Psalms for Some

The Flight of the Argos

2010-03-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

I stood in mute silence as I watched the thick, steel doors close over the faces of my family, sealing them away in the hermetic embrace of the Argos. With dull, distant urgency, the speakers throughout the corridor boomed names and numbers and around me, the frantic and the hopeful dashed with equal madness, heads swinging back and forth, trying to find an empty alcove as doors hissed shut all around them. Some, obviously, did not belong. They were stowaways, perhaps, picked up on the Argos’ maiden voyage across the United States when it gathered within its titanic belly the chosen and the faithful.

Others, like me, simply were not chosen. My mind reeled and my body was powerless to move. I had been condemned to death and I could not understand why. Were my prayers not fervent enough? Had I taken too much for granted in the Prophet’s words? One of the desperate shouldered me roughly as he dashed by, knocking me to the ground and in an instant it was clear. I could see before my eyes the Prophet and his Acolytes assembling in their chambers far above us, on the upper deck of the Argos, the great glass dome of the vessel shimmering overhead. I could see each of them drink ceremonially from their chalice, pray for a safe journey, and step into the rooms appointed to them, doors sealing shut. I could see why I had been rejected in that moment: I was unclean.

I did not know what brought on my visions nor how to stop them, but surely the Prophet had known, for did he not know every detail of his faithful? Were their lives to him like books in the library of the god? Surely, I reasoned, I was touched by the evil of the world and could not be a part of the Argos’ new world.

“It’s not fair!” I wailed, my voice lost in the panic, confusion, and alarms of the final moments before the second and final launch of the Argos. The other forsaken around me wailed and beat their fists helplessly against cold, faceless steel. But, despite the noise, the despair, and the trembling that came from within, I heard the slightest of sounds that stopped my tears and froze my heart. There was a hissing, like the sealing of the doors, but emanating from the walls all around us. I rose, skin growing cold. The stowaways, the faithless, and the aberrations could not be suffered to live on the ship of the chosen. The automated sequence was pumping poisonous gas into the ship.

I admit a moment of morbid admiration for the Prophet’s vision. Surely there would be those who did not belong, but how to remove them without a host of security prowling the behemoth bulk of the Argos constantly? The only way to make sure was to treat them like vermin in a house. I gulped as much fresh air as my lungs would hold and ran.

I did not know where to run and so I ran without aim, turning when the whim struck me, barreling through the coughing, choking men, women, and children who had been refused the Argos’ salvation. Slowly, grudgingly, I allowed gasps of air to escape my lips until my lungs were empty and burned with the urge to suck in the invisible venom. I ran as far as I could, but the corridors were endless, miles and miles of identical, sealed doorways. Though I had no reason to believe so, I instinctively thought that the poison must be heavier than air, and would fill the bottom of the corridor before the top. I scrambled atop the hinges of one of the chambers and pressed my lips to the steel ceiling, breathing in deeply several times. I felt no worse for the breaths, so I filled my lungs once more, jumped down, and forced myself to run.

I did not know what provoked my sight-without-sight, but I refused to be sacrificed for it. Let them condemn the unclean and rain damnation upon their weaker brethren; I would be no man’s fatted calf. I ran without seeing where I went and I threw myself through twist after turn in the darkening halls of my tomb. I saw an escape behind my eyes, but that was not what drove me on, chest burning, heart exploding.

No, what drove me was what I saw my escape would lead me to. The thing I desired even more than another breath of pure air. What every muscle in my body cried out for. The death of the Prophet.

Sabotage

2009-02-02T13:57:00.001-08:00

The expression “wrench in the gears” comes from the Luddite movement in Britain in the early 19th century. Ever larger, more complicated looms were being built, putting skilled artisans out of a job in favor of cheaper, unskilled labor. The machines did all the work a human had once done, only faster. Protests began.

English Industry was not sympathetic. Desperate, some of the Luddites took to sabotaging the machines, breaking their frames or throwing wrenches into the looms’ inner workings. Riots broke out across England as the Luddites gained followers and threatened the very stability of the national economy. The military was dispatched to put down the instigators.

One such confrontation took place at Burton’s Mill in Middleton. The Luddites drew back, into the mill itself as the army advanced. In their haste to escape, several Luddites fell into the colossal machines and found to their horror that wrenches are considerably tougher than human bones. The mill ground the unlucky Luddites into a red stain. The Burton Mill, after the incident, went on to break record outputs every month, as if the machines themselves were working faster.

The government began arresting the Luddites in bulk, publicly executing the leaders and shipping the rest to internment camps to serve out their sentences. Few were ever seen again. Britain’s looms grew and textiles boomed as the Luddite movement was stamped out. When the old mills were finally torn down, decades later, the red-stained wood and iron seemed to be working even when unmanned, grinding away in hushed whispers.

It is perhaps appropriate that they used wrenches to break down the old mills.

Excerpt from "Darkness Beneath the Sun"

2009-01-31T14:03:00.000-08:00

Far ahead of the main force, the beasts roared forward with a hunger that drove them onward. Their teeth and claws flickered in the waving curtains of light that they tore through and their mouths were flecked with saliva that foamed at the promise of new prey. Leading them, and as hungry for battle, Reece Dracomyr bounded with eager strides that kept her even in front of the swiftest creatures under her command. Her grin mirrored the fang-filled mouths of the hounds at her heels and the long shafted spear she bore glittered with the raw shine of polished bone. Her eyes were wide and the black plates of steel she wore over he shoulders and chest cut through the air with a hiss as her long skirts whipped behind her like tails of crimson cloth.

As they closed in on the cathedral, the outer perimeter of Creel’s defenses became apparent. Men and women of all ages, cloaked and hooded in rough, raw white vestments formed a circle around the entire, massive structure. They stood, hand in hand, looking defiantly out at the ravening beasts that descended upon them and the pitiless dragoon that lead them with cold eyes of faith. Their voices were raised in a chant of exaltation, as if Creel himself would step out of the cathedral any moment, to save them from the horde that swarmed before them.

“What a shame,” Reece commented, sucking a deep lungful of air down between strides, “faith makes for a poor shield.” Her expression locked into an amalgam of a snarl and a laugh, her spear twirling above her head and her pace slowing ever so slightly. With one, final skip, she came down on one leg, bent her knee until it touched the ground, and sprang upwards with sonic force. The beasts, smelling their food at last, closed the final few yards with great, bounding leaps even as their commander vanished high into the sky above, the light twinkling off of her black armored plates before the clouds enveloped her.

The faithful did not scream, even as their bodies were torn into by teeth and talons. White robes ran scarlet and the whole of the monsters piled over one another to reach the injured and dying while some flesh yet remained. Across the field, Phare turned her eyes from the sight and held her hand before her face. It was horrible, even if she knew what came next.

From the butchery of the front lines, there came a blast of wind that swept through the massacre like a musical tone. It swelled and grew until the wind echoed the hymn of hope the men and woman had sung in the face of grinning death. From their torn flesh and shattered bones, light began to pour forth, like tall wheat growing whole seasons in seconds. Tendrils of cold light wove together, like strands of webbing, drawing one another into a complex pattern of pale beauty. The gates of the cathedral gleamed with an illumination so intense, even the feasting beasts were obliged to cower backward, shielding their faces from the intensity of the glamour.

Phare raised her head and stared through the light, seeing the shapes that formed within. “They are coming,” she whispered to her commanders who advanced on the blinding miracle. A moment later, the light faded enough to be tolerated by eyes of flesh and they all saw what remained of the faithful. The shapes of the fallen floated above their bodies, lit with a brilliant white that pulsed from within themselves. Great, white wings behind them like hands lifted in prayer, while in their hands, they bore blades of licking fire that seemed golden in their alabaster hands. The only darkness on them was their eyes, which were pits of jet that seemed to fall backwards into unfathomable depths that hurt to look at even more than their shining bodies. The angels sighed with renewed life and raised their blades to cut down the awed monsters that cowered before them.

From the skies above, like a red comet, Reece came streaking down, her spear tip white hot and gouts of fire licking through her grinning teeth. When she struck her target, a tall angel whose impassive face turned upward just in time to see the spear pass through it, there was a concussive boom that shook the cathedral’s walls and set its bells chiming. Dirt flew upwards and rained back down as Reece slowly straightened upright in the crater she had made. A trickle of liquid gold ran down the side of her mouth and she glanced back at the beasts who stared with glowing eyes.

“They taste even better the second time,” she promised, running a bright, red tongue over her lips to lap up the divine blood. The monsters knew an alpha when they saw it and followed suit, leaping at the angles with abandon. Golden swords tore through bone and teeth bit into pale, wispy flesh as the two struggled before the tall walls of Creel’s domain. Reece speared one angel and tore out the throat of another with nails that more closely resembled claws. One angel struck at her, but she caught the blade with her voluminous sleeves and wrenched the weapon from his hand, tearing the cloth from her arm and exposing the wrought iron manacles around her wrists. She glanced at the shackles briefly then turned her attention to the disarmed foe. Opening her mouth wide, she let him see the flames that lurked within her mouth. “Who’s unsuitable to be the leader of the Heroes’ Guild now?” she asked and a blast of scouring flame poured from her lips, burning away the angel’s head like it were vapor.

Excerpt from "See Rick Run"

2008-11-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

The guns spat the uniformed men’s contempt for their victims with deafening shrillness. Some flinched and closed their eyes. Some stood dully, their minds refusing to recognize the oblivion that scythed down the ragged line. Others spat curses and vain defiance even to the end, their words buried in the abrupt scream of the execution’s thunder.

Richard did not curse; his tongue was dry and his voice frozen in his gut. He did not stare or flinch either. Seeing what was coming was worse than anything, but not seeing it coming was worse still. When death came for Richard, he did what came most naturally to him- what he’d done throughout a life that seemed a hundred years past- he ran.

Actually, he fell. The embankment they’d been lined up across proved to be steeper than it appeared and Richard fell and rolled down the spongy moss and dirt that hoisted the line of men and women in the final, brief moments of their lives. The men with the guns had used fear to force them this far into the forest, but they’d already begun shooting- what was the worst they could do to Richard now?

As the mud and water of the shallow stream beneath him rose to end Richard’s tumble, he glanced upstream and saw dozens of bodies following his path with much the same grace. The idea of hiding amongst the dead flashed into his head for a moment only. Life or death, the only thing that mattered was to run, as hard and fast as he could.

He hit the water, his limbs scrambling to gain purchase in the staining silt and he lunged downstream on all fours. His eyes registered the shapes falling around him, but the sound of his own breathing pushed other thoughts from his head. Rising from the stream’s scarlet water, Richard made for the tree line and shivered as shackles of ice melted from his legs and chest with trembling strides.

The guns’ roar didn’t pause, but Richard felt a tremendous rush of air behind him and he zigged to put the thickest tree he could see to his back. Scouring heat, like the wrath of a vengeful god, blossomed behind him and swelled with bloated zeal. Green withered to black and grey in the licking conflagration but, even as the oxygen from his lungs was torn away by the flame throwers’ breath, Richard ran. Without a direction other than “away,” he cleared trees and bushes and pits with unflinching urgency.

Even after the sounds of death faded and the heat of exhaustion tore at his muscles and even after the forest’s edge gave way, Richard ran. The shadows of buildings and civilization had just begun to creep up from the horizon when he heard it. A distant howl that managed to be both shrill and deep grew by degrees until, with a finality like a popping soap bubble, it burst in a sound so loud it became silence as it washed through him.

Richard did not look back, but he slowed his pace into a pained walk, allowing his exertion to catch up to him. He had no words and just let himself pant as the sky around him bled a torn and tattered crimson.

On My Shoulder

2008-11-02T21:24:00.001-08:00

You know the concept of an angel and a devil on each shoulder? Cartoons used it a lot when I was a kid, so I guess the idea just got imprinted in my brain. Anyway, in my room, I have a wall mirror to my immediate left and a window to my right. At night, the light in the room makes the window a sort of dusky, blurry mirror which is what made me first think of the cartoon cliché. I have two copies of myself, one on each shoulder. Since the window-copy is shaded and murky, I decided that was the devil and the mirror was the angel. From time to time, and always in a joking manner, I’d ask them what they thought I should do before I’d make a decision of no real consequence.

One night, a friend called me up, telling me that he had too much to drink at a party and wanted me to go help him home. This guy was something of a pain and this sort of call was nothing new. It was late and I was tired, but I try to be a Good Samaritan, so I was hesitant to just abandon him to the subway at that ungodly hour. I glanced over my left shoulder to the mirror and raised an eyebrow as if to ask what to do. My reflection was unhelpfully mute.

I turned to my right and opened my mouth to ask the rhetorical when I noticed something strange. The reflection, sparse and vague as it was, seemed to have its lips frozen in a silent “no.” I moved about it and it mimicked me perfectly but for that unchanging expression. I checked the mirror, but saw nothing strange in the faithful reflection.

I was reasonably intrigued and not at least a little freaked out. Slowly, I told my friend that, no, I wouldn’t be able to make it and he should try someone else. He hung up and I turned back to the window. The abnormality was gone.

The next day, a Saturday, I slept in and due to a series of strange dreams and the shorter daylight hours of winter, I didn’t wake up until it was dark out. After a groggy “morning” ritual, I took my usual seat and thought of my friend. I gave him a call, to make sure he made it back alright, feeling bad about not going to help him due to some slight visual hallucination. The phone rang for nearly a minute and as I was about to hang up, a stranger’s voice answered it.

The stranger identified himself as a police officer and asked me why I was calling. When I explained, he told me that, regretfully, my friend had not made it home. He’d been savaged by some creature, possibly a rabid dog of some huge size. He said they were working with animal control to track down the beast but, he confided, he’d never seen wounds like those before.

Nervously, I thanked him and hung up. I looked at the window reflection for a long time, trying to see… hell, I don’t know. Something. Eventually, I gave up, but something in my peripheral caught my attention and I turned to the mirror.

For a split second, I saw myself, torn apart and gore-drenched, just as the officer had described my late friend. Written on the mirror’s surface, above my corpse were the words: “the one time you take HIS advice…” My corpse seemed to be grinning at me.

I don’t use mirrors anymore.

Sleep-Study Institute

2008-09-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

July 5th – New patient admitted.

Patient No. 738 [Name Withheld]
Age: 28
Height: 5’ 4”
Weight: 120 lbs.

Patient checked into facility complaining of severe insomnia and intermittent migraines. Medical history shows minor success with major tranquilizers but patient discontinued drug therapy after feelings of chemical restraint grew more common (“It was like a lobotomy”). Monitored sleep patterns will commence in room 31.

July 12th – Patient 738’s insomnia has not improved with controlled sleeping conditions, diet, or exercise regimes. Psychological causes are most likely. Routine patient history will be taken as well as cognitive and physical examinations before psychotherapy commences. Patient has expressed discomfort in her bed, mostly attributable to persistent symptoms.

July 15th – Psychotherapy commences. Strong initial resistance.

July 21st – Patient admits and recognizes strong sense of disdain for her mother. No immediate explanation for depth of resent.

