeling her hate flowing into my body as the hate I felt for her burned within me more than I remember it doing so before. Ever since the night I had decided to be evil, I had tried not to cry in front of her, not to show her I was weak. But now as the blood seeped down my skin as she stood above me, tears seemed to cut my cheeks as they fell. A strange feeling filled my body and I realised it had been there before, I was only just noticing as it increased in power. It felt in a way like the night four years prior when I was tied to that tree. I fell to the floor as a sudden pain hit my side. The weird feeling grew in strength again as it felt like my insides were contracting as if to crush me as I convulsed on the floor. Sweat coated my body and I realised my mother had frozen. I managed to catch site of myself in the mirror and was shocked. My eyes had turned a violent shade of red. For just a moment my face contorted and took the shape of some hideous creature and I heard my mother scream. The convulsions stopped as I returned to normal, aside from my eyes, which remained red.
I looked up at my mother as I rose to my feet, suddenly knowing what had happened, and of the power that I possessed. I knew what was inside of me; I felt his claws on my brain as I stepped toward the woman. She was no longer my mother. For the first time in my life, she was a simple human, and for the first time I felt her fear. Not just felt, I could smell it, I could see it. She was afraid of me; our positions had finally been reversed.
“What are you?” She whispered to me. “You aren’t my son.”
“Are you surprised?” I asked. “You never treated me as a son; you treated me as a slave. You wouldn’t have cared if I died. Somebody will die tonight, but it will not be me.”
I smiled as she backed away.
“You make me sick, you terrible creature.” She tried to sound angry but her voice shook. “You wouldn’t hurt me...”
“The world is a scary place for a young boy.” I told her. “Young boys need their mothers to show them everything will be okay. You never did that. You told me that there was evil within me and you hurt me. You weren’t destroying the evil in me, you were putting it in place, destroying the good, the innocence that all children are born with.”
The woman who used to be my mother moved backward again and fell. She screamed as I walked toward her. In my head I could still here my own screams from childhood, the way that I used to beg her to stop hurting me. Tonight, she would be the one to beg.
“You didn’t have to be such a bitch my whole life.” I said just loudly enough for her to hear. “If you had shown me even one moment of kindness, I may have considered letting you live. But you forced me to live in hell, so that is where I will send you now. I don’t believe that your God will spare a woman who hurts her own child in such a way when he created mothers to protect the children.”
I came to a stop, standing over my mother. I knelt down in front of her and saw the look of horror in her eyes as I continued.
“Tonight you’ll find out what it’s like to be beaten as you beat me. You will never raise your hand to me again.”
My senses returned as I awoke in a pool of blood. I slowly stood, paying little attention to the corpse, and as always when I awoke in blood I went to the shower to wash the evil off my skin. As I washed myself I smiled, knowing that I was finally washing away the greatest evil that had been with me since early childhood.
As I stepped out of the shower I fell to the ground again, convulsing as I did a few hours before. I felt a massive pressure on my body then something was flowing out of me. As the feeling lessened, I looked up to find myself staring at a demon. He didn’t look quite as the warped face I had seen in the mirror earlier, but he was not quite human either. He spoke to me and finally introduced himself. He was Necat. (Necat, I later found out, is ‘Kills’ in Latin. Why is it always Latin?) He explained that he had been living within my body since the night four years ago. He had let me live because he felt sorry for me and because it gave him a way to reside in the human world. He showed me how to make myself appear innocent when the corpse was found. After that, there were many nights when Necat would take over and make me kill. He, and as a result I, developed a taste for blood. After he tried to make me kill Spike I tried harder to control him. It was many years from the night I killed my mother that I was able to gain some kind of control over Necat. But all of this is irrelevant here. It is all for another story, this one is simply to tell of my relationship with my mother and the truth about how she died.
[Note: I'm not sure I like the way I wrote this one as much as I did when I first wrote it, and it isn't exactly in my normal style, but I wrote this more to figure out exactly how Necat entered Vey's body and how everything around this time happened, rather than to be an actual story. Still, I thought I'd share it and hope you enjoyed reading it.]
Heartless (Short Story/Songfic)
When I woke up this morning, something had changed. The air felt different. I felt different. Actually, I felt nothing. I laid in bed for the better part of an hour wondering what reason I had to get up. When I thought about anything, I felt nothing. I thought about you and I thought about him, and I wasn’t even upset. I just felt empty. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so emotionless. It didn’t last, of course. Because then I got up and all the feelings came back, not all at the same time but gradually.
I took a shower but although I’m sure I made it hot, I just felt cold. Then I came back into the bedroom and I saw your jacket lying on the bed where I’d been sleeping in it. That’s when the feelings really came back. Because I held it close to my face and I realised that your smell has almost gone from it now. And I realised that before long all of you will be gone from me. I still see you in the corridors and in the common rooms but I can’t look at you because all I see is the night you left me. And I know you’re never coming back.