July 30th – Suggestions of domestic abuse have become evident. Childhood trauma associated with beds or sleep may explain resurgent avoidant behaviors. Patient considerably more aggrieved with her quarters and regularly complains of scratching her feet and legs on abrasive or sharp grit under the covers. A note about thicker, softer sheets has been sent to the orderlies.

August 12th – Patient treated for scrapes and punctures on legs; thought to be self-inflicted. Patient claims the bedding is responsible (“rows of knives”). Mattress changed and minor tranquilizers added to vitamins to forestall further complications.

August 14th – The patient has successfully been guided to the understanding of repressed childhood abuse. Her mother, it seems, used to routinely tie the child in her bed with rope and leave her alone for up to 18 hours at a time. The isolation, restraint, darkness, and abandonment seems to have been repressed until, moving into a new apartment, the patient acquired a bed with corner posts similar to the one she was restrained in as a child. Recent abrasions are most easily explained as an unconsciously mirrored condition to the damage inflicted by rough rope on bare skin for long hours.

August 15th – Patient experienced violent, lucid nightmares, possibly reliving her torturous childhood. Described physical conditions similar to her trauma (“the bed was holding me down,” “I couldn’t move,” “it was trying to eat me”). This last delusion is especially troubling, as she has insisted avoiding a bed entirely, a compulsion that she is using to shut out the truth of her past. She must sleep in the bed.

August 19th – Exhaustive therapy has made significant progress and the patient conceded to normalized sleeping conditions. Migraines and insomnia have all but vanished.

September 1st – Relapse. Self-mutilating punctures and night terrors have returned. Patient now describes auditory hallucinations, such as heavy, close panting and other, similar sounds (“a horrible slurping”). Regretfully, major tranquilizers will have to be utilized to restore calm and to ensure she sleeps without disturbance in her bed.

September 2nd – [Entry Redacted]

September 3rd – Patient released upon her request.

October 1st – Missing persons contacted facility in regard to [Name Withheld]. She has not been seen since July, suggesting she did not return home after being released, as our records indicate. A troubling affair, given the progression of her deteriorating psychosis (“I’m telling you, that bed’s been growing teeth”), but sadly, not one we are in any position to address after she discontinued the use of our services.

October 3rd – New patient admitted.

Patient No. 739 [Name Withheld]
Age: 25
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 186 lbs.

Patient has been placed in room 31. Complains of sleep apnea. No previous medical treatment for her condition. No night terror issues documented, though tranquilizers will still be utilized until sensitivity is gauged. We have great hopes for this one. So much… larger… than 738.

Charlie's Pal

2008-08-31T04:26:00.001-07:00

“Just so we’re clear, saying sorry isn’t going to get me out of this?” Charlie asked wryly as his captors dragged his shackled body down a lightless, stone hall and roughly shoved him through a thick, steel door. Landing face-first, it took him a moment to writhe around and he caught sight of the men who’d brought him in just as one of them tossed a loop of jangling metal at him and slammed the door shut. The sound of heavy locks falling into place drowned out Charlie’s indignant surprise.

He was more surprised to find that the metal projectile had been the keys to his chains. With the nervous haste of someone who’s sure a mistake has been made and is damned sure going to take advantage of it before somebody notices, Charlie fumbled with the keys until his weighty manacles rolled off and onto the filthy, broken tile of the floor.

Rubbing his wrists, Charlie slowly rose to his feet. “Whoof,” he exclaimed, wave his hand in front of his face. “What died in here?” He glanced around and found his answer in the decrepit old man, skin shriveled to a blotchy leather and bare ribs standing out against a sunken chest and swollen belly. “Good to see I’ll be well taken care of,” he mumbled.

A cursory inspection of his surroundings placed Charlie in a long corridor of yellowing tile and pale, white-blue lights that washed out the colors around him. Stains and filth covered the floors, but the right wall was surprisingly clean and hosted a number of stainless steel doors that reminded Charlie first of a meat freezer, then of a prison cell. The door behind him had been secured to an almost embarrassing degree, as if Charlie was going to show some hitherto unseen feat of strength that he’d just decided to hold back while they were beating him. The door at the end of the corridor…

Charlie rubbed his eyes and squinted in the flickering neon light. The tile and concrete looked like it gave way to rough-hewn stone and a crude, wooden door, but that couldn’t be right. “Something written on it,” Charlie wondered, trying to decipher the large, irregular letters that had been smeared on the rotten wood with a dark brown, greasy filth.

“Wendigo’s a comin’!” a voice next to Charlie shouted, startling him. With an indignant cry, he swung around to find the corpse of the old man grinning up at him with sparse, foul teeth in a stained and rancid mouth.

“What the fuck, guy. What the fuck,” Charlie panted, his heart in his lungs. “You couldn’t say something when I got dropped off? No ‘Hello, I am not dead’ or anything?”

The old man chuckled but did not respond except to point at the rotting door at the end of the hall with claw-like fingers. His first two digits had been fused together as if by some great heat, the skin joining them no more than warped scar tissue. He bobbed his head and repeated, “Wendigo’s a comin’,” Glee splayed across his ruined face.

“What’s a fuckin’ Wendigo?”

The wooden door creaked open.

The Wendigo, as it turned out, was-or at least in part resembled- a man. A hulking, morbidly corpulent, fetid man, whose foul, fleshy body was tinted green with mold and filth that grew between rolls of coarsely-haired fat. His torso nearly swallowed his head, which was bald and scarred but no less obscene than the rest of his form. His eyes were sunken, shadowed, and unfocused while his vein-pocked mouth nearly bisected his head with its wide, moist lips.

Charlie gaped. “What,” he mustered. “It’s so much worse than I thought it’d be,” he added to himself. “Hey, old man,” he asked nervously, “how many people walk away from this guy?”

The old man glanced upwards, then back at Charlie. He held up his fused fingers as if to say ‘one’ or perhaps ‘two,’ then thought better of it and tucked his warped digit back into his fist. “Nobodys walk,” he explained. “Some times, no bodies neither.” He laughed violently, his voice cracking and phlegm spewing in ropey tendrils from his gums.

When the Wendigo moved, Charlie expected a ground-shaking tromp. He did not expect the berserker speed that the fleshy colossus descended upon him, leaving him wholly unprepared when the behemoth’s thick-fingered hands wrapped around his torso like a child clutching a toy. Charlie gasped as the clenching fingers tightened into a paralyzing vice and the Wendigo lifted him from his feet to stare eye to eye. Gradually, by inches, the barbarous man’s mouth spread open, growing, widening, lifting like a curtain to reveal his broad, jagged, thick teeth that were washed in a brownish stain and riddled with blackened craters. And yet still, his grin widened, mouth stretching larger than any human’s has a reason to. His maw fixed open in its horrible gape, the Wendigo slowly carried Charlie to one of the stainless steel doors. It opened before them.

“Help me, you filthy bastard! Fucking DO something!” Charlie screamed at the old man, trying to avoid the Wendigo’s glassy stare without looking at the yawning pit of his mouth.

The old man turned his head and raised his eyebrows. In an almost apologetic tone he said, “day’s what’s bad is also days what’s sad.”

The door swung shut and the old man cackled as loudly as he could, gasping for breath but never ceasing, to muffle the sounds that leaked through the door.

Forgotten Mazes

2008-08-31T03:40:00.000-07:00

When she awoke, the smell was what struck her first. The air had all the chill crispness of an enduring rain, a stuffy, dust-filled must that gave it the character of long-abandonment. The space smelled ancient and lacked the organic reek of the recently occupied, cold and empty neglect filling the chamber in place of the vitality of life. It smelt dead.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she tried to take in her surroundings as best she could. Furniture lay stacked in disjointed piles at the corners of the room, which proved to be smaller than she’d have expected, no more than perhaps twelve feet in any direction. The furnishings were largely wooden, their flesh blanched with the peculiar white of time-dried mold that gave them a bone-like appearance, sending a thrill of fear down her spine. The rest of the furniture was draped with thick, rough canvas that hid the pieces from sight and merely suggested the shapes of the things within. Doors stood in mute promise on two opposite walls, though, she realized with a grimace and a groan, she could not tell if they were north, south, or even if they led deeper into wherever she’d awoken. Her head thrummed and she had to blink back tears of pain as she glanced down.

Still in my wheelchair, she noted. I suppose that’s good. Her fingers and arms were free and in no pain, which was as surprising as it was welcome. Just as soon as the room stops pulsing, she decided, trying to shake away the nausea and foreboding dread that had planted a blinding ache behind her eyes and a tight knot in her lungs.

Carefully, slowly, she brought her arms down and wheeled herself forward, wincing at the slight squeak of the chair’s wheels in the soundlessness of her surroundings. The ground proved to be uneven planks that had warped under some intense moisture of a previous generation. She made her way through the dusty interior, almost afraid to disturb whatever force of desolation had caused the room to be forgotten by the world at large.

With a shiver, she grasped the old door knob- rusted, corroded brass rough to her soft palm- and turned it with a breathy gasp. The door opened effortlessly, its greased hinges wholly defying the neglect of the room. It swung open quietly and she wheeled quickly into the next room.

Unlike the previous chamber, the new space was wholly bare, lacking any sign of habitation except the trail of footprints in the dust of the floor. She followed it through the long room and through another door until it terminated against the far wall. Feeling her hands along the cold brick, she could just make out the thin wood of a door frame. Her hand passed beyond it, suggesting the passage was open. But when she tried to wheel through, her chair heavily hit a wooden surface. Feeling again, her expression became one of disbelief.

But, I must’ve come in through this way, she thought. I can feel the breeze of fresh air. How did…?

“Help!” she cried into the darkness. “Is anybody there? Please, help me!”

She pounded her fists uselessly on the doorframe. The exit lay before her, but the gap to pass through was barely six inches wide and shrinking, until it, like a lid slowly coming down, shut with a crisp, final snap.

Psalms to Space

2008-08-10T11:59:00.000-07:00

Midnight sparkles like the ebony of a tomb, etched with the final testaments of a thousand nameless, dead stars, their final light a mere speck in the suffocating void.

The light of the city, Man’s modern torch that so brilliantly defies the impossible with its frenzied, half-mad vigor, glows enough to forefend insignificant catastrophes and enough to lock away the unfathomable denizens of the night’s sky.

Still, it is a comfort to me- the electric luminance- for it gives me endless hours to consider the engulfing majesty of natural phenomena so wondrous that it blinds us with a disguise of normality.

Can it be so simple, the impulse to erase our wonderment and submit to the numbing routine of everyday outrages and the perpetual fires that devour our priorities? It is a constant and obscene indulgence that verges on blasphemous, this complacent mind-death that lets us look into the polluted, blackened sky and not see the roiling abyss of matter and force that lurks, omnipresent, beneath the obscurities the throw before them.

… and it does not forgive us.

While We Wait

2008-07-31T23:11:00.000-07:00

I wanted to say, “hello my friend,” but I realized that most people who say “my friend” don’t really mean it like that. I don’t want to seem insincere, so when I say friend, please believe me when I mean that I’d like to share a beer with you. Or whatever. Ha ha.

I kid.

But there you are and I’m so eager to have this little conversation with you that maybe I crack a nervous joke now and then. I’m very excited to be working with you, even if only for a little while. I’ve seen your work and it’s pretty impressive stuff. That thing you did on the Hill? With all those kids? I mean, I don’t even know how you did that!

Look at that. It’s already time. How quickly the minutes tick by. Let me put on my mask real quick. That’s better. No hard feelings? You might feel a slight sting, followed by a sharp pain, followed by nothing ever again.

Womb of Concrete

2008-07-31T23:06:00.000-07:00

Technology and architecture are the bulwarks mankind has thrown up against the terrifying mysteries of the elder night. Tall stone and steel limit and box in men’s thoughts while the electric hum of artificial light helps us forget the black abyss that is only barely marred by the cold, distant stars. The concrete womb humans have wrapped themselves in, however, is protection only in ignorance, though protection it remains. Fear, psychosis, and violence pave the ill-trod path of knowledge and the great, seething mass of willful sanity is preserved only by unquestioning eyes and dulled minds.

Do not mistake protection for immunity, my friend. That which is unseen is rarely unfelt forever, and things besides men look in on society with envious eyes and unfed mouths.

Random dialog

2008-07-31T23:05:00.000-07:00

“It’s not fair? What kind of excuse is that? When did ‘fairness’ become an inalienable human right?”

“That’s enough.”

“No, I want to know what gave you this unreasonable sense of entitlement that’s driven you to fever-addled delusions like a cosmic justice in the world. Goodness, I just hope it’s not contagious!”

“Please. Stop.”

“If you need someone to blame, try yourself. If that’s too hard, how about God? Big ole punching-bag in the sky.”

“I just want-”

“Everyone WANTS. Try doing something about it. Come back to talk with me then.”

Tranquil

2008-07-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

A delicate rain played off the crystalline leaves of the white plants around him. The soft caress of the drops washed over him like a wave of relief. It would all be over. There would be no more pain, no more suffering. Finally, he had reached peace.

Gently shaking the glimmering droplets from his hair, he moved toward the stone-crafted bowl, shaped almost like a giant clamshell. The bowl held tranquil water, the surface strangely unbroken by the summer shower that delicately drizzled over the whole forest. In the distance, birds chirped blissfully, untroubled by hunter or famine. The gentle sway of leaves rippled through the clearing as a breeze laughed through the trees. Shimmering light- tinted green by the cover overhead- sparkled and shifted over the clearing, giving it a soothing shade. No crass voice broke the sweet perfect silence of the grove.

The man dipped his hands into the bowl- again, without upsetting the surface of the water- and cupped his hands. He drew out the cool liquid and let it drip down his face. He felt the stress and aches of years melting away as he became one with this divine peace. The commotion of his mind and the pains of his conscience grew quieter and quieter until he felt the tranquility take him, body and soul. He was ready.

Lightly stepping from moss-covered stone to spongy, dewy grass he felt the delicious chill of the early morning earth under his feet. He savored the feel of the grass between his toes and the give of the rich soil as he moved gracefully between the arching branches. The murmuring of his silken robe made a gentle whisper that meshed with the slight pattering of the rain. The long, ivory-colored garment barely brushed the top of the grass, and seemed to make the man float as he left the clearing and headed down a path made entire from nature’s passing.

The breeze grew slightly and the rain became a tad less lazy as the man ascended the base of the great hill. The tree line followed him to all but the very peak of the hill and he moved with quiet dignity and humble purpose. His head slowly swung back and forth, taking in the peace of the forest, the rhythm of the rain dropping, the noises of the animals, and the rustling symphony of the blowing leaves. All was as it should be.

The crest of the hill came in sight, a verdant green dome just outside of the border of the trees. The sky was mildly gray from the shower, but spaces of brilliant blue peered out and the glorious sun smiled through with warming rays of hope and life. The man paused just at the forest’s end to bask for a moment in the sun’s divine essence. He thrilled at the warmth that suffused him and the calm pitter-patter of the gentle rain. Then, he stopped beyond the forest’s edge.

Around the white robed man, there was destruction. Violence reigned. Corpses lay, strewn haphazardly and without respect to the former owners. Chunks of earth exploded upward as vast shocks rocked the land. In the distance, he could see the armies of Man marching against one another. The battles were confused and almost random. People killed one another indiscriminately. The howling wind and the screams and moans of the dying filled the smoke-choked air.

The man in white looked at all of this for many long hours. He softly sighed as if in resignation, sat down on the sun-baked and blood-watered ground, placed his head against a broken, irregular stone, and died.

Waking Up

2008-07-23T16:16:00.000-07:00

Johnny blinked away the moisture, his breathing shallow and irregular as if he had to keep reminding himself to swallow the stifling air. The world around him floated, subdued and suppressed, sound and light trickling down to him, filtering through some vast gulf he couldn’t process. He drew a hand across his face and his fingertips came back red. He just stared at the crimson, mind not registering its meaning.

“That’s weird,” he mumbled, feeling the fresh blood between his fingers and thumb. “It’s cold.”

With unsteady steps, Johnny walked to the door, navigating the darkened room by the insistent, flickering neon of a digital clock, its shrill alarm slowly jack hammering through Johnny’s dizzying disconnect with his surroundings.

“How long has that been going off?” he wondered, his lips tightening into a grimace as the pressure of noise swelled without indication of stopping.

His body seemed to know where it was going because when a curtain of black exhaustion wiped sight from his eyes, he awoke to the open sky and buzzing street lights of an empty night. A thought burned through his neurons and Johnny touched his face again. The blood was like ice in the chill air.

“This is my blood,” he started, trailing off as horror dawned gradually through his dead body.

The Wolf’s Cage

2008-07-12T23:05:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, there lived a young girl who was very ill all the time. It was nearly impossible for her to leave her room, even though she very much wished to. Her parents brought her many toys for, while they were not rich, the sad state of their daughter was heart-breaking to them and they wanted her to be happy. But, the toys were not enough to replace the sun on her face or the grass between her toes, and so she remained very sad.

One night, she could not stand her room’s imprisonment a second longer, and she decided to sneak out. “It will only be for a night,” she said, “I can take that much, at least.”

And so, she crawled out from her window and down the chimney until she was, at last, free from the house. How sweet the air smelt and how cool the night’s breeze across her goose bumped skin! Fetching a short, thick stick, she leaned upon it like she had seen her grandfather do, and took short, careful steps. It was not long at all before she felt stronger and more vigorous, and she set out into the woods for a walk as she had seen many others do, from her window.

Little did the girl know that the humans were permitted in the woods only during the daytime. When the moon rose, the wolves jealously guarded the forest with long fangs and sharp claws. And so, without caution, the girl entered that dark, dark place, singing softly to herself.

The wolves spotted her quickly, but were unsure what to do. Humans so rarely broke the arrangement, and those who did never sang or walked with a third, wooden leg! “Bring me to the intruder,” the King of the wolves said, his eyes glowing like old fires. “I will deal with and dispose of her.”

So it was that, just about to turn around and head home, the sick little girl came face to face with the King of the wolves. She had never seen a wolf before, so his tremendous size did not startle or frighten her. After all, when you are little, every thing is larger than you.

“Hello sir,” she said, leaning on her crutch, for her trip had exhausted her more than she had realized. “How does this night find you?”

The King of the wolves looked at her with big, round eyes and smelled her with his big, long snout and he smiled, showing all his big, white teeth. “It finds me well, little girl. It was courteous of you to ask. May I ask why you are in my forest so late?”

The girl blushed, for she knew she was not supposed to leave her room. “Forgive me,” she said with a little curtsey. “I could not survive another night in my cage,” she said, referring to her room, for so it had begun to seem to her. The King of the wolves, however, thought of a different sort of cage. He was very familiar with the cages humans keep beasts in, for he had suffered such a cage when he was younger.

“You were locked up?” the King of the wolves asked, confused. The girl smelled human, but surely humans do not cage other humans, he thought. And besides, she did walk upon three legs.

“I was,” she replied, smiling now that it seemed she would not be punished for her action. “But I escaped to walk your beautiful woods.”

“You have my respect, then,” the King of the wolves said, laying his head on the ground, by the girl. “I was once also captive, when I was weak and small. But I escaped and grew large and strong, as you see me now.”

The little girl stared wide-eyed at the King of the wolves. “I have formed a favorable opinion of you, sir. How did you get stronger?”

The King of the wolves rolled his ears back, remembering when he was smaller even than the girl in front of him. “I will not tell you,” he said.

“But why? The girl pleaded. Yet, nothing she said would make the King of the wolves share his secret.

The little girl was not discouraged. She returned home and, a month later, she snuck out again and asked the King of the wolves how he had grown stronger. He still would not answer her, but she kept visiting him, monthly at first, then weekly.

Eventually, she no longer had to sneak out of her room, yet everyone cautioned her to stay out of the woods and away from the wolves that lived within them. The girl paid no mind to these warnings and eventually she asked her question every day.

After many years of asking, one day, the King of the wolves fell silent to the girl’s question. He looked at her for a long time before speaking. When he opened his mouth, this is what he said:

“You have come to me many times to ask how I became strong. You are no longer sick. You are no longer a little girl. You have become strong in the same way I did—you did not allow others to command and control you. You have followed your own path and your cage no longer holds any power over you.”

Unbearable

2008-07-12T22:13:00.000-07:00

Some times I pretend that she's actually the insect that's been buzzing around me so urgently. She's trying to get my attention. To tell me something's wrong.

"Hey! Don't you recognize me? You used to love me," she's saying.

But I can't hear her because she is too small and I am too big. For a change.

And the body that's still walking around, with her face and her voice and everything else that I used to obsess over, well that's a replacement. Maybe someone's taken her appearance, or maybe her whole body. Like a bad science fiction movie.

And I hate myself.

For not noticing the change.

And swatting the insect away is almost unbearable.

So I kill it instead.

I'm sorry.

I really did love you.

But you turned out to be kind of a bitch.

Lucid Systematic Dreaming

2008-07-11T14:54:00.000-07:00

I can hold sleep at bay for only so long before it seduces me again and I find myself falling, awaking to a new dictate- some cryptic mantra that governs the impossible physics of the place- and unfamiliar, frightening locations. The sky is monochromatic, though its singular hue seems to change when I do not notice it- often blue, sometimes green, occasionally black, though never red before. The sky is red. This is new.

The river asserts itself next, drawing the eye even from the banks that hold it. It reflects the scarlet sky, but currents run through it, deepening the playful innocence to a velvety crimson, rich and dark and overflowing with the promise of secrets untold and pleasures unguessed.

The onslaught of color recedes and allows me a blissful moment to orient myself, though only just a moment. The land is vast, trackless, and unblemished. It is so verdant that it is barren and so endless that it is confining. I find it difficult to breath and have to drop to my knees as a shock of vertigo overtakes me. It feels as though the sky opens up and the ground falls away and I will surely plummet into the gaping maw of the red, red void.

The feeling passes. So too, do my surroundings.

The open field has given way to the neon graffiti of some toy-maker’s demented fantasy. Blocks, dolls, and geometric shapes prowl around me like carnivores. I keep my gaze cast downward to avoid staring at the blinding light of the moon and its twisted, cavernous abyss of a grin.

The magnitude of my shift does not disturb me quite so much as the change of scale. I don’t remember a “drink me” bottle, but the toys tower over me, their frozen, plastic smiles full of large, white teeth. Why do toys need teeth, I wonder morbidly, ever present of the looming, growing shapes that array themselves around me so helpfully, so lovingly, so viciously. The music begins and its disjointed melody recalls childhood fears and prayers in equal turn. Bestial circus shows crowd my mind as ice cream trucks slowly putter down unseen streets and just-too-distant avenues.

When, at last, I return from far away, I notice that the music- that chimerical amalgam of rattling bells and wheezing organs- has already passed, though I cannot say for how long. The darkness hurts my eyes as much as the sensory overload and I stumble to a light post to align myself in the frightening stillness that penetrates my mind. The streets and alleys of my youth lie splayed out before me, though the palpable night makes them strange, untried, and overawing. Faceless shadows wander this urban wasteland; some bare stone walls, some the flickering stained yellow light that baits mindless moths, and yet others wear the trappings of men. Clothed and fitted to precision and yet their discomfort is plain. The suits of human creatures- skin and bone and all- are nearly flawless, lacking only eyes to give identity to the soul trapped within. They have mouths, however, and I can see their large, white teeth before any opens their mouth.

I move away from them, but a sound draws my steps short. It is a disturbing wetness, impossible to describe except through metaphor or onomatopoeia. It is as if someone below me was pacing through a sewer, the moist twump of their footfalls matching my arrested pace. I begin again and it is louder and closer. It is so horrible that my mind lingers on thoughts of fish- vast, open, lipless mouths gaping and sucking at me with ravenous, unending thirst. I run. The sound grows.

When I halt again, the footfalls fail to follow suit. They persist and are getting nearer. Nothing behind me. Both sides are clear. A movement up ahead. A person? I turn and another- no, the same- person is at my back. Have I found an antagonist in all this? No, that would be too simple and, indeed, he is already gone, his hat and coat stealing away his identity from me. The sound is upon me and I cannot bear to turn around a third time. I will not give it form and, from there, function.

I jerk myself from the encounter and my body feels like its fallen from a great distance. My heart will not stop its damnably arrhythmic pounding and I silently scream for the sixth night in a row.

Burnt-Out Fires

2007-05-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

The decimated wasteland that had once been a battlefield still smouldered with the ashen mist of extinguished fires. Blasted and broken, the rolling hills had a jagged quality to them, punctuated by the morosed and thousand-cursed fortress that rose in the distance like a victorious and vindictive god. Through the haze and the rain, the bloodied field almost seemed to stretch out forever.

A single warrior stood in the mud and filth, his head bowed. Rain ran down his face in torrents as he slowly walked on, murmmering to himself in a voice that was as reverent as it was pained.

"I don't feel it any more. It's been too long," he said dully.

He looked up, the storm's tears stinging his eyes. "And yet, here I am. In the rain, walking without aim. For you," he mused quietly, his voice cracking. He dropped his head again.

"I'm alone but for some reason, it comforts me to think of when we were togeather. Home. It was never the same when Mom died. She used to say that we could overcome anything. We would always find a way. Now..."

"Where do I belong?" He asked the weeping sky. "In the twilight and rain?"

"This place is a hell." He held is face in his large, calloused hands. "The stench clings to the rocks and mud. It never fades. It always follows me. Everywhere. I can't forget."

Losing his strength, the warrior dropped to his knees, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His old wounds had opened, blood running black against the rain. "Time is meaningless. Hours, days, weeks... they're all the same. I'm always... here. In the rain."

He bowed forward, the mud sucking at his hands as he braced himself. He stared down at the battered land as the downpour scoured it. He could almost see the faces of the fallen, staring up at him, crying silently for the lives taken from them. "I can't... I don't have the strength. I couldn't help them. I can't help you." His tears were lost in the storm.

"I couldn't save you..!" he cried out, all warmth drawn from his shivering body. He clutched at the mud with bone-like fingers, trying to hold something- anything- real. A shard of steel buried in the ground sliced into his hand.

The warrior looked at his fist mutely. The brown and black mud ran bright red with his oozing blood. He opened his hand and plucked the remnant of a more hopeful time from his palm, holding the wound to the rain.

"I can't stop remembering all that you told me. All that we survived." He stood, unsteadily. "You never wanted to leave me alone, I know that. You were always stronger than I."

"We were broken. Your death was in vain. I am sorry, brother. You wanted me to live on, but my world is shadows. All that is left for me is to walk between endless moments."

"I'm sorry," the warrior whispered into the cold, silent, whimpering rain.

Character Concept - Smilie

2006-12-20T12:25:00.000-08:00

Known as Smilie to his employeers and Grin to his friends, this cutthroat mercenary's name is more ironic than apt. Ever serious and often angry, Grin's sheer violence and efficiency tend to make him no friends, even in his outfit. Rather, people tend to look at him with a mixture of fear and respect.

One of Grin's unusual habits is that he likes to pretend that he's blind. He thinks it makes him seem more bad-ass, though he's not a very good actor. Most people just humor him, since it is better to be on his good side than his bad.

Grin is a mountain of a man, standing 6' 6", with broad shoulders and a head shaved down to the stubble. He has numerous scars over the craggly skin of his face and hands. Because he prefers to do his job up-close, he uses a massive, jagged knife with an ebony handle. He doesn't wear any protective gear, prefering to rely on his surprising stealth and his raw, brute strength.

Malediction of Sapience

2006-11-16T19:24:00.000-08:00

Mankind has long contented itself with the harsh realities of a hostile and imperfect world, beleiving- each in their own way- that paradise would come to them. Some men worked for the promise of a better tomorrow, some put their hopes in religion, and yet others actively worked to shape the world into their own version of perfection. But these men have been blind to one, very unsettling realization. A realization that came upon a man named Jeffery Jermayne one night.

The revelation, which we will discuss shortly, did not come out of thin air, as many people believe epiphanies derive from. Rather, it had slowly been taking shape in Jeff's mind over the many years. It was not until- during an impassioned, theological debate with friends- he vocalized the concept and its enormity fell on him like a gut-churning sickness. Conversation stopped and the men in the room stared blankly at Jeffery, as if simultaniously daring him to repeat himself and wishing intensely that he would not.

Jeffery politely excused himself from the room, and spent the next two months in seclution. At the end of this period, he had written a manuscript based around his idea. It would be comforting to say that this document has since been destroyed, but I fear that I can make no such claim with any assurance of veracity.

In the mean time, Jeff began showing his book to his peers, trying to generate critical responses. But, no matter who he tried, the results were always the same: his reader looked on his idea with skepticism, then doubt, then rage, then fear, and finally, grim acceptance. They left, older and sadder than they had been.

Jeffery Jermayne took notice of this trend and grew quite suspicious of his idea. At first, he had believed the idea to be his own- the product of his rational inquiry into the nature of humanity. But now, more and more, Jeff felt alienated from his revelation. By degrees, he found himself fidgeting nervously and casting side-long glances at the thinly-bound manuscript.

What Jeffery feared, but would not conciously admit, was that it seemed as if the epiphany had discovered HIM, rather than vice-versa. An irrational and paranoid fear, to be certain, but one that would not leave his mind. And when, after word of his theory leaked to the media and they pronounced it "The death of modern philosophy," Jeffery Jermayne walked off the end of a very long pier one night, and never surfaced again.

The late Jeffery Jermayne's revelation- which I will not elaborate upon with the same grotesque detail that he put forth- was not a terrible dictum that disproved the existence of God or cast doubt on the essential unity of the universe. In a certain light, it almost seems reassuring. Beneficent. It is reflection and doubt that make it disturbing and frightening. The scope of our senseless legacy of war is drawn into all the sharper relief.

Jeffery Jermayne's realization- devoid of thos proofs and justifications that thrilled and horrified- was just this: No man dies without a purpose.

Death is so much more than the end of a single life. It is the very fuel upon which all things are built. We are not cogs in the juggernaught of history, we are the grease between its gears.

Excerpt from "Patron's War"

2006-11-09T14:22:00.000-08:00

"There is not now, nor ever has there been, such a thing as in intelligent question," Apathy sighed, swaying back and forth in dismal misery. His blood-stained surgeon's smock was caked in what looked like fresh gore. Off-white sleeves rolled to his elbows, hands scrubbed and sterile, the chiurgeon stumbled to one side and took a seat on the edge of the table. The slick, black stitches that sealed his eyes beneath swollen eyelids seemed to parallel the deep frown of annoyance he wore on his face.