I was scared of going out today in case I saw him. Your... well, I guess you could say replacement, even though nobody could replace you. But you left me there so broken and hurt and the things you said were so terrible... and he was there and he just made me feel so much better. When he’s around and being sweet to me then the pain of losing you disappears just for a few hours. I need that to survive. But I’m scared of him because he hurts me too. I’m starting to think that pain is all there is now. Anything that touches me hurts. Of course, that’s probably because it’s hard to find a patch of skin on my body that isn’t bruised or cut. That’s him again. But I can’t just leave him either. I know it sounds stupid but I need to feel loved. I know he doesn’t really love me but when he acts like he does it’s so convincing, it’s like our little game of make believe. Still, I was afraid of seeing him, so I stayed inside, where we’re hiding out. Me and the one person I can still rely on. The only one who really looks out for me and tries to protect me from him. Instead of going out, I stayed by the window, trying to think about everything that was happening. The outside world seemed different too. When I stood outside with you, everything was different. The trees, the flowers, the lake, everything was beautiful, everything was alive and the air resonated with the loveliest birdsong. Now... everything seems... fake. Pointless. And the sounds that had appeared so sweet before now sounded harsh and far too loud. Everything’s been different since you left, everything’s been worse.
--
Everything feels different still, and I realise like you he has the power to change the world around us. The air is thick now and I can’t breathe properly. I can barely stand, clinging to the windowsill to remain standing. He stands above me, looking at me angrily, no trace of remorse for what he’s done. It hurts. Everything hurts. There’s a burning and stinging sensation in the areas he’s been beating me tonight, new bruises forming over old ones and any remaining clear skin. I wonder if I’ll ever look like myself again. Then again, I wouldn’t be myself without you. I don’t know why I wanted to come and see him tonight, I regret it now. He was angry at me for disappearing. He wants to know where I was but I won’t tell him. Next time I’m not leaving at all. I try to reason with him, but every time I try to talk my mouth fills with blood. When I finally manage a few words, he won’t listen. Instead he attacks again and I fall to the ground.
--
He’s gone, left me to my injuries. I don’t know where he’s gone and I don’t want to. I just want to leave. I just want to get back where it’s safe. I can barely walk by I make my way through the building slowly, struggling to keep moving. I need to get back. People walk past, see me, but nobody offers to help. Sometimes, after a couple of people pass me, I hear them whispering or even laughing. I know they’re laughing at my pain and my situation. They find it funny that I allow myself to be used and abused like this. It makes for good gossip. I feel like they’re happy about my pain.
When I finally get back I’m alone. I go to the bathroom, trying to wash away the blood and cover up some of the worse injuries. When I look in the mirror, I’m shocked. The bruising covers half of my face now; the area around my mouth is still stained from blood. My eyes look almost empty. I feel older somehow, like I’ve lived a million years in this misery.
--
I see you in the corridor and I call your name, hoping that just once you would speak to me again. Your name sounds different to me as it leaves my mouth, possibly because my voice is still strained, it comes out rougher. It almost hurts to say, and I’m sure that’s not just because of my injuries. Your name used to be to me a word meaning love, and life and the whole world. And now it just... it just represents loneliness and sorrow. Pain. And you don’t respond. Well, almost. You stop for a second, look at me, refusing to look into my eyes, then turn and walk away without a word. I could go after you, but there would be no point now.
I want to scream and beg you to come back, but I know you won’t. You say you don’t love me anymore, that you don’t want anything from me, so what could I do? I need to be with you, but I don’t want to be with you if you don’t want to be with me. It wouldn’t be fair to you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t need it.
I need you to give the world and life and everything in it meaning. Without you, it doesn’t seem to have any. It’s just a big mess and you’re the only one who can fix it, but you won’t. I don’t blame you; they’re my problems after all. I shouldn’t involve you, especially if you don’t want to be involved. But I wish you would. I know it’s selfish but I need you. I need you back. Because everything is so much worse without you and everyone and everything in it seems so much crueller. I need you back to prove to me that the world’s not heartless.
[Note: My friend and I have these characters and I wrote this story based on the song 'Heartless' by Jim Sturgess because I thought it suited their situation. I thought I'd mention it in case anyone noticed the similarities with the song, or in case anyone wanted to listen to it as well.]
I took a shower but although I’m sure I made it hot, I just felt cold. Then I came back into the bedroom and I saw your jacket lying on the bed where I’d been sleeping in it. That’s when the feelings really came back. Because I held it close to my face and I realised that your smell has almost gone from it now. And I realised that before long all of you will be gone from me. I still see you in the corridors and in the common rooms but I can’t look at you because all I see is the night you left me. And I know you’re never coming back.
I was scared of going out today in case I saw him. Your... well, I guess you could say replacement, even though nobody could replace you. But you left me there so broken and hurt and the things you said were so terrible... and he was there and he just made me feel so much better. When he’s around and being sweet to me then the pain of losing you disappears just for a few hours. I need that to survive. But I’m scared of him because he hurts me too. I’m starting to think that pain is all there is now. Anything that touches me hurts. Of course, that’s probably because it’s hard to find a patch of skin on my body that isn’t bruised or cut. That’s him again. But I can’t just leave him either. I know it sounds stupid but I need to feel loved. I know he doesn’t really love me but when he acts like he does it’s so convincing, it’s like our little game of make believe. Still, I was afraid of seeing him, so I stayed inside, where we’re hiding out. Me and the one person I can still rely on. The only one who really looks out for me and tries to protect me from him. Instead of going out, I stayed by the window, trying to think about everything that was happening. The outside world seemed different too. When I stood outside with you, everything was different. The trees, the flowers, the lake, everything was beautiful, everything was alive and the air resonated with the loveliest birdsong. Now... everything seems... fake. Pointless. And the sounds that had appeared so sweet before now sounded harsh and far too loud. Everything’s been different since you left, everything’s been worse.
--
Everything feels different still, and I realise like you he has the power to change the world around us. The air is thick now and I can’t breathe properly. I can barely stand, clinging to the windowsill to remain standing. He stands above me, looking at me angrily, no trace of remorse for what he’s done. It hurts. Everything hurts. There’s a burning and stinging sensation in the areas he’s been beating me tonight, new bruises forming over old ones and any remaining clear skin. I wonder if I’ll ever look like myself again. Then again, I wouldn’t be myself without you. I don’t know why I wanted to come and see him tonight, I regret it now. He was angry at me for disappearing. He wants to know where I was but I won’t tell him. Next time I’m not leaving at all. I try to reason with him, but every time I try to talk my mouth fills with blood. When I finally manage a few words, he won’t listen. Instead he attacks again and I fall to the ground.
--
He’s gone, left me to my injuries. I don’t know where he’s gone and I don’t want to. I just want to leave. I just want to get back where it’s safe. I can barely walk by I make my way through the building slowly, struggling to keep moving. I need to get back. People walk past, see me, but nobody offers to help. Sometimes, after a couple of people pass me, I hear them whispering or even laughing. I know they’re laughing at my pain and my situation. They find it funny that I allow myself to be used and abused like this. It makes for good gossip. I feel like they’re happy about my pain.
When I finally get back I’m alone. I go to the bathroom, trying to wash away the blood and cover up some of the worse injuries. When I look in the mirror, I’m shocked. The bruising covers half of my face now; the area around my mouth is still stained from blood. My eyes look almost empty. I feel older somehow, like I’ve lived a million years in this misery.
--
I see you in the corridor and I call your name, hoping that just once you would speak to me again. Your name sounds different to me as it leaves my mouth, possibly because my voice is still strained, it comes out rougher. It almost hurts to say, and I’m sure that’s not just because of my injuries. Your name used to be to me a word meaning love, and life and the whole world. And now it just... it just represents loneliness and sorrow. Pain. And you don’t respond. Well, almost. You stop for a second, look at me, refusing to look into my eyes, then turn and walk away without a word. I could go after you, but there would be no point now.
I want to scream and beg you to come back, but I know you won’t. You say you don’t love me anymore, that you don’t want anything from me, so what could I do? I need to be with you, but I don’t want to be with you if you don’t want to be with me. It wouldn’t be fair to you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t need it.
I need you to give the world and life and everything in it meaning. Without you, it doesn’t seem to have any. It’s just a big mess and you’re the only one who can fix it, but you won’t. I don’t blame you; they’re my problems after all. I shouldn’t involve you, especially if you don’t want to be involved. But I wish you would. I know it’s selfish but I need you. I need you back. Because everything is so much worse without you and everyone and everything in it seems so much crueller. I need you back to prove to me that the world’s not heartless.
[Note: My friend and I have these characters and I wrote this story based on the song 'Heartless' by Jim Sturgess because I thought it suited their situation. I thought I'd mention it in case anyone noticed the similarities with the song, or in case anyone wanted to listen to it as well.]
At The Harbour (Short Story)
The sky was turning a golden colour, reflection shimmering on the dark sea. On the beach by the harbour, couples walked together, children played and dogs barked and ran. Nearby, the city lights glowed in the darkening evening and all the bars along the beach were filled with music and laughter. The air was warm with a cool breeze and it seemed almost perfect.
The sand crunched under their feet as the young couple walked toward the harbour, hand in hand.
“It seems silly, sailing at night.” Mizzi said quietly. “You would think they would travel when it’s lighter.”
“I have to be there by noon tomorrow.” He replied. “All that matters to me is that I was able to spend one more day with you.”
Julius looked out to the horizon, a worried look coming over his face, and it was as if she knew what he was thinking.
“If the ocean is rough, if there’s a storm or something...” She said nervously. “If it’s too dark, if the captain can’t see-”
“If the ship crashes,” He finished for her, pulling her body against his own. “Then I will never see you again. But that won’t happen, because I have to.”
They continued to walk slowly, Julius still holding her close to him.
“But how do you know?” Mizzi asked. Julius smiled.
“Because I can see the future, remember? So I know that we’ll be together again.”
“Did you see anything else in our future?” Mizzi asked as she looked up at him.
“Like what?”
She shrugged slightly. “I don’t know. Where do we live? Do we get married? Do we... have kids?”
Julius laughed. “I’m sure we will, not for a long time though. That stuff can wait, right?”