"We've heard you know everything."

"Everything worth knowing. Depressing, huh?"

"Then... you know a way out?"

Apathy shrugged. "I do."

The air was pregnant with anticipation. Minutes passed. Apathy began to whistle tunelessly. He stopped and sighed again. "'Can you tell us the way out of Hell?'" he asked in a falsetto. "I could, but I won't. What good would it do me, if you got out of here?"

"You snivelling little..."

"Disappointing reaction. Anger is a cliche down here, you know. But then, I shouldn't expect too much." He waved a sterile finger at the space just left of where the other man stood. "There are people who get very anxious when I am threatened, you know. More anxious than I care to contemplate, honestly, but that is Indulgence for you."

"Why? You help them often enough, why can't you help us? We could give you anything!"

Apathy fixed his stitced-up sockets on the other man, giving him the distinct impression that the Sin was trying to roll his eyes. He eventually gave up and just sighed once more.

"I know it is hard to accept, but face the facts: You are in Hell. Forever. What would you do if you got out? Where would you hide from the Angels and Reapers? For how long? A decade? A century? A thousand centuries? Do you think they will just say, 'ah, well, I suppose we'll let this one slide,' and let you go? It is meaningless. Trivial. You might as well give up."

"There's got to be something... some hope..."

Apathy gave him an apologetic smile and shrugged helplessly. "All I can do is give you a little false hope, if you'd like. 'It'll all be okay. You are terribly important. You'll find a way out without anybody's help.' Any good?"

"Or," he offered, pulling a hacksaw from the operating table and brandishing it suggestively, "I could operate. You won't care about Eternal Damnation afterwards, I promise. Doctor's honor."

The other man spat in Apathy's face and stormed from the derelect hospital.

A figure detatched itself from the shadows and stood behind his counterpart. "You are taken with lying these days, my sweet friend?" The voice was rasping and infectious, like oil split on a torrid sea. It actually sounded forked.

"I like you better with the mask on," Apathy lamented, leaning forward and resting his chin in his palm as the man's spit rolled down his cheek. "Anyway, I thought I'd lie for a few weeks. See if it discourages these daily chats. No change so far, I see."

Passion's inhuman snout was inches from Apathy's ear, whisps of smouldering ash blowing out in breathless anticipation. "We worry for you, dear man. Kings should not wile away their days with isolation and meaningless games. So much to do... so many people to do it to..." Passion's tongue langoriously licked his polished fangs, leaving a layer of saliva so thick, it might have been honey.

"Eh."

Passion drew back, still grinning despite the rebuke. "Perhaps tomorrow, then. Averice will come by with gifts. Won't that be wonderful? Then, perhaps, you will share what you know of the Silver Key with your dutiful brothers and sisters?"

Suffer the Slings and Arrows

2006-11-07T21:17:00.000-08:00

By the sixth month, Alexi had come to regard the silence of his home as a sort of friend- or more properly, as a guardian. He wasn't sure if it was delusion or his growing inability to deal with the outside world, but he had found himself more and more frequently wrapped up in a rage that had no certain cause. Some timess it was traffic, some times the weather, but most disturbingly was when he realized total strangers were making his mouth sneer, his teeth grind, and his blood boil.

Everyone occasionally gets the paranoid suspicion that the laughing couple that just past you was laughing AT you. Or, that neighbors watch you in the corners of their eyes. Most people even harbor the sneaking suspition that their friends maliciously gossip behind their backs.

For Alexi, these were less uspitions and more shameful facts. If women across the stree began to whisper, it was surely something about him. If a friend slighted him, it was certainly intentional. And any time someone laughed, for any reason or at any time, a furious blush would rise to Alexi's cheeks and he would avert his eyes.

In short, Alexi found himself in a constant state of humiliation, which quickly became silent rage and, eventually, an intense, acute sense of self-loathing. No matter how much anger Alexi could muster against his persecuters, he always turned inward, seeing the flaws and deficiencies that had earned him such universal scorn.

What Alexi understood, but could not rationalize, was that his problem stemmed from an unhealthy, egotistical facination with himself. He knew that people had lives outside of him, but could never hear anything but malicious intent in their stares and mutterings.

If ego was the mother of his problem, fear was certainly the father. He lacked self-confidence and feared the rejection of his peers so much that it just seemed easier to keep to himself. And even as he saw the opportunities for love and happiness slip through his fingers, Alexi comforted himself with the knowledge that at least they weren't making fun of him. Ironically, it was this same cowardice that stayed his hand every time the humiliation seemed too great to bear for even a day longer.

And so, Alexi began to love the silence of his isolation. It was that, or give in and go mad. He tried music first, but began to find even old favorites grinding on his nerves in time. Books seemed logical, but even the sound of his own mental voice had become too much to bear. Every word seemed to echo in his skull with the dull crashing of waves breaking against distant shores. In the end, only silence would do.

Complete, all-encompassing silence. Like the oblivion of dreamless rest, Alexi's life had become a noiseless dream. Waking up began to confuse him, and one day he simply never awoke. His face was not screwed into a pained, furious grimace- though, it was not blissful, either. Alexi's face was utterly neutral, like one who has finally and gratefully sacrificed every joy in life to spare themselves from its miseries.

Finite Philosophy

2006-11-07T21:06:00.000-08:00

Before we end this little dance, let me just say how much fun it has been. I mean, we know that death is the only conclusion we're going to get today, but still... thanks.

You know, forgiveness is a strange thing to me. I can't feel it like I can feel hatred. That may be why I did what I did back then- just trying to feel something.

I don't think you hate me. You fear me, sure. And with good reason. But I think that if you knew as much about me as I know about you, you wouldn't begrudge me so much in this little end.

I tried using the hatred, but it's gone now. Just the shadow of a fire flickering against the walls of a cave. It's not real. That's why I think what I'm feeling is the void of compassion. It's very unsettling.

Just a moment longer.

Compassion. Empathy. It relies on the destruction of the most core, human imparrative: That the "self" is more important than the "other." In a way, we obliterate the parts of ourselves that make us who we are, in order to imagine ourselves as someone else. Very near intellectual suicide. Maybe that is why it feels so hollow.

Enough prattle. Onto the climax.

Make sure the rope is tight. I'd hate to waste your time by dangling.

Epitaphs for the Vengeful

2006-09-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

‘Cooler heads will prevail,’ he said. ‘They must.’ A fine sentiment for an observer, I suppose, but hardly comforting to those of us with our necks on the line.

Figuratively speaking? I’m afraid not. They very real approach of our execution draws the absurdity of our situation into sharp relief as only imminent death can. It is meaningless to chronicle the events that led up to our rebellion, or even the tragic fall of our ideals and hopes- such a historical perspective would inevitably draw the audience to a biased, trite- even maudlin- autobiography that holds little more than the hubris of the fallen.

Consider this narrative an apology. Prayers for redemption, as it were, casting in the terrible role of omnipotent judge: you, my fine reader. I would not, in your place, be inclined to condone evasive pseudo-sacraments and half-hearted protestations, so I shall strive to avoid both. Let me, then, approach the quick of my situation with, as is so often the case, my confession.

I murdered 2,603 people.

Two thousand, six hundred and three.

I could say that I did not mean to, or that my actions were not the direct cause of their deaths, but I have grown to loathe such excuses. They are as insincere as they are worthless. Intent, I have grown to understand, is a construct of the guilty. And, as surely as I rise every morning to an iron cell and the oppressively barren walls that imprison me, I am guilty.

If I have resolved to lay aside the sordid history that has brought my fellow conspirators and I to this terrible condition of delayed judgment, let me say at least this: the conception of our manifest was entirely my own. In the way an architect measures out the angles and dimensions of a structure, I saw and calculated the deaths of thousands. Every stroke of my pen sent vibrations through time that snuffed out a life. Like a watchmaker, dividing fractions of seconds in a vain attempt to bond nature to artifice, so too, I negated and ignored the essential humanity of those who needed to perish in the conceptual gears of my ideological engine.

I would like to say it was for the greater good, but that is absurd. The human mind cannot truly comprehend the seething, formless mass that constitutes even a single society, much less the whole of our revenge-poxxed race. “Greater good” may as well be code for “my people,” as that is all it can ever truly mean.

My faith in our system is not in its fairness, justice, or mercy. These are as alien to my friends as they are inappropriate to our deeds. “Cooler heads” will see the truth that passionate fury exposes- the pressing, authoritative rule of punishment so complete that there can never again be the possibility of repetition. This is the world I have, of late, awoken to; though, I pray it is not the world we leave to the future.

Accept this, my silent executioners, as my apology and my epitaph: I failed. I failed and for my weakness, I deserve death. It is with the most pained regrets and the most devout sorrow that I reflect on the impossibly grand act of falling down that my life has culminated in. I stole the spark of life from 2,603 people and worse: I did so for a meaningless end. Like a graven colossus, so many sacrifices have been spilt on unloving stone that- in years to come- will moulder and erode, abandoned and forgotten.

Fauna, pt. 2

2006-07-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

The house was steeped in darkness, morbid shadows cast around me by the porch light that streamed in from the clouded windows. A glance outside found no trace of the fox and no explanation for the footfalls that seemed nearly at my throat just before I entered the light. A murky haze of fog was boiling up from the rain-soaked ground twisting and rolling in the cold night.

I pulled myself from the window and shook my head, exhaling a deep breath I had not realized I had been holding. There is much to be said for the power of the human imagination, I resolved, trying to ignore the slight creaking of the house settling in its foundations or the whine of wind battering against the windows. Less at ease than I should have been, I ascended the stairs to my room, passing by the closed doors of my housemates; blissful oblivion already making them insensible to the profound sense of unease that seemed wed to this night. And yet, what sort of artist would I be if I could not derive some sense of inspiration from the startling and disturbing events that I had, perhaps, imagined so recently? I immediately set to work.

Hours passed as they only can when one is wholly consumed in a project. I found exhaustion creeping through my bones and eyes, awakening to the realization that I was only half conscious, and would soon collapse into slumber. Forcing myself up, I packed away my materials for the night. A powerful thirst parched me, drying my throat and irritating my eyes. Rubbing my head, I carefully slipped from my room and, taking care to slink quietly, I made my way downstairs, to the kitchen.

The kitchen, near the rear of the house, stood well enough away from the porch light’s muted illumination, that walls of darkness seemed to press close to me, impeding my progress. I gave my eyes a moment to adjust to the deep gloom, until the room resolved itself into a spectrum of blacks that allowed me to find my way across.

In this state, I pulled a glass from the cupboard, and filled it with water from the sink. The kitchen sink was a low fixture, attached to the wall where a large, single-pane window looked out into the back yard. The lawn was hidden beneath a dull gray mist, and the trees that rose up like silent soldiers blocked off any light from the neighboring houses, leaving the yard even darker than the kitchen.

Raising the water to my lips, I drank it in, savoring the cold tastelessness. In a prolonged motion, I swallowed and gasped for air, setting the glass in the sink with a faint, crystalline sound. I turned from the sink, to head back to my room and enjoy the long-delayed sleep my body so furiously fought for, when I heard the strangest noise. It was like the gentle clinking and ringing of a wind chime that dragged out for several seconds. My first thought was that the pounding winds that had outlived the storm and even now screamed through the windows, should’ve made a frantic, jumbled noise, not the soft, graceful chiming that I heard.

My second thought was a realization that we did not have a wind chime.

Turning back to the kitchen window, the night seemed impenetrably dark- even the mist and fog had been rendered invisible in the blackness. Of the noise, there seemed to be no source, but, from the corner of my eye, I thought I spied a movement near the corner of the yard. Slowly approaching the window once more, I leaned in to the glass, squinting and willing my eyes to pick up some shape or object. And yet, the more I looked and the closer I got, the more opaque the night seemed to become.

Then, with a faint glimmer, two distant, faint red lights ignited like fitful torches. The light was so small and so distant, that I feared it must be an illusion. Surely our yard does not stretch that far back? And what of the trees, would they not interfere? A blur of motion to my side, and a large, heavy thing thumped against the window, jarring me, and eliciting a slight scream as I jumped back. Then, as the disparate elements of a portrait coalesce into a single image, I realized what was before me. The object that even now scraped with grim intent against the window was a clawed hand, thick and knotted and black as pitch. I was not looking out my window into a darkness-concealed yard, but rather, at some vast, black thing that stood inches from my window. And the twin red gleams were not distant fires, but small, smoldering eyes, staring into my house and holding me in the thing’s sight. The shape moved, its eyes flaring brighter as its hand drew deep, teeth-chattering gouges down the window glass.

My eyes wide, my mouth agape, and the pinpricks of blood surging through my body, I backed away, and turned to run. Not caring about the noise I made or the path I took, I took the stairs two at a time, and ducked into my room, throwing my door shut and pulling a chair against the knob. Trembling from the sight, I sat heavily on the edge of my bed and panted, my mind a jumble of thoughts and fears.

What was that creature? Was it related to the fox that pursued me earlier? Should I wake my friends? Can it get into the house? I looked around my room. The emerald light of my alarm blinked a steady pattern of 12:00. Had the power gone out at some point? Keeping my eyes on the door, I moved toward my phone, and listened to the dull, dead silence that it produced when I lifted it from the receiver. I flipped the light switch, its pained click failing to provide any light. A dead bulb? I looked back at the green neon that provided my only illumination, blinking and meager as it was.

I felt helpless, small, and terribly alone at that moment. Everywhere I looked, there seemed to be the cursed glimmer of red peering at me, but when I turned to it, the light seemed to fade away into nothingness.

Then, a faint, scratching noise, like tiny claws against plaster. I looked up. One of the corners of my ceiling, due to the slope of the roof, bends into three oblique angles. It was from this spot that the noise seemed to come from, a distant, though urgent scratching. Rats, perhaps, from the attic, I tried to assure myself. But there was no chittering or squeaking to give any indication of a natural tunneler. And, as minutes dragged on, my focus wholly consumed in staring at the green-lit corner, the sounds of the scratching grew louder and more frantic.

Then, silence a thousand times more oppressive than the scratching noise had seemed. I stared back at the door and at my veiled window. In a moment, the scratching returned, further along the wall. Whatever was behind my wall, it was making progress. Progress toward where I sat, I realized with an icy horror.

I stood even as I heard the splintering wood and shattering glass from downstairs. Something was in the house. I tried to scream, but found my lungs frozen with terror, all strength sapped from my lips. I held my mouth open and tried to force air through it, but I only succeeded in a wheezing gasp, more like a whimper than a warning.

I stood there, in that room, silent with fear as I heard some great, heavy force pound upstairs with a frenzied determination. I could hear the mounting horror of elevated screams as my housemates woke to see that terrible thing. The clanking of some great metal chains and the sickening sound of tearing flesh overtaking the high-pitched, dying shrieks that seemed more animal than man. I think I vomited just before I passed out.