“Yeah, yes of course.”
All too soon, they were standing at the dock beside the ship that would shortly separate them.
“Do you really have to go?” Mizzi asked, though she knew the answer.
“Duty calls I’m afraid.” He smiled. “Like I said, we’ll be together again soon before you know it.”
“I love you so much.” She said quietly, before he pressed a gentle kiss to her lips.
“I love you too... You know, when I first left Finland I thought that nowhere else I went would ever feel like home.” He told her. “But I was wrong. You know, if it meant I could stay here with you then I would never lay eyes on Helsinki again.”
“But you have to go.” She said sadly.
“Yes. Hey, next time you should come home with me.” He said, trying to cheer her up. “You can finally meet my family. Mother would love you.”
“That would be wonderful.” She said, her voice filled with happiness for the first time since they’d left for the harbour. The thought in her mind of spending the rest of her life with this man was the greatest thing she could imagine now. “I’ve never been to Finland.”
“You’ll love it. Especially at night, it’s so beautiful.” He smiled. “Not as beautiful as you, of course.”
Mizzi laughed. “Do you always have to come out with such cliché romantic lines?”
“I guess you just bring it out in me.” They both turned toward the ship as a call was heard. “That’s it, I have to board.”
“I’ll miss you.” Mizzi told him as he started to pull away from her. He kissed her one last time.
“I know, I’ll miss you too love. Goodbye.” Julius began walking backwards slowly toward the ship, not willing to take his eyes off of her just yet, knowing that when he did he would not see her again for another year.
Mizzi stood at the edge of the dock watching as the ship disappeared into the horizon. Her blue eyes filled with tears as the wind blew her dark hair around her face. Though she was overcome with the feeling of loss, knowing it would be too long before they were together again, if they were to be together at all. She couldn’t let go of the thought that something terrible would happen to the ship. And even if it didn’t, there was no certainty that he would return. She knew that he loved her, but she also knew that he, like many men, could change his mind about what he wanted. After all, they hadn’t been together for that long, maybe he would not consider their relationship worth returning for, though that did not seem to be the case. He had dearly missed Finland though, and it was possible that once he got there he would not want to return again. There must be some beautiful women in Finland. She wanted to believe in everything he had said, she wanted nothing more than to be with him and raise a family with him, but until he returned she knew she would always worry. She didn’t know whether or not she could believe him when he said he had seen their future, but she knew that, at least right now, he wanted to stay with her. And that knowledge would have to be enough. Without realising it, her hand slowly lifted to rest on her abdomen, where a bump would soon begin to show. She had been going to tell him, she could just never seem to find the words. She asked herself why she hadn’t told him before he left, it might have been enough to make him stay or come back even sooner. But in her heart, she knew the reason. She wanted to know that he would return for no reason other than because he loved her, not because of any responsibility he would feel when he found out. And if he never returned, at least she would always have the memory of him in her child.
The sand crunched under their feet as the young couple walked toward the harbour, hand in hand.
“It seems silly, sailing at night.” Mizzi said quietly. “You would think they would travel when it’s lighter.”
“I have to be there by noon tomorrow.” He replied. “All that matters to me is that I was able to spend one more day with you.”
Julius looked out to the horizon, a worried look coming over his face, and it was as if she knew what he was thinking.
“If the ocean is rough, if there’s a storm or something...” She said nervously. “If it’s too dark, if the captain can’t see-”
“If the ship crashes,” He finished for her, pulling her body against his own. “Then I will never see you again. But that won’t happen, because I have to.”
They continued to walk slowly, Julius still holding her close to him.
“But how do you know?” Mizzi asked. Julius smiled.
“Because I can see the future, remember? So I know that we’ll be together again.”
“Did you see anything else in our future?” Mizzi asked as she looked up at him.
“Like what?”
She shrugged slightly. “I don’t know. Where do we live? Do we get married? Do we... have kids?”
Julius laughed. “I’m sure we will, not for a long time though. That stuff can wait, right?”
“Yeah, yes of course.”
All too soon, they were standing at the dock beside the ship that would shortly separate them.
“Do you really have to go?” Mizzi asked, though she knew the answer.
“Duty calls I’m afraid.” He smiled. “Like I said, we’ll be together again soon before you know it.”
“I love you so much.” She said quietly, before he pressed a gentle kiss to her lips.
“I love you too... You know, when I first left Finland I thought that nowhere else I went would ever feel like home.” He told her. “But I was wrong. You know, if it meant I could stay here with you then I would never lay eyes on Helsinki again.”
“But you have to go.” She said sadly.
“Yes. Hey, next time you should come home with me.” He said, trying to cheer her up. “You can finally meet my family. Mother would love you.”
“That would be wonderful.” She said, her voice filled with happiness for the first time since they’d left for the harbour. The thought in her mind of spending the rest of her life with this man was the greatest thing she could imagine now. “I’ve never been to Finland.”
“You’ll love it. Especially at night, it’s so beautiful.” He smiled. “Not as beautiful as you, of course.”
Mizzi laughed. “Do you always have to come out with such cliché romantic lines?”
“I guess you just bring it out in me.” They both turned toward the ship as a call was heard. “That’s it, I have to board.”
“I’ll miss you.” Mizzi told him as he started to pull away from her. He kissed her one last time.
“I know, I’ll miss you too love. Goodbye.” Julius began walking backwards slowly toward the ship, not willing to take his eyes off of her just yet, knowing that when he did he would not see her again for another year.
Mizzi stood at the edge of the dock watching as the ship disappeared into the horizon. Her blue eyes filled with tears as the wind blew her dark hair around her face. Though she was overcome with the feeling of loss, knowing it would be too long before they were together again, if they were to be together at all. She couldn’t let go of the thought that something terrible would happen to the ship. And even if it didn’t, there was no certainty that he would return. She knew that he loved her, but she also knew that he, like many men, could change his mind about what he wanted. After all, they hadn’t been together for that long, maybe he would not consider their relationship worth returning for, though that did not seem to be the case. He had dearly missed Finland though, and it was possible that once he got there he would not want to return again. There must be some beautiful women in Finland. She wanted to believe in everything he had said, she wanted nothing more than to be with him and raise a family with him, but until he returned she knew she would always worry. She didn’t know whether or not she could believe him when he said he had seen their future, but she knew that, at least right now, he wanted to stay with her. And that knowledge would have to be enough. Without realising it, her hand slowly lifted to rest on her abdomen, where a bump would soon begin to show. She had been going to tell him, she could just never seem to find the words. She asked herself why she hadn’t told him before he left, it might have been enough to make him stay or come back even sooner. But in her heart, she knew the reason. She wanted to know that he would return for no reason other than because he loved her, not because of any responsibility he would feel when he found out. And if he never returned, at least she would always have the memory of him in her child.
I Never Said A Word (Short Story)
He was leaning against the window pane as I walked into the room. Whether or not he was aware of my arrival I did not know; he made no move to turn around or speak to me, simply kept staring out of the window. I assumed he had slipped out to escape the effervescence of the hall, where the others were still drinking and dancing. But as I looked on at him I knew I was wrong. Something was wrong, and I couldn’t help but feel I was in some way responsible. I had been given no reason to feel this way yet even then I knew. For in the nights between us there was nothing but pure bliss, but it was always short lived as I would return straight to my room, to watch over the girl who never looked at me as anything more than a friend. I assumed he didn’t care, that after the act was over he wouldn’t even want me in his bed. I assumed there was nothing between us. But as the months went by I sensed darkness within him. It had been there before of course, as all of us who have ever enjoyed the poison sting of the needle, but now it was growing more each day and a sorrow seemed to overtake his soul. He had begun using more and more and even I was growing concerned, but I never said a word. I had thought about talking to him, and that was the reason I had followed him to his room. But I was unprepared when suddenly he turned to me and I saw the tears cling to his cheeks like dewdrops upon rose petals, and found myself stunned by all the emotion summed up in those staring eyes; a mix of misery and... Something else, something I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed before. I tried to speak to him, but could think of nothing I could say in such a situation. But he always seemed to know what to say.
“I love you.” And then his soft lips were against my own.
“I love you.” And then his soft lips were against my own.
A Delicate Prey (Short Story)
I move, quiet and cautious, with the concentration of a wolf stalking its prey. You don’t realise I’ve done this a lot; I watch your family a lot. Seven years and you stayed with him, even though he still mistreats you. My love for you never died. However, you’re not the reason I’m here tonight. She shares his blood but she’s my daughter. I was always there for her and he never wanted her. No, you’re not the one I’m after anymore. I no longer look at you with loyal eyes. You can live with your mistake, but the girl is mine and I will take her.
[Note: This was originally written for a creative writing class, based on one of my character's thoughts if the timeline in his story were altered. The task we were given was to choose a title from a long list of short stories and create our own story to fit it.]
[Note: This was originally written for a creative writing class, based on one of my character's thoughts if the timeline in his story were altered. The task we were given was to choose a title from a long list of short stories and create our own story to fit it.]
Sunday 23 October 2011
NaNoWriMo is coming!
Okay, I’m really trying to get back into posting every day now... I just want to... and soon I’ll have real reason to do so: National Novel Writing Month. Yes, after all these years of wanting to do it, I’m finally going to take part. Why? Because after all these years of developing ideas only to give up on them, I finally have a few basic ideas that I believe could become a successful novel. I did have a fully developed plot for it but now that’s being rewritten (almost) completely because I don’t think it was good enough. As NaNoWriMo starts on the first of November, that makes this my novel planning week. I figured even if the plan isn’t fully developed, I should still do this, just because it provides the motivation to actually write and complete the novel, even if it is just as a first draft. Anything that needs to be fixed I can take care of afterwards. I’m actually really excited about this. I plan to update this blog every day with my progress and any other interesting things that happen.
However, aside from being novel planning week, this is also my ‘finish my costume for expo’ week, of course that shouldn’t be so difficult. I probably won’t get to plan at all on Sunday and not very much on Saturday. I do have a five hour coach trip on Friday and Monday, so that should make up for it.