And that was it. When I came to, I was already in police custody. The neighbors had called the police when they saw the ruin our front door had become, and- finding the bloody mess that remained, took me with them. The wretched fools thought I was responsible, thought I had taken some weapon to my friends and smash up our house. Did they not see the damage done? The horrible wounds? How could I have done such a thing?

Oh, they say they found blood all over me, but didn’t they also see the thousand of tiny bites that had pocked my body? That blood on me was my own, I tell you! The things in the walls must have descended upon me when I fell. I can almost feel their tiny fangs and claws crawling down my spine even as we speak!

So I say to you ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am not the murderer. I did not- could not- kill my friends as brutally as they had been. Where is the supposed weapon I used to tear flesh from bone and spray blood about like a geyser of crimson stain?

But neither am I mad, you see. I did not imagine these things any more than you have imagined the evidence set before you. I do not know why it chose me, but I tell you quite clearly that the message has been received. Honorable Judge, patient members of the jury, and even you, horrified members of the audience; I know what they were telling me. The fox, the rats, even that lumbering monstrosity- they had a single purpose, a single message. And the lesson is as simple as it is profoundly terrible: Nature’s revolt.

We have tamed the plants, victimized the animals, and defied the elements. Mankind has grown indolent with its dominion and Nature will no longer tolerate it. There are dark things in the night, perversions of even the most humble creature. These are to be our executioners and tormentors. Death will ride on the wings and teeth of the Fauna and we will never know peace again.

Fauna pt. 1

2006-06-29T00:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, I recall the day you're talking about. Quite vividly, in fact. You've come to know me better than most- I told you how days tend to blur into an indistinguishable jumble for me. Well not so for that day. Clear as when I lived it. I've never let myself forget.

By way of explaination, let me say that I did not live alone, obviously. However, custom and circumstance had given me a solitary life. When I woke, my housemates had already left for work. By the time they got back, I was usually consumed in reading or writing, insensible to hunger or social mandates. When, at last, I went to take my dinner, my housemates had generally gone to bed.

It is at this time, in the depth of the night, that I find myself most creative, most aware of the world around me. I have heard that creative people are more sensitive to the external world than the masses, giving them greater appreciation for its wonders even as it puts them at a greater risk...

Now, understand that when I say I went for a walk that night, it was nothing unusual. I find a little fresh air clears the mind and awakens the sluggish blood. Nor should you think it odd that I chose to walk on a night so oppressively bleak- utter cloud cover, torrential rains, unpredictable winds. I know it seems odd, but I always used to love rain, especially storms like that one. Gives us a not-so-subtle reminder that for all our science and rationality, there are forces that can batter and destoy us just around the corner- brooding in the darkened skies and lying behind shadows.

Never-the-less, of the several paths my usual excursions take me down, owing to the severity of the storm, I opted for the shortest route. Keeping my umbrella aloft in the onslaught was effort enough, and before I was half-finished, I was mostly soaked through.

It was at around this point in my walk that I began to become aware of the dull sensation of dread that had been building since I set foot outside. What was most curious was that the feeling was utterly without a source. The night was no more terrifying than I was accustomed to, and no special incident had hitherto aroused in me the seed of fear. I began to look behind my shoulder at first, but the remarkable oppression strenghed until I no longer dared to glance behind, for fear of what I might see. My pace had become all but an out-right run when a light caught and transfixed my eye.

On this particular path, I pass by the home of a man I never took an especial liking to. The man was old and unpleasant, scowling into his jowels at passer-bys. And, while I had not formed a favorable opinion of him, I never suspected him of any unnatural character. In his front yard, you see, there are a great many very old trees, gnarled with age. Quite unlike any other night, I saw that the man had installed a light at the base of one of the trees. And, while the rain seemed to push down the illumination, I could not help but notice that the light, shining up the trunk of that partiular tree seemed to cast strange shadows across the bark. Despite the rain, I found myself staring at a tree that seemed riven with screaming, shadow-cast faces.

Horrifed by this morbid observation, I tried to trace out the lines and curves of the knotted wood, and by dissecting its components, excise the illusion. However, the longer I looked, the more faces seemed to rise to the surface. Screaming, howling, moaning, cursing- I could almost imagine I heard the voices carried on the wind. When, at last, I regained my presence of mind and turned from that demention of my nerve-addled mind, I found with a start that the rain had stopped with me noticing it.

Shaking off the parade of anxiety that marched through my gut, I resolved to end my sojourn quickly and quit the night before another shock manifested. In this desire, I was quite twarted, for it was not long before I stopped dead in my tracks, skin quivering with unsummoned flush even as a shiver fell down my spine. In the middle of my path, there was a small, black animal. A fox, I guessed by the tail it flicked back and forth. In the meger few beams of light that creapt down from the slowly parting clouds, I could see that this animal was lean, its coat of black fur faintly pulled into contrast by the misty fog that clung around the beast like a luminescent aura. The creature's eyes did not gleam or glow, but seemed to smoulder, like dying coals; the moonlight twisted into a dull, deep red.

Here, at last, the source of my fearful ire seemed manifest. Though the fox made no movement toward me even when I passed it (with a wide berth to the side), the night-dweller seemed to radiate a sense of lazy hostility. It was not until I began to walk away that I heard soft, lupine foot-falls behind me. It seemed to be following me- at a distance, at first, and faster as I approached my home. The sense of isolation in the black of the night, as well as the many strange starts I had recieved quickened my heartbeat and I began to run when I imagined I could hear the fox nearly upon me.

I gained the entry and slammed the stout wood rather louder than I had intended. Catching my breath, feeling my pounding heart return to normal, I began to feel rather foolish. To run from a fictional antagonist like that simple fox... it seemed very silly of me.

Dear Friends...

2006-06-05T00:55:00.000-07:00

... I can not explain it very well, but it feels like I am losing myself.

Not my mind, though I am unsure how sane I am any more. No, I can feel my identity slipping through my fingers. Some terrible thing is happening to me, and I can not stop it.

Every night, when exhaustion over takes me and my eye lids droop, some thing happens to me. When I awaken, I am no longer me. I am some one else. And it happens every night. It is like I am being replaced. Like there are rows of dolls that form my conciousness. As one gets discarded another is opened, exactly like the old one in every way but originality.

I am not sure if I can call my self an original any more. I have been sundered and reconstituted so often, there may not be an original piece left to me. What sort of awareness is that? To be pulled down, torn apart, and sewn up over and over again?

Memories are indistinct and blurred to me. I can no longer be certain they were real- it may be that they were dreams. I dare not share them with others, lest I discover the awful truth of their manufacture. Regard less, it is not the me that speaks to you now in those memories. It is another, more distant I. One who I can hardly relate to, or empathize with. In many ways, I have come to hate and resent those past selves- they lived bliss fully unaware of my somniphorious multiplicity.

Even as I silently mouth these words to cold walls that rise up into unfeeling corners, I can feel the tendrils of slumber writhing under my muscles. Fear can propel action for only so long- sooner or later, we all fall under that dark rest of essential oblivion.

Do I resist its inevitability? Do I struggle fruitlessly in the face of insurmountable opposition, like the tragic Greeks of old? Can I conquer the terminal prophesy- the phoenixian cycle of death and rebirth? Or shall I surrender to that mindless, animalistic embrace and usher in another soul-less clone to fill the role that my late self so wastefully squandered?

I no longer hope for myself- the hallucinations that signal the onset of my destruction have already begun to swim through my eyes. The best I can hope for is that the next one will be my last. That the next self that fills my body and suffers under the weight of a hundred thousand past selves will find permenancy.

I fear the dreams of my infinite self-condemnation.

Character Concept- Sir Owen

2006-06-01T21:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry about that, stranger. I'm well and truely sorry for your injuries. Our city has more than its fair share of vicious folk, though judging my your wounds, I'd guess you tangled with Sir Owen. If that is the case, more's the shame you didn't finish him.

Sir Owen is something of a local legend, around here. Very tragic, really. A good man tormented by the shackles of an evil oath. If you're interested...?

Alright, stranger. The first thing you should know is that Sir Owen is not a wicked man. He's not holy or anything, just dutiful to a fault. One of the King's Guardsmen, Sir Owen was a man who never took an oath lightly and never broke his word. For him to break his word... why, it'd be like you or I reaching up and plucking the moon from the sky.

Sir Owen frequently aided the City Guard in rooting out demonist cults at the King's request, and noone was a fiercer enemy of the black arts than he. For ten years, he protected this city from insurections and invasions, facing horrors that would turn a normal man's hair white. But, for each cult he shattered, another sprung up. It was as if the tide would never turn.

Then, one day, Sir Owen and a unit of hardy veterans broke into the private quarters of one of this city's noblemen, to find a Demon Lord sitting there in all his wickedness, waiting for them. At the Demon Lord's side, a great steel cage, drapped with black satin.

The battle was fierce and every strike that the Demon Lord landed was returned tenfold. But it was not enough. One by one, Owen's men died around him, until only he was left. Arms broken, bleeding from a dozen wounds, Sir Owen waited for his end with an unwavering glare of defiance. But the final blow was never struck.

Instead, the Demon Lord said that he had been watching Sir Owen for some time. That he respected Sir Owen as an adversary, and that he would strike a bargin with the mortal. Pulling the satin from the cage, the Demon Lord revealed Sir Owen's wife and children, held in thrall by the Demon's foul magics.

Sir Owen, the Demon said, must die. His family, in turn, would suffer for an age and a half, never to know peace until death finally claimed them. The city would be razed by an infernal host, its people put to the sword or claimed to satiate the dark hungers of the Demon Lord's minions. But, the infernal Lord explained, all that might be avoided.

There was no need for such destruction, the Demon coaxed. Sir Owen had the power to prevent the whole catastrophe. And all that it would take was a word. A simple pledge of loyalty. The Demon Lord did not want bloodshed or revenge for his broken cults- he wanted a protegee.

But he could not MAKE Sir Owen obey him. And so, he presented Sir Owen with the choice: Save your family, country, and King by pledging everlasting servitude. Or, refuse him, and by refusing, doom all that he loved.

And, with a word, Sir Owen made his choice.

The Demon etched the terms of their contract onto Sir Owen's very sword, as a constant reminder of what he must do, and returned to the fiery netherworld with a subtle smile. From that day on, Sir Owen's word compelled him to do the evil wishes of his Master. There was no magical compulsion or threat of punishment- but as I have said, Sir Owen could no more break his word than he could grow a third arm.

Thirty years have passed since that day. Sir Owen's wife has passed on, his children have grown, his country has largely forgotten the terrible duty he took on to protect it. Yet, in thirty years of acting on behalf of that Demon Lord, never once has Sir Owen killed a single man he did not have to. He obeys the letter of his oath, but he has never accepted the spirt of it.

Those few of us who still remember the Sir Owen of old look on him now with pity. Pity that stays our swords and keeps us from giving him that release that he has surely earned. And that is why I say it is a shame that you did not kill him before, when you thought him a mere villainous dark knight. Because...

Because, in thirty years, Sir Owen has not aged even a single day. Unless he is killed, his service to that Demon Lord will last until the end of time. And a man like Sir Owen does not deserve that.

NaOcyane

2006-05-26T18:11:00.000-07:00

The light and warmth. Her world surrounded her with an embrace of a million minds and souls. She was all to them. Hope and love flew up to her in a wave of passion that took away her breath. They loved her. They needed her. She was theirs'.

The crowd stood in amazement of the woman who had simply appeared, floating above the ground and wrapped with golden light that streamed off of her like ribbons in the wind. Her eyes were closed and her head tilted upwards in exstasy, her arms crossed over her breasts, fingers stretching outward and muscles taut.

The noise, the violence, the panic dimmed and faded as a feeling of peace spread through the city, with the woman as its epicenter. They looked on her and they loved her. And as people duly crowded toward her, their hands reaching out to touch the woman, the goddess, her head tilted to one side and she opened her left eye.

An eye of vibrant green stared out on the faces of her worshipers. Flecks of red quivered in the sea of jade, working their way out from the abyss of the pupil, worming into the iris like trickles of blood. As if breaking a dam, red poured from the black void in the center of her eye, flooding her iris and spilling beyond its borders. Her right eye opened, a gaping pit of darkness and malevolence. Her expression of grace vanished, replaced by one of disgust and hatred. She flared her nostrils and drew her mouth into a deep frown of dismay. Her lips parted, revealing rows of ivory teeth, jagged like fangs.

Like the hallucination of an oasis in the desert, the feeling of peace fled from the denizens of the city, their eyes and mouths widening, unable to comprehend the shift. Where was their goddess? What was this... monster? Icy fear gripped them.

The woman lowered her head, tossing her gaze across the ragged mass of panic-stricken sheep before her. Her upper lip twisted into a sneer. Throwing her arms wide, the golden glow around her exploded outward with a silent finality. Those closest to her simply disappeared. They left no trace that they had ever been, merely a sigh on the wind as the golden light passed over them, and they folded into nothingness.

Eden descended from the sky, her bare feet touching the uneven pavement of the street, melting the stone and steel around her. Wrath boiled out of her like tendrils of hate, but the crowd could not flee from their doom. Awe and horror paralyzed their minds and atrophied their muscles. Some collapsed, weeping in the face of Eden.

Holding her hands outward, as if to cup the head of a penitent son, the goddess moved toward the mass. As her fingers brushed the face of one of the onlookers, the spell of silent terror was broken. The world erupted.

The thousands surrounding her screamed, their cries wrentched from their throats as if drawn out by ravenous beasts. Hands became claws as they surged over one another to escape Eden's embrace. Feet crushed ribs and faces, windows shattered as the panic spread and people leapt through plate glass to escape, their bodies evicerated by the transparent shards that broke around them. Ripples of the emotion spread with the speed of sound, bodies twisting to escape, directionless. The beastial screams reached a fevered pitch, drowning out all other noise.

And onward Eden moved. The sight of death and violence filled her with a giggy sort of pleasure, a strangled laugh escaping her throat even as her fingers stretched outward, as if to capture and strangle every soul in her domain. People fell forward, the strength of their legs stolen out from under them. As they landed against the ground, their life was torn from them by a crushing force, leaving a carpet of blood and flesh where once there had been worshipers.

Eden reveled in the wasteland that spread out from her touch like a wasting pestilence sweeping across a field of grain. She was the monster, the victimizer, the horror. At last, she was the villain. She had the power to end life and they were all her enemies. Tears of joy streamed down her cheeks and dropped from her jaw like a desert rain, soaking the parched earth. Her body shook with the intensity of her laughter. Her every nerve was aflame, and as each life withered and perished under the weight of its wretchedness, she felt like she was growing more and more real.

She lashed a hand out lazily, an arc of will scything through the air, tearing bone and mutilating flesh. She took a step forward, and creeping veins surged across the ground, throwing bodies into the air, igniting them even as they tore at their own faces. She widened her eyes in focus and a hundred men and women twisted backward unnaturally, the sound of snapping bones and tearing muscle echoing in the cacaphony like a death knell.

Eden became aware that she was speaking, but she could not understand her speech. A strange sense of seperation overcame her as she heard the harsh, gutteral words pouring from her mouth, tormenting the living and obliterating the dying. She began to drift from her body, becoming aware of the world beyond the city. Everywhere, the sounds of death and strife. From every mouth, a lament of agony and a requium of fear. They were dying. All of them. She was their goddess and their devil and their angel of death. She was the nexus, the font of life.

But she hated them all. And they would die a million times before she was through with them. The glorious song of misery fueled her even as it scourged her to greater depths of depravity. They would all die. They had to. She hated them all. She hated them. She hated... She...

Eden wept as her world died.

NouTeva

2006-05-24T23:25:00.000-07:00

"We've put all this work into the project and you want to trash it now? On account of... Her?" He swung his hand to point at the girl curled into a ball, shivering in the corner, her pale flesh reflected in the steel blue of the floor and barely illuminated by impotent LEDs.

The other man shook his head. "No, no. Of course not. It's just..."

"Just what?" The Engineer turned back to face his partner. "So much time, so much money. We're on the edge of something amazing here. Full immersion. The creation of identity itself!"

"I know," his partner said from clentched teeth, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He turned from the pathetic sight of the girl, only to drop his gaze from the fervant eyes of his friend. "But, doesn't it seem wrong to you?"

"We knew there would need to be a nexus. You were the one who figured that out! You want to drop everything and spend the next fourty years working on an artifical nexus? Hell, EIGHTY years! Maybe never!"

The girl's cheeks were stained with an oily grease and tears, her fingers splayed over her head. The song was in her mind, and she couldn't get it to stop. Her fingernails dug into her skin, pulling blood from her flesh. In her mind, she was in the green room again. It was happening again and she could do no more to stop it this time than she had been able to back then. She cried out.

The engineers glanced at her momentarily before drawing closer, lowering their voices.

"Listen to her. She's nearly dead like this. We'll be giving her life a purpose. A meaning. It will only hurt at first- if we're right, she'll be better than she's ever been in a month or less. Is that so much? A little pain for everlasting life? For omniscience? For godhood?"

"Please-"

"Sorry. I know you don't like that word. But it's nearly the same thing. She'll be like a god- a godess- as the nexus. What is she now? Like this, death would be a mercy."

His shoulders slumped. He closed his eyes. In his chest, his heart raced with anticipation, but he couldn't excise the dread from his gut. Or the guilt from his mind. "Alright."

The Engineer put his hands on his partner's shoulders, leaning in closely. "Hey." He gave his friend a gentle shake. "What we're doing is going to change everything. And she gets to be the center of a new world. History will forgive us."

The girl couldn't hear the exchange, couldn't see the approching men, couldn't sense the soundless shift of her fate. In Eden's mind, there was only the Green Room, the paralyzing fear, and the horrible song.

Dreams of Space

2006-05-14T21:56:00.000-07:00

Before the crash...

My mind is a frenzy of images and events. A ship gliding in the utter abyss of space. A jet firing when it was not supposed to. The panic and death of a wounded transport. The jettison of escape vessles. How long did I drift for? What planet was I near when the stars lulled me into a waking sleep that confused my memories and opened me to dreams of black rains?

My vessel was jarred by the entry into an atmoosphere, pulling my mind back from the edge of waking emptiness.I am sealed in metal and foam, cutting off my sight, my connection to the outside world. What is happening?

A tremendous impact throws my body against the floor, dropped like a forgotten rag doll. Pain. Confusion. Sleep.

Am I sleeping? What is it I am seeing? Cliffs, volcanic plains, broken obsidian fields. But those craters, those red ridges, they are not natural. The terrain seems ugly, broken. Uneven, alien forms twist and rise out of the fields like cyclopean, heat-charred pillars, their bodies jagged and curving. From these towers, a wave of flesh and steel and fangs. Beastial, loping creatures, like long-limbed dogs of great stature pour over the volcanic ground in silent glee. Idiotic grins of servitude etched on their faces, these monsters scarcely bristled under the weight of their beloved master's driving will. And the masters...

A crack of metal and an urgent hiss tear my eylids open. The unwelcome light of an unfamiliar sun pours into my sequestered cavity. A sillouette, then a face. Where am I?

Escapism

2006-05-07T23:31:00.000-07:00

A friend once asked me why I was so obsessed with stories...

Well, no. That's not true. No one ever asked me about it. Sometimes I imagined that they would. And I knew just what I would say. I would explain how stories take us away from complexity. Life is a very chaotic thing, you see. We have a million tiny tasks that arise, fester, and die under our lack of focus or time. But in stories, there are only a handful of tasks, all of which are important. Things get done. Good, or in some cases anti-good (which is rather different from "bad") always seems to win. There is meaning in stories.

But what about real life? There's no meaning to it. Well, unless you graft meaning to it. I think that's why religion is such a big part of so many people's lives. It's a way of pretending that old stories are real. And it even gives us a story-book ending: the coveted "happily ever after."

But I couldn't buy into that. Religious stories are long and confusing, and they always stay the same. But fiction! Now, there is something that is always changing, always growing. You can read, or listen to, or watch a million million stories and not even sratch the surface what fiction has to offer. And our dreams, oh our dreams! What wonder worlds lie behind our eyelids! And it seemed like every day, it was a little harder to wake from my dreams.

I think that was why, when I began reading my last story, I felt like I was in a waking dream. It never quite seemed entirely real. I couldn't be sure if I was reading the story, or I was living it. Everything began to grow indistinct and blurry.

Memories. It's funny when you think about it, but the sum total of our whole lives can be boiled down to barely over a hundred really vivid memories. Sure, given enough time, we can think of all kinds of boring, trivial things that happened in our lives, but the things we really remember, the things we tell to others, they're so simple, so linear... it's as if our lives were stories all along. No complexity, no chaos, just beautiful fiction.

I can't imagine a nicer way to pass, than with the final words of your life story slipping from your tongue, into the ears of of the avid. Because what are we, if not the ripple of a story on the great dreamscape of human fiction?

Conversations in my head

2006-05-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

-This is hard for me, so please give me time.

No, it's alright. What is it?

-It's just, well. We've known each other for a little, while.

A couple months, yeah.

-I like you, right?

I assumed.

-Well, it's more than that. I guess I've loved you for a while now. And, I thought about it, for a long time.

But...

-Yeah.

So...?

-So, I guess I just have to let that go.

Yes, that would be best.

-Ouch.

To the Victors!

2006-05-01T19:06:00.000-07:00

I'd like to make a toast, if I may. Gentlemen? A toast?

Thank you.

I'd like to toast the Captains of Industry gathered here. You are surely the champions of the Capitalist Ideal. You gentlemen are well-dressed, well-educated, and more than a little clever. You've made fabulous lives for yourselves and your families.

Here you and your wives sit, dining on such meals as the Princes of Maciavelli's era never saw, attired in sumptuous extravagences that would darken the eyes of the greatest misers in history. Mammon himself knew not the wealth you fine men have reaped.

Money. It is our god and our devil- benifactor and nemesis. And we great men, for whom nothing is beyond reach, we ever seek greater hights of dizzying power. Come what may, there will always be people making money.

And as you well-dressed gentlement and exquisite ladies sit, eating the finest sort of luxuries we know, take but a moment and look to the main window. All this joy and cheer, when you fine men and women are oblivious to the hungry stares of those urchins beyond that darkened pane. And while we cannot see them or hear them, I can assure you all, that the destitue without gaze with envy and rancor within.

But why should they? Is it not the nature of our buisness to reward the hard-working, to punish the lazy? That a poorer class exists at all is merely a testiment to the unwillingness of humanity to better itself.

And we should give another toast, while our glasses are still raised, to the apathy of the middle class and the submissiveness of the lower class; without these fine co-conspirators, our opulence would be utterly untenable. We've built empires as the Egyptians of old: on the broken backs of a thousand thousand slaves, mortaring each stone with the blood and tears of the facelss mass that crowds beyond that dark window. The Jew of Venice had it right: barren metal can be made fruitful if one feeds it but a little blood.

And so, Cheers! To you, brave Captains of Industry! To you, o paragons of Progress! Long health, dear Lords of Capitalism! You have made the mass of democracy your serfs and stamped out all mercy from religion. Yours are the Kingdoms of Commerce, and your reign shall be greater than any king ordained by State or God could ever hope to achieve.

Excerpt from "Patron's War"

2006-04-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

Before you depart this place, allow me to tell you a story I heard many and more years ago. I do not know that this story contains more than a grain of truth, for none but the Sins know for sure if the Devil ever really existed. Still, I will tell you this tale, exactly as I heard it, so that it may give you some idea of the realm that you now venture into:

------

In a certain year, on a certain date, the lords of Purgatory and Hell made a pact. The alliance, inspired by the Devil of Hell, sought to liberate the two from their pre-ordained conditions. For, while the Lord of Hell reveled in his tyranny, the thought of imprisonment vexxed him sorely. And, though the grim Master of Purgatory was a creature of servitude and duty, he ached under the isolation he was bound to forever live in.

And so it was that, under bloody betrayal, the Devil departed from his realm, and accompanied the Lord Reaper to his Grey City of Clockwork. The conspirators moved discreetly, to evade the watchful eye of Heaven. Once his guest was safely succored, the Lord of Purgatory spoke to him:

So long as you are my guest, my home will be as yours, and my arrayed resources shall be at your disposal. Once your work is done here, I will escort you to the next leg of your journey, but not before.

So he spoke, for all were wary of the deceitful machinations of the cunning Devil. Never-the-less, the Lord of Many Ways returned to the Dark Reaper, his host:

Of course, my friend, our deal remains one of cooperation over trust, as is best. But, even still, after my work is done, there is a chance an unlucky word may fall and the Great Unseen's agents may act against me.

The stoic and pragmatic Reaper perceived his hidden meaning:

You need fear no betrayals on my part, Lord of Lies, but I will still act to allay your fear, to prove my conviction. When your work gains life, I will tell it of the means to escape Purgatory. In this way, one who is under your influence will know, even if I wish to withold the secret.

The Devil nodded with friendly aquiescence but, as a tiger long in the wait percieves a meal come into his power, so this cunning Lord of the Pit saw the advantage his well-meaning host had presented him with. For, it was within the power of the Devil to see events not yet written and he saw the diligence of the Master Reaper fail in the face of Emotion, and saw the betrayal that his Grim Host would foment, even if he himself did not yet know of it.

With these schemes in mind, the Lord of Many Ways began his craft. From the impatient denizens of Purgatory, the cunning Devil tricked and bartered away portions of their bodies. For, while any wound in Purgatory heals in time, any loss persists until a replacement is found. In this way, the Devil gained fingers, skin, organs, limbs, eyes, and even fragments of souls, covertly storing each part from the patrolling Fires of the Divine.

Many revolutions of Purgatory's great clocks came and went, and the Devil's cunning craft neared completion. To bind his creation to the Grey Lord of Purgatory, he needed a hand and an eye from the Reaper's own body. Tokens he gave willingly, reasoning:

Why should I sacrifice nothing to raise a mate, when pieces of a body are so easily replaced in this realm?

As the insightful Devil took these parts, his scheme to avert his Host's betrayal began. Affixing the tokens to teh woman he had built, he whispered into her ear subtle words:

Awaken, and know your father, the one who created you. With this hand and this eye, I bind you, my daughter, to a tyrant and a villain who seeks to enslave you and betray your father's good service. Know, however, that my love for you can forstall this grim future. Know that his dominion can fail if you choose to ally yourself to me. He will tell you a secret anon, which you must repeat to me, away from his sight. Do so, and I will remove the hand and eye that shackle you to this unhappy destiny.

The cunning words reached the patchwork-soul of his creation, and her eyes filled with compliance.

So it was that on the day the Reaper's Mate was presented to him, her heart was turned from him, and it was by will alone that she suppressed the shudders of revulsion that came at his unwelcome touch. And so, as a blind man avoids one chasm by fortune only to stumble into another, the Lord of Purgatory whispered the secret of Limbo's Trap to the very ear-piece of the crafty Lord of Hell.

Nor did the Created spare moments in doubt of her betrayal, but secreted the knowledge to the Lord of Many Ways:

Father, I have done as you bid me and I have gleaned the secrets for you at sore miseries. Now, I beg you, free me from the monsterous husband I was born to.

Preparing himself for the journey to mortal Earth, the Lord of Hell barely heard the misguided woman over whom he had no true claim of patriarchy- for no aspect of his own body had been sacrificed for her birth. She repeated her plea, and he gazed on her in annoyance. All at once, though, an idea came into his mind that pleased him exceedingly. He spoke with sly intent:

Daughter, I will keep my promise to you. Behold as I explain how you may be free of your Lord. The eye in your head and the hand on your wrist bind you to the Dread Reaper beyond even my ability to undo, but do not despair, for you have the strength to pluck forth the offending pieces. Do so in his sight and his malevolent will shall no longer rule you.

Trusting and sweet Bride of Fragments, alas for your innocence! The constructed woman took her false patron's words for truth and left his company to revenge herself on the diligent Lord of Purgatory. Full of vitrol and venom, she found him amid the newly reborn Reaper Servants he had made of the Lords' Betrayal. Busy placing the germ of souls into each husk, he did not mark her approch until she was nearly upon him. With a vicious tone and a rebellious heart, she called to him:

You name yourself Master and Husband of my body, but my spirit rejects your tyranny. I shall be my own mistress, free to plow my own destiny and to thresh the harvest thereof. Behold, as I sacrifice your component chains!

The fury of the impassioned speech jarred the Lord of Purgatory so sharply that his grip failed and the vessel of souls intended for his servants fell, shattering and ruining its precious contents. Turning and gazing between the sudden rebellion of his mate and the ruin of his servants, the Reaper Lord was paralyzed with pain and betrayal.

And, before his eyes, his blessed companion tore from her wrist that hand he gave from his true body, and plucked from her socket that eye he had sacrificed to give her the gift of sight. Casting both organs to the grey steel of the ground, she stood in impudent defiance of him who was, in truth, both father and husband.

And, as a great old lion may become tired with age and seem passive during peace, but who, once baited and scorned, rises up in horrible fury, so the Grey Man of Limbo became at once hate-filled:

You presume to defy me, who gave you life with sore effort, painful wishing, and personal sacrifice? How dare you deny my flesh and how dare you spurn these gifts with your over-reaching pride. Since you no longer desire them, I will take them back!

And, at that, a fierce black fire burned the discarded organs on the ground and the cavities of the one who cast them from herself. Crying in pain, the Fragmented Woman knew the heat of the flames would keep any replacement from ever restoring the function of her hand and eye. But, the terrible rage of her master was not yet spent:

You have sinned twice in this rebellion. Because of the force of your venomous tongue, the faithful souls I was to fill these wicked constructs with have been destroyed. Never again will your vitrol-filled words bring another soul to harm!

And, with those words, the Lord of Purgatory seized the woman by her jaw, and with a mighty force, tore her lower mandible form her skull, tongue and all. The woman collapsed, holding and shielding her ruined face while bitter, hate-filled tears fell from her cheeks and turned to crystals of ice upon the ground. For, while the Lord of Purgatory was not normally a cruel master, nor was he unpleastant of features, through the cunning ways of the Lord of Hell, the lies he had filled this woman with became, to her, as pure truth.