Okay, I’m going to get back to work, I also have uni projects and cleaning to do on top of all this so yeah... oh, but I’ll leave you with a nice picture. I mentioned I finished my Lexicon before so here’s a picture of the front, the rest will come later.
P.S. I have a sort of half-cold. I felt a cold try to start a few days ago so I've been fighting it super hard with medicine and any natural remedy I can find. It's still not that bad, at the moment it is in the stage where there's a lot of coughing but that's only been today so far, there isn't a lot of sneezing, there aren't really any pains even in my throat, although my throat is making my voice sound a little weird, and except for when I go to sleep, my nose isn't that blocked either. I'm trying hard to get rid of it all before expo and I think I'm going to be successful!
However, aside from being novel planning week, this is also my ‘finish my costume for expo’ week, of course that shouldn’t be so difficult. I probably won’t get to plan at all on Sunday and not very much on Saturday. I do have a five hour coach trip on Friday and Monday, so that should make up for it.
Okay, I’m going to get back to work, I also have uni projects and cleaning to do on top of all this so yeah... oh, but I’ll leave you with a nice picture. I mentioned I finished my Lexicon before so here’s a picture of the front, the rest will come later.
P.S. I have a sort of half-cold. I felt a cold try to start a few days ago so I've been fighting it super hard with medicine and any natural remedy I can find. It's still not that bad, at the moment it is in the stage where there's a lot of coughing but that's only been today so far, there isn't a lot of sneezing, there aren't really any pains even in my throat, although my throat is making my voice sound a little weird, and except for when I go to sleep, my nose isn't that blocked either. I'm trying hard to get rid of it all before expo and I think I'm going to be successful!
Thursday 20 October 2011
My Bed, a Rather Unoriginal Title
[Note: this was written as an assignment for my creative writing class in which we had to write about a bed and include the senses. I decided to use the senses in terms of my bed to perform a character analysis on myself. Enjoy!]
The bed, it is a simple place, which many only view as an area for sleep. But it is in fact so much more. This can be seen from looking at the way our senses are affected in this place, what other way do we have to gather information?
Pillows and blankets are a welcoming sight to those who are tired, or seeking comfort or warmth. In these freezing days I’ve barely left the warmth of my bed. What you would see looking at someone’s bed would tell you a lot about their personality. Take mine for example, tidy when I’m not in it, I do make attempts to be an organised person (for the most part). Colourful covers and a soft blue blanket, I sleep wrapped in this one a lot. I used to do it even when it was hot, crazy isn’t it? But you see when I was a child I read a most terrifying story (at school, one aimed at children, strange really, and so ironic that so little in the horror genre scares me now) and though it had nothing to do with bed I became convinced that any body part not covered would somehow be cut off. I’ve long since forgotten that fear but I suppose subconsciously my body has grown used to the comfort of the blanket. Then there’s my plushies, mostly from anime and video games, depending on your view of these things the way you interpret this may vary. This one here on my pillow, he’s my favourite and I take him literally everywhere with me when I go out. From my bed you can see everything in my room. That’s a necessity for me; I said the horror genre didn’t scare me anymore, not the horrors of real life. Not that I’m truly scared, I’m prepared for anything that may come, I just want to know immediately if anything’s there.
Sound is a common thing in my bed; I can rarely fall asleep in silence so I usually put on one of my favourite DVDs, or find a comedy show to watch on the internet. Then during waking hours the area is filled with the sound of music. I still need music to survive, even if it isn’t my main ‘thing’ anymore. Then of course, as you may have gathered from something I said previously, there is the sound in the air of various games that I play (most likely Kingdom Hearts these days). Then of course, as this is a city, the sound of airplanes and emergency sirens occasionally pass, along with the sound of my flatmates... the less I say about that the better. But there is one sound I miss. There’s a big difference between where I live in Liverpool and where my home is in London. Here, I never wake up to the sound of bird song, or I never hear it begin when I stay up into the early hours of the morning. In those silent mornings the world feels significantly emptier without it.
Smell and taste, though lesser here, are still common in the bedroom. For me, these days I normally eat on my bed (I really need to clean my desk). Coffee is common, for both senses, it’s necessary to maintain my energy, and simply put I’m a caffeine addict. Then the food, I have not been eating that well here I suppose, but yesterday’s pizza was a nice treat. The taste of pizza sauce along with those meats they use (pepperoni, ham, sausage, beef... whatever else) will always fill me with happiness.
And finally for our main senses there is touch. This is another important sense in bed, mostly because we cannot sleep without feeling comfortable, heads supported on pillows, lying on our preferred side, with the soft touch of covers around us filling us with warmth and contentment.
This is odd, I am usually a creature with a very sexual mindset, and there is so much to say about sex and the senses in the bedroom, quite easy to detail without becoming perverse if you know how. Then again, I suppose a lot of it has been talking about myself, so it is quite irrelevant.