His fury spent, the Lord of Purgatory regarded the crippled and maimed form of his once beautiful bride. With a heart heavy under pain of loss, he spoke once more before leaving her side:

You wished to be free of me, and so you shall be. You and I are now equals, for as I have maimed your body, you have rent my soul. My last gift to you, then, shall be your name. Because you have plowed this bitter crop yourself, you must be the one to reap it. I name you for the destiny you over-quickly sought to claim. I name you "Thresher."

And so he left with those words, pacing the long, steel streets of Purgatory, deep in throught and conflict. He saw what fault may have been his, but again and again he could only see the nefarious hand of the Lord of Many Ways. With these suspitions festering in his breast, the Reaper's anger was kindled once more against his treacherous guest. Fetching at once the Great Blade, the Reaper Lord's own Scythe, which was used to end those fear-filled mortals who thought to cheat the natural order and which was the very darkness of death even to the dead, the Lord of Purgatory took this fiersome weapon in hand and, as a ravenous beast hunts what may be its last meal, he too stalked hungrilly after his prey.

Nor had the Lord of the Pit lingered overlong in preparations, but had made all haste to the sand-laden catacombs that formed the veins of the Clockwork City. In these mazes, the cunning guest made a careful study of the broken, abandoned hourglasses of all makes that once measured out the span of lives, rendered obsolete by their Masters' deaths. The thrum of echoing clocks and the rushing hiss of sand could not distract the vigilant, questing eyes of that hunted Lord.

The haste of Purgatory's scorned Father was not in vain, for he caught up with his former partner as the other stood just before a vast vault, wrought of a steel formed in the fires of the ethereal, Divine Realm. Rage beyond words consumed the jagged Man of Grey, and he flew at his prey with a falcon's focus.

The Master of Hell was not called He of Many Ways for naught, however, and while cunning and manipulation were his favored tools, battle and slaughter were well known to him. Brandishing nothing but fire-marked hands and a long staff of exceeding thinness, the Master of Sins turned aside the fell and fierce blow of the Master Reaper. Guiding the seeking sweeps of the terrible scythe with care-chosen parries and feints, the Lord of Hell dodged cunningly, allowing the scythe to strike the secluded and grisly vault, opening its heavenly-forged barrier.

With a grin more telling than any taunt of words, the Dark Deciever leapt at once into the vault and seized the object that lay within, a lantern of dark steel and rippling green glass. A hellish fire poured from his long-fingered hands, washing over the Reaper Lord and scouring the pleasant flesh from that diligent man. His final act of harm complete, the Devil Lord gave a cry of triumph that pierced even the Grey Reaper's cry of agony. And, at once, the Lord of Hell was no longer in the Limbo of Deathlessness and gone from all record.

Golden Wire

2006-03-31T20:55:00.000-08:00

The faint, metallic ring arrested his pace with heart-sinking fear. He craned his neck, trying to listen to the sound, trying to reassure himself it was just a trick by his over-taxed imagination.

But again it came, a metallic ring as if the smallest of bells bounced down a tower. A few seconds and the ring came again, louder and closer. He whipped his head about, trying to find the source.

His eyes settled on the stairwell. The bouncing ring was now clearly audible, louder with passing seconds. He almost imagined he could see a faint glimmer of reflected light growing nearer. And, all at once, the source of the noise came into view. It was a sphere, a ball of gold no larger than a fist. The ball was traced through with unusual engravings, almost like joints in the unbroken metal surface. Despite its heavy appearance, it bounced against the creaking hardwood stairs with an elastic lightness, taking the steps two at a time.

The ball bounced against the ground and its momentum vanished with a noiselessness that seemed to echo through the building. It remained perfectly still for a long moment before a thin line began to leak through the engraved joints. In a blinding suddenness, the sphere unfolded itself, opening invisible cracks and pulling out a wire-thin framework that assembled itself into nothing so much as a golden skeleton.

The mechanical thing rose from its casing and pulled itself to its full height. A tremor vibrated through its frame as it twitched its arms and fingers in a systematic analysis. Seemingly satisfied, it turned its golden gaze on the man.

The wire-work assassin moved with silently liquid grace, flowing forward with inexorable precision.

Excerpt from "Patron's War"

2006-03-29T05:48:00.000-08:00

"Du Charte, you have grown ever so werrisome to us. It is quite unforgivably rude."

The Count Du Charte tried to pull his head up, shaking the hair from his face. He opened his mouth, but all he could manage in response was a dry, hacking hiss. The red plaster mask affixed to his face had no eye slots, but Du Charte could see Marquess Eros all the same. The Marquess seemed aware of this. He turned to face the chained Count with a sympathetic smile.

"Now, now," he soothed, "we're not going to parade you out for Indulgence or donate you to Hubris- that would be most unkind of us, wouldn't it?" Eros wore a black suit with a white tie and cravat. The tails of his jacket fluttered when he moved, like anxious tendrils, searching for prey.

Du Charte allowed a gasping chuckle, despite his blinding hatred. He clenched and unclenched his fists.

"You understand, of course, the perils of High Society," Eros continued, authorally. "Though you have been a member of the Devils' Masque for but a brief while, you have managed to accomplish much, and earned very powerful friends." The Marquess managed to sound magnanamous, nodding at Du Charte respectfully.

"But," Eros concluded sadly, "There are no places for artisans in the New Order. The ancient corruption must be purged, and lackeys meet the gallows with their kings." Eros' smile was a savage one- made more savage by the wolf mask that his his face up to his mouth. The bone teeth of his mask glistened hungrily.

"Not literally, of course," the Devil Corelli added, striding into the cell, his voice echoing softly from within the metal sheath that covered his head like a joint-less helmet. The Marquess stiffened, but maintained his composure.

"My Lord, you are unexpected," Eros offered. "Please don't concern yourself with these prisoners. They'll be dealt with soon enough."

"I do not question your efficiency, Lord Eros," Corelli replied slyly. "I daresay you could rid our fine city of half its inhabitants without the other half realizing what was happening." Corelli's mood was unreadable behind the mesh-grating that covered his eyes and mouth. His gaze seemed to turn critical as he regarded Du Charte.

The Count flashed a winning, half-mad smile. "Lord Corelli," he gasped, "your timing could not be worse. I was just about to break free of my bonds and dispose of Eros here," he explained in a voice hoarse and thin with pain. "But I would not presume to damage your fine shackles in front of you, so I must play the helpless victim a while longer."

"And he even manages to maintain his humor!" Marquess Eros chuckled, putting a hand on one of the Count's shoulders, diggins his fingers into the Count's open wounds as he did so.

"I confess, I was listening in, earlier," Corelli addressed to Eros. "If Mr. Du Charte is not to be surrendered to the Sins, what is his shedualed execution?"

Eros' composure began to crack under the gaze of Corelli's steel mask, the featureless face of the Coup. "With due respect, my Lord, this man was specifically remanded to me, to do with as I pleased."

"And you may! And you may, my friend." The Devil Corelli patted Eros' back comfortingly. "Your rivalry with this Du Charte is well known all through the Nero District and I am not without ears," he said as he tapped the smooth steel of his mask where his ears would lie. "I only ask that you let me speak with the condemned alone. Briefly."

Eros stared daggers at Du Charte, as he felt his long-awaited revenge slipping from his grasp. He glanced at Corelli's implacable, faceless mask, then back to Du Charte's eye-less grin, etched on his face as much from satisfaction as from pain. Eros clipped a sharp turn, and strode from the room, his coat tails stretching, reaching vainly for the Count.

Alone, Corelli stared at Du Charte for a long moment. "Can you actually do what they say you can?"

Count Du Charte nodded.

Corelli considered this. "You would make a powerful assassin." He paused. "But you feel such a base employment is well below your position, am I not right?"

"Quite right," Du Charte responded, blood welling up at his lips.

Corelli nodded, as if making up his mind. "You'll have to do, I suppose," he shrugged. "You will be liberated momentarily by one of the Thorns, looking for disenfranchised members among the Devils' dungeons. Follow them out and lay low for a couple of years."

"Oh, and I'll need your help, eventually, Count Du Charte, so try to not get caught again," Corelli added, with what Du Charte assumed was supposed to be a conspiratorial wink from under his mask.

A Faustian Revelation

2006-03-24T21:50:00.000-08:00

I look upon the world that we have been given and I feel a sense of profound, overwhelming, and disgusting fear.

My fear is profound in the scope of its worry and the implications of its mere existence. The horrors visited upon the multitude, the absence of responsibility, the speed at which blame is assigned and aid is forfended- these are the roots of my fear and have long nursed it in the dark hours of the night. When time seems longest and the creeping shadows reign in the silence, I have found the simple complacency of my waking life strangely... unsatisfactory. The willingness with which we submit to our fell masters and the eagerness we display to sate their unnatural appetites... These come back to rob me of my rest and keep my eyes open, staring at the darkness as if it were an ebony mute, standing in judgement of me and my generation. And under those withering eyes, within the silence so encompassing and so violent and so PROFOUND, I begin to fear. As sleep is denied me, I begin to awaken to the life I- and a million million before me- have been leading. And thus, fear is born.

My fear is overwhelming in its universality, incomprehensability, and its paralyzing touch. For, if we awaken to the life that we live, if we really begin to understand how we have systematically made ourselves the handmaidens of ideas far worse than any fevered dream of the most reprehensible sociopath, if we become aware of the chains of words that we have been enslaved in and wish to enslave future generations in- without end- then what can we do? At what point in history did the process begin? Did we condemn ourselves to this abyssal future with some misstep or with some covertly harbored sin? Did anger begin our history of violence, or was it love? And if we- we who live as mere slaves to those emotions that bubble within us as some blood-stained geyser in the deepest recesses of the earth- if this great multitude of filth and wretchedness becomes cognizent to the victims we have made and the crimson stains on our own fingertips... how can we do anything but weep? And thus, fear is ripened.

My fear is disgusting for reasons which should be abundently clear to you by now. I am disgusted by our ancestors who compromised and sacrificed and victimized. I am disgusted by those who exploit the Tragedy called "Man" to their own ends, blind to the chains that enslave their own lives. And I am disgusted by we wretched men, who labor in anonymity and who live without meaning. Every man who dies without a curse upon his lips for the infectious evil that has consumed our souls, dies a coward and a traitor. A traitor to no political agenda or nation or race- but to the race of Men who began with the simplest of thoughts: "I am." And this, my friends, is the grim harvest of that pestilential fruit.

And allow me to be perfectly clear in this, my explication to those among you who have learned to fear as I have: I am.

And I am no traitor.

A Black Journal

2006-03-19T12:08:00.000-08:00

There was once an educator who was beloved by his students and admired by his peers. This teacher knew of the subtle and invisible workings of the natural world, he knew of the infinite complexities of mathematics, and he knew historical accounts of a thousand civilizations. But what he taught was the nature of philosophy and ethics, for he felt that- more than science, math, or history- an understanding of ethics made students into good people.

He was well liked, as I have mentioned, and his lectures were well attended, as often by fellow professors as by his students. One day, this teacher delivered a lecture on the nature of good and evil. Evil, he said, was a by-product of moral capacity. The ability to choose between right and wrong, he argued, could alone make a person evil, for without choice, there is only nature. A thing cannot be, he concluded, of its nature, evil. A wasp may sting you, but it does not do so out of malice. A gun may kill you, but it may also save your life. Objects are neither good nor evil, merely tools that may be applied to either end.

When the teacher returned home after delivering his lecture, he found a small packaged, tied up with string, bearing no return address or hints to its origin. Assuming it to be a gift from one of his students, the teacher opened it to find a small notebook with a black leather cover and crisp, white pages. The notebook was empty but for its very first page, which read:

"Be they men, groups, armies or nations; two philosophies are as impossible as two skies. A mind divided can not last."

The teacher found this gift exceedingly odd. Searching in vain once more for a sign of its origin, the teacher placed the notebook on his desk and paid it no more mind. Three days passed before he remembered the notebook again. Flipping through it, he was surprised to find that three more pages had been filled in. The second page read;

"War is a tactic favored by the mad and the desperate; a clean cut early enough forfends a messy amputation."

The third: "Avoid crass pleasures and the people who worship them. Pleasure can enslave a man as surely as any collar."

And the fourth: "Anonymity is a shield used by the fearful and the vulnerable. To be known is to taste immortality."

The teacher, living alone, could find no explaination for the new text beyond some trick accomplished with ink pigmentation. Even going over the blank pages, he could find no trace of future entries, but was not surprised when, the next day, a new entry appeared on the fifth page;

"To be sensitive is to be fragile. A peice of art may be destroyed any of a thousand ways, but cold mountains stand immovable and impregnable."

Each day thereafter, the teacher found a new entry, each as cryptically Machiavellian as the last. The frustration of the mystery began to toll on the teacher, and he grew more gaunt, more haggard as the journal began to occupy his thoughts more frequently. He found himself repeating the messages to himself, in his head at first, then under his breath as he paced in his office, his home, or his classroom.

At last, the thoughts of his journal began to spill over into his lectures. One day, he caught himself echoing one of the notebook's lessons to his students;

"Intent is the only true measure of morality. Do what must be done and history will forgive your transgressions."

And while the popularity of his lectures did not dim, his students and peers began to regard this once beloved professor as increasingly more erratic, inaccessible, and stand-offish. Students began to grow alarmed by the shocking immorality of their professor's lessons, and many even complained of headaches, manifested perhaps sympathetically to the growing darkness of their Ethics course.

One night, after reading the newest entry in his journal, the professor picked up a pen and, in a careful and measured script, wrote on the next page. What he wrote was;

"Aggression motivates the idle to greatness. In this way, cruelty becomes a kindness without exposing yourself to the myriad dangers inherent in generosity."

The teacher felt a wave of relief sweep over him. It was as if these sort of messages had formed a backlog in his mind, and writing them out relieved that pressure. He turned the page, and wrote another;

"Tolerence, pity, mercy; these are the chains that bind us to the past and deny us our future."

And another: "Faith is a poor replacement for wisdom. Your mind should be the only God you need."

The teacher continued writing into the night, his mind feeding his hand message after message. In the barest hour of dawn, he found himself at the last page, with a single peice of advice left in his mind.

With a trembling hand, he wrote out: "You can expunge anything you find undesirable. You need only have the will."

As he finished the final entry, he closed the black, leather cover and set his pen down. The teacher stood, rubbing the sleepiness from his eyes and walked to his window, gazing out at the layered redness that had just begun to bleed into the deep blue-black of the sky. For the first time in months, the teacher's mind felt clear. He was in full possession of his senses, and no longer had the grim lessons of his journal crammed into his skull.

He glanced about his home once more, going from bedroom to bedroom; from the dining room to the kitchen, to the family room, and back to his den. His black journal lay on his desk exactly as he had left it, next to a pile of unopened mail. Picking up a letter, this teacher looked at the envelope with a glazed expression, not really seeing it. He pulled the long, thin blade of his letter opener from its recess, and held it against the seal of the letter for a moment.

Then, turning the letter opener around, he placed its tip against his eye, and thrust it into his skull as hard as he could, killing himself instantly.

Days later, the police found his body, lying in the den with a look of beautific peace on his face. They found the bodies of his wife and children in the freezer of his basement, months dead. There was no trace of a small, black, leather journal into which the deceased ethics teacher had commended the synthesis of his re-education, along with his final thoughts, just as dozens had before him.