Then there are those other senses, the ones some may argue the existence of, but they are there. It is easier when we are in bed, particularly the closer we are to sleep, with our brain frequency lowering, to see and hear the things that in our waking world would normally not notice, save for the truly paranoid and those more connected to their extra-sensory ability. Of course, it is usually easier, in those hours, when whispers and shadows may prove a more tormenting thing, to simply pass it off as a dream.
Dreaming, descent into a subconscious plane, small and random, or long and much more detailed like the plot of the movie, an existence in another world with another meaning. Some of course, like myself, find that our dreams are always more interesting when filled with fear and danger. Is there something to be said for a person whose only truly detailed and movie-like dreams are full of demonic creatures and murderous humans and whose only goal is survival? Perhaps for people like us, the bed is a training ground for future horror we may encounter. Or it could simply be viewed as a place of terror... or perhaps not. When I dreamed I was killed and awoke in darkness still paralyzed from sleep, for a moment truly believing I was dead, there was the strangest calmness. Of course that would make sense, once we experience such things, it is foolish to go on fearing them, what can it change anymore?
This bed, the bed at home, it makes no difference to me, of course I never sleep as well in a strange (unknown) bed but I so rarely do that anyway, in both all I’ve said here is the same. I do have an attachment of sorts to my bed. It is for one, a place to imagine and think, and where a lot of my stories come from. Aside from these, there is only one other bed I can think to mention here, one others may not think of or see as such – my coffin, the place where in the future, I shall sleep for a final time before passing from this world to the next. The coffin is a bed of sorts and should be a comfortable place for the deceased to rest. It is, in a way, the ultimate bed. I for one, already have a plan for mine, materials and shapes and colours, much as I have planned the rest of my funeral. But this has gone on long enough already, so that is a story for another time.
The bed, it is a simple place, which many only view as an area for sleep. But it is in fact so much more. This can be seen from looking at the way our senses are affected in this place, what other way do we have to gather information?
Pillows and blankets are a welcoming sight to those who are tired, or seeking comfort or warmth. In these freezing days I’ve barely left the warmth of my bed. What you would see looking at someone’s bed would tell you a lot about their personality. Take mine for example, tidy when I’m not in it, I do make attempts to be an organised person (for the most part). Colourful covers and a soft blue blanket, I sleep wrapped in this one a lot. I used to do it even when it was hot, crazy isn’t it? But you see when I was a child I read a most terrifying story (at school, one aimed at children, strange really, and so ironic that so little in the horror genre scares me now) and though it had nothing to do with bed I became convinced that any body part not covered would somehow be cut off. I’ve long since forgotten that fear but I suppose subconsciously my body has grown used to the comfort of the blanket. Then there’s my plushies, mostly from anime and video games, depending on your view of these things the way you interpret this may vary. This one here on my pillow, he’s my favourite and I take him literally everywhere with me when I go out. From my bed you can see everything in my room. That’s a necessity for me; I said the horror genre didn’t scare me anymore, not the horrors of real life. Not that I’m truly scared, I’m prepared for anything that may come, I just want to know immediately if anything’s there.
Sound is a common thing in my bed; I can rarely fall asleep in silence so I usually put on one of my favourite DVDs, or find a comedy show to watch on the internet. Then during waking hours the area is filled with the sound of music. I still need music to survive, even if it isn’t my main ‘thing’ anymore. Then of course, as you may have gathered from something I said previously, there is the sound in the air of various games that I play (most likely Kingdom Hearts these days). Then of course, as this is a city, the sound of airplanes and emergency sirens occasionally pass, along with the sound of my flatmates... the less I say about that the better. But there is one sound I miss. There’s a big difference between where I live in Liverpool and where my home is in London. Here, I never wake up to the sound of bird song, or I never hear it begin when I stay up into the early hours of the morning. In those silent mornings the world feels significantly emptier without it.
Smell and taste, though lesser here, are still common in the bedroom. For me, these days I normally eat on my bed (I really need to clean my desk). Coffee is common, for both senses, it’s necessary to maintain my energy, and simply put I’m a caffeine addict. Then the food, I have not been eating that well here I suppose, but yesterday’s pizza was a nice treat. The taste of pizza sauce along with those meats they use (pepperoni, ham, sausage, beef... whatever else) will always fill me with happiness.
And finally for our main senses there is touch. This is another important sense in bed, mostly because we cannot sleep without feeling comfortable, heads supported on pillows, lying on our preferred side, with the soft touch of covers around us filling us with warmth and contentment.
This is odd, I am usually a creature with a very sexual mindset, and there is so much to say about sex and the senses in the bedroom, quite easy to detail without becoming perverse if you know how. Then again, I suppose a lot of it has been talking about myself, so it is quite irrelevant.
Then there are those other senses, the ones some may argue the existence of, but they are there. It is easier when we are in bed, particularly the closer we are to sleep, with our brain frequency lowering, to see and hear the things that in our waking world would normally not notice, save for the truly paranoid and those more connected to their extra-sensory ability. Of course, it is usually easier, in those hours, when whispers and shadows may prove a more tormenting thing, to simply pass it off as a dream.
Dreaming, descent into a subconscious plane, small and random, or long and much more detailed like the plot of the movie, an existence in another world with another meaning. Some of course, like myself, find that our dreams are always more interesting when filled with fear and danger. Is there something to be said for a person whose only truly detailed and movie-like dreams are full of demonic creatures and murderous humans and whose only goal is survival? Perhaps for people like us, the bed is a training ground for future horror we may encounter. Or it could simply be viewed as a place of terror... or perhaps not. When I dreamed I was killed and awoke in darkness still paralyzed from sleep, for a moment truly believing I was dead, there was the strangest calmness. Of course that would make sense, once we experience such things, it is foolish to go on fearing them, what can it change anymore?
This bed, the bed at home, it makes no difference to me, of course I never sleep as well in a strange (unknown) bed but I so rarely do that anyway, in both all I’ve said here is the same. I do have an attachment of sorts to my bed. It is for one, a place to imagine and think, and where a lot of my stories come from. Aside from these, there is only one other bed I can think to mention here, one others may not think of or see as such – my coffin, the place where in the future, I shall sleep for a final time before passing from this world to the next. The coffin is a bed of sorts and should be a comfortable place for the deceased to rest. It is, in a way, the ultimate bed. I for one, already have a plan for mine, materials and shapes and colours, much as I have planned the rest of my funeral. But this has gone on long enough already, so that is a story for another time.
Liverpool, Anime and the Beach
It’s been so long since my last post! I’ve just had a lot to do what with moving to university and getting started on my course, which is a shame because I’ve got so much to talk about! I’ll just do a quick summary of everything that’s been going on.
Liverpool is a pretty cool place to live though personally I still prefer London. The shopping centres and such are amazing but I do wish I could find more anime and video game merchandise. My course is going really well, I’ve done a few small assignments already and apparently they were all good. I still don’t have my money from student finances so that should be coming soon.
I’ve joined the anime society here and it’s really amazing. Most of it is just sitting around watching anime but that’s just awesome anyway and there’s a great social side to it too, so much better than watching in my room alone. There are some really cool people in it. It’s tonight actually, and today is movie night. Hooray! On Saturday a group of us from the society went to laser quest in New Brighton, that’s how I found out the beach is such a short, cheap distance from where I live! I really want to go back... the beach kind of reminded me of Kingdom Hearts in a way, I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense but I am obsessive hehe.
Most excitingly, the MCM Expo is getting really close! I’m going back to London for it so I can be with my friends too, luckily my parents were okay with it (as was what little finance I have left right now). I’m cosplaying as Zexion from Kingdom Hearts so I’m even more excited about that. I finally get to wear my Organisation 13 cloak as part of a costume and not just as an everyday coat. I’m in love with my wig even though I’ve yet to get it on properly. I’ve made my Lexicon and it looks amazing. Now I just need to get the boots, alter them so they look right, and get some gloves and I’m pretty much done. I’m really looking forward to going to Expo again, it’s so exciting!
November’s coming up to, I can’t wait for my Wales trip at the beginning of it, and apparently it’s a really important part of our course. And I’m planning on taking part in the national novel writing month this year, I think they’re doing something for it at my uni. I was planning on doing it anyway, simply because it’s an excuse to finally start my novel hehe.
Okay, I think that’s enough update for now... I probably haven’t done this very well but oh well, it’s great to be back.
See you later!
Liverpool is a pretty cool place to live though personally I still prefer London. The shopping centres and such are amazing but I do wish I could find more anime and video game merchandise. My course is going really well, I’ve done a few small assignments already and apparently they were all good. I still don’t have my money from student finances so that should be coming soon.
I’ve joined the anime society here and it’s really amazing. Most of it is just sitting around watching anime but that’s just awesome anyway and there’s a great social side to it too, so much better than watching in my room alone. There are some really cool people in it. It’s tonight actually, and today is movie night. Hooray! On Saturday a group of us from the society went to laser quest in New Brighton, that’s how I found out the beach is such a short, cheap distance from where I live! I really want to go back... the beach kind of reminded me of Kingdom Hearts in a way, I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense but I am obsessive hehe.
Most excitingly, the MCM Expo is getting really close! I’m going back to London for it so I can be with my friends too, luckily my parents were okay with it (as was what little finance I have left right now). I’m cosplaying as Zexion from Kingdom Hearts so I’m even more excited about that. I finally get to wear my Organisation 13 cloak as part of a costume and not just as an everyday coat. I’m in love with my wig even though I’ve yet to get it on properly. I’ve made my Lexicon and it looks amazing. Now I just need to get the boots, alter them so they look right, and get some gloves and I’m pretty much done. I’m really looking forward to going to Expo again, it’s so exciting!
November’s coming up to, I can’t wait for my Wales trip at the beginning of it, and apparently it’s a really important part of our course. And I’m planning on taking part in the national novel writing month this year, I think they’re doing something for it at my uni. I was planning on doing it anyway, simply because it’s an excuse to finally start my novel hehe.
Okay, I think that’s enough update for now... I probably haven’t done this very well but oh well, it’s great to be back.
See you later!
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