Ending from "The Tragedy of the Marionette"

2006-03-13T16:43:00.000-08:00

Author's Note: I'm rather proud of this one. I need to get the whole work (around 300 pages) published.

---

Alistair's hands shook slightly as he descended the curving, sulphur-coated stairwell. The cold air had become like ice as he made his way into the sub-basement level of the fortress. Whatever the Ava Complex was, it was kept well away from the denizens of Romain's Keep.

As the darkness of the pit crept around him, Alistair's thoughts returned to his quest- its end so close at hand. He thought of the destruction that had torn his home and his family from him, of the countless innocents who had been slain by Romain's ruthless Executioners in their mad purge of the country-side, of the hundreds of zealots Alistair himself had been forced to kill in the resulting riots that had burned the last vestages of peace from his land. Fate had been cruel to send Alistair on his mission, but he could not live with the consequences of his failure.

Naomi had said, "History may forget you, but it will not forget what you have done." Alistair had thought that sounded trite when she first said it, but now her words at last began to ring true. If his crusade against Romain's henchmen was lost in the following centuries, it would be no great loss. What was important was that Butchers like Crimson, Kai, and Yael were dead- that their body counts could not grow any higher. That history would be written at all would be Alistair's great gift; a gift already assured by the scarlet-black blood that stained the mad King Romain's chest. All that was left was to discover the mystery of the Ava Complex.

The Complex. Alistar's hands began to tremble again, just thinking of the fabled object's name. Romain had been the last man to know what it really was, and some say that had been the knowledge that had driven him insane. There were theories, of course. Some thought it was a weapon- a device capable of ending all wars, or perhaps simply ending all life. The Vallin Church saw it as a gift from God himself. Alistair's old wounds flared with pain as he remembered the assassins the Church had sent after him, and his jaw tightened as he again saw the way Miro's face froze in an expression of astonishment when the hidden knife cut through his throat. That face that had always been so stern, so judgemental, and yet so compassionate, forever frozen in uncharacteristic surprise. Alistair's breath came ragged and hot, as he tried to clear his mind of those painful memories.

"Revenge his death, if you must," Naomi had said, "But don't let the seas of blood drown out his memory." God damn you Naomi, Alistair had said, tears running down his cheeks as Miro's blood poured over his hands. God damn you for being right. If only... but now, revenge would not bring Miro back, no matter how many of the Vallin Church died. And despite the schemes of its rulers, good men like Jagger and Royce operated within the Church, turning the evils of their superiors into blessings and mercies for the innocent. No, the fall of Vallin would be no legacy to honor Miro's life. But the destruction of the Ava Complex would.

No two legends agree on what the Ava Complex is, but Alistair had come to side with Jagger's interpretation of what it had become. The Ava Complex was the sum and total of humanity's fears. Every darkly whispered curse, every horror-stricken cry, every subtle act of cruelty- that is what the Ava Complex had become. It was the rationalization of a thousand tyrants and the nameless threat of a hundred doomsayers. The Ava Complex was a demon more real than any illuminated in Vallin's holy scriptures and an evil more pervasive than even Romain's Executioners. And Alistair was going to destroy it once and for all.

The stairs terminated in a gate sealed with steel bars and heavy, iron chains. It stood, resolute and solid, almost more secure than the walls it was affixed to. Holy seals of a hundred religions were affixed in wax and parchment, some so ancient that even the memory of their existence had passed from the world. As he stood before that portal, Alistair couldn't help but wonder if it had been constructed to keep intruders out, or to keep its contents within.

Alistair placed his palm against the cold metal of the gate, feeling its marred and uneven surface against his grief and toil-hardened skin. There was the faintest sensation of vibration coming from beyond, almost like a pulse in the air that shook even the monumental barrier. Returning his hand to its thick leather glove, Alistair withdrew the silver-wrought key he had pulled from Romain's chest. The madman had burned the device into his flesh so deeply, it had nearly been fused to the bones of his rib cage. The key reflected a dim shadow of Alistair's torch against the gaping blackness of the vault.

Alistair carefully put the key into each lock and turned, the rolling of tumblers greeting each turn like the rumbling approch of some great and distant doom. As the last tumbler fell into place and the locks simultaniously disengorged their iron chains, the multitude of holy seals adorning the chamber door crumbled, as if succumbing to the antiquity that their entombment had staved off. A thrill of anticipation electrified Alistair, even as he tightened his left-handed grip on the blood-stained sword he wore at his hip. The battle with Romain had nearly killed him- he would not allow some ancient guardian of a sealed vault cut his mission short.

A slight push, and the vault's portal fell inward soundlessly, leaving the tomb of the Ava Complex yawning before him. As Alistair took that first step into the subterrine chamber, he couldn't help but whisper the last thing Naomi had said to him. Lying bandaged in her bed, with Royce standing beside her like a beautific guardian angel, she had cast her arm up and, with fingers outspread, had called out to him, "End our nightmare. Make a dream worth living for." Alistair's murmur echoed around the chamber, as if the very walls called on him to do Naomi's bidding.

The layout of the chamber was lost on Alistair, his vision focused solely on the pillar at the center of the vault and the crimson-stained chest that it bore. The chest's wood was a red so deep that it almost seemed to ooze, and the bindings were a polished gold so clear that it seemed almost silver. The coldness of the stairs vanished like a midsummer storm, and all around Alistair, an intense warmth quivered in the air, bringing sweat to his forhead.

He took a halting step toward the chest, then paused. The gravity of his situation came rushing up over him at once. Here was revenge for the thousands of innocents that had died for a madman's delusions. Here was retribution for the maiming wounds Naomi had condemned herself to, in order to save Alistair's life from Yael's cowardly sword. Here was a legacy to honor Miro with. Here, within Alistair's grasp- at last- was the Ava Complex.

He touched the chest with the tips of his gloved fingers, tenitively, at first. He rubbed the smooth surface of the wood with his palm before pulling his gloves off, and grasping the box at both ends. He held it for a long moment before running his fingers to the dual locks that held its lid down, and kept its secrets hidden. Alistair's breath grew short, his heart racing. He rested his thumbs on the golden hitches and took a series of short gasps. His skin felt like it was on fire, and sweat trickled down his face in streams. He flicked the hitches, and the lid fell backwards on oiled hinges. The light of Alistair's torch poured into the chest.

There was a parchment inside that looked old enough to have come from the very creation of the world itself. Around it, a band of pure, alabaster silk that gleamed with a pale luminescence. Securing the silken band to the parchment, a waxen seal bore a marking that seemed to Alistair at once utterly alien and intensely familiar. With unsteady hands, Alistair picked up the parchment, broke the seal, and let the cream-colored silk fall to the floor. Unrolling the scroll, he gazed on the Ava Complex.

Alistair stared at the scroll for a moment, before letting his eyes fall to the ground. His body shivered. He looked up once more, studying the paper for seconds, then minutes. He trembled slightly. Raising his gaze up to the ceiling, he let his arms fall to his sides, the parchment slowly slipping from his grasp to settle on the floor.

The parchment bore only eight letters, forming but two words. It read, "Your Face."

The Dirge of William Ablis

2006-03-10T00:14:00.000-08:00

William Ablis, aged 27 years.

Died of music.
---

Music had been young William's first companion.

In his childhood, William saw little of his mother or father. They had buisness that needed attending to. Always more buisness. They worked so hard that they did not have friends, so no visitors called on them during weekends, no relatives visited over the holidays, no neighbors stopped to chat. William grew up in the image of his parents- always focused on some small, insignificant thing, too busy for the world around him. And when young William began to feel the coldness of his isolation settle on him, he turned on music.

It did not matter what type of music he listened to. He heard Rock n' Roll and he heard Blues. He heard Classical overtures and he heard Spiritual refrains. And when he could not turn on music- in the dead of the night, when he lay awake in the pressing darkness, with eyes open but unseeing- he heard the music in his head.

He did not sing to himself- not really. There was just music in his mind. Whenever he willed it, he could listen to the favorite songs that comforted him when he felt sad, or the joyous songs that bouyed his spirits, or the sorrowful songs that sympathized with his secret desire for humanity.

And at first, the songs were faint and infrequent, merely music. But as William grew up, unhappy and alone, the music became more insistant. A song that he even just thought of would conjour itself up and replay itself over and over again. William began to feel like his songs were no longer the friends of childhood. They had adopted a more sinister character. They mocked him. They were the testiment to his failings as a human creature. Music was the soul of his despair.

And when William realized he had lost the only friend he had ever really known, the songs became violent. He would seize up and tremble as the music crushed his thoughts. He began to twitch whenever the music chose to control him. And, at last, William could not take it any longer. The music in his mind had beaten him. It had showed him that life needs outlet. That a mind can only amuse itself for so long before it begins to break down, before the pretentions and defenses we erect to keep our secret selves apart from the "self" we project to those who surround us.

William Ablis, aged 27, took his own life. He left behind no wife, no children, no friends. William Ablis, aged 27, left nothing behind by which he might be remembered, and accomplished nothing in his life. William Ablis, aged 27, was the product of a society that creates machines, incapable of making love, sympathy, and joy its primary concerns.

William Ablis, aged 27, died of the music in his head.

Excerpt from "Patron's War"

2006-03-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

We are told that Hell is a place. That it is a punishment, a judgement of our lives and the misuse that we put it to. That is a mistake. It is wrong. Hell is not a destination- it is a journey. Hell is a state of mind.

Each one of us undertakes, in our lifetimes, some great task. For the lowest of men, this task may be as simple as raising an honest son or leading a life that brought comfort to those around you. For great men, the task that is set before them is equal to their powers. Some create art that seems to reach out to our very souls, some bring peace in times of war. No man is given a task that he does not have the strength to accomplish.

My task was both the simplest and the greatest of missions. My end in life was simply to be good. In an age of unrest, violence, and unmitigated cruelty, I was to be a shining beacon of virtue. A standard above all others, a man apart from the filth of corruption. I was to be something people could look back on and say, "That, children, was all that it means to be human."

But our lives are never so simple as we should like. I recognized my task in life early on, and I fought for it with every ounce of passion in my body. I excised the demons of my worse nature, and I struggled with sacrifice as much as any man before or after me. And somewhere, at some point in my journey, I took a single mis-step. I strayed from my path, to one of personal glory. And, in doing so, I took the first step into my own Hell.

I was to be a pillar of justice, mercy, and humility. But, in my faux pas, I saw only vain opportunity. The glory I would do for my king, my country, and my God was not in my sight when I crusaded for the Cup of Christ. And when I found the Grail, my mind was not overwhelmed by the glory of my God. I could not help but to try and drink from that blessed cup; the path of righteousness was distant and beyond my sight. When immortality came down upon me, I took it to mean that I was God's chosen vessal. That I was his favored son. And when the realization came that the "blessing" was, in truth, a curse, I forsook my God, throwing the pity he held for me into his face.

And I strayed in the paths of darkness long. Years and decades and centuries trickled through my wicked fingers as I wrought great evil on God's earth. I sought release from the curse of eternal life that I had taken unto myself and I did not mind the suffering or depravity that my passing sowed. When, at last, the agent of my repreive came to me and tore the agony of ages from my skin, I cursed his hands and I swore that revenge for his mercy would be mine in the next life.

And now I am here. My journey to Hell has culminated in this... this torturous city of chaos and tyranny. And while I know that I failed in my mission, I will not accept this fate. I was destined for greatness, but am remembered only as a myth. My life cannot end like this. I will not allow it.

I will wrest my soul free of Hell if I have to destroy every wicked soul in this city.

Excerpt from "Consumation"

2006-02-27T10:02:00.000-08:00

Ryme wiped her cheek, turning from the tomb, toward Rahan. Her eyes were red and her hair blew erratically in the wind, but her irises gleamed vibrant red and a triumphant smile rose to her lips.

"Let's finish this," she said, bowing her head. Rahan nodded back, walking up to her and embracing her with his single arm, like a father. Wind rose around them, and they were away.

In a moment, the mountains that sheltered the tomb fell away from them and the battle grew like a writhing, black carpet of bodies. The chaos raged everywhere but for the pockets of calm that surrounded those orators whose voices stayed blades and flushed rage from combatants.

"The Masters," Rahan explained, nodding toward the orators far below. "And our allies. We are trying to control the biggest groups, but some are resisting even Parzaius. That is why we need you."

Ryme felt the thrill of excitement and fear flutter through her stomach. "Non-lethal," she said.

Rahan looked into her eyes, and saw the smoldering focus of a driven woman within them. He smiled with quiet pride. "Of course," he responded. "Of course."

The winds set them down on a cliff overlooking the northern boundries of the battlefield and Ryme disengaged from the embrace, feeling truely alive again for the first time in months. Her hair billowed in red-orange waves like a fire, and her white robes gleamed through the dust and smoke of the war-stained air. She looks like a child, Nether thought, and also a goddess, he added silent respect. "I will help subdue the aggressors," he shouted to her through the din of battle. And, with a hop, Rahan leapt off the cliff, falling toward the sea of bodies and vanishing with a final flutter of his well-worn coat.

Ryme's eyes glanced across the battle once more. "Be safe, Nether," she whispered. "Just for a while longer." Then, with a deep breath to steady herself, Ryme called down the elements to wash across the battlefield, throwing men, minotaurs, and dragons about as if they were rag dolls.

Character Concept- Nim Falstaff

2006-02-12T17:54:00.000-08:00

Nim Falstaff was a man to whom everything in life came easily. He was the fourth of five sons and- since his elder brothers assumed both his father's titles and services to respected lords- Nim had no set course in life. He spent his youth exploring and learning, finding at last a task that challenged him- training as a professional swordsman. He learned all that local masters could teach him and quickly outpacing even men a decade his senior. He ventured into the world, learning from the most esteemed masters he could find, surpassing each in time. And, when he felt he had learned all that could be taught to him, he joined a mercenary company to apply his talent.

Nim made everything look easy. He could dismount an opponent without so much as a sweat. He was master of any weapon he picked up. He rode well, he shot well, and his sheer skill made even his worst foe grudgingly respect him. Everything came easily to Nim.

And, after a while, Nim began to grow restless. What was life without a challenge? He began to feel like he was just sailing through his life, like nothing mattered. His skill began to wane as he grew less and less interested. His mercenary company kicked him out, his family would not have him back, and still Nim felt powerless to change the ennui that had rooted him to cynicism.

Years past, as Nim wandered familiar haunts and travelled into the world, looking for some meaning to his life. Yet, every challenge that excited in him the drive to excel, always left him feeling more depressed after he inevitably overcame it. And, as time went on, a resolution that had been brewing in Nim's mind began to take shape. One night, sitting alone in the woods at night, and staring up at the rain-spewing sky, Nim knew what he had to do:

Nim Falstaff had to die. But not by his own hand, or by the hand of some unworthy brigand. Nim needed to meet his end at the hands of someone greater. And so he set out, feeling energized again for the first time in years. Nim's death sentence gave him something to live for.

Catharsis

2006-02-06T12:05:00.000-08:00

In a darkened room, deep in the latest reaches of night, a man slept. Rain danced a sad pitter-patter against the single window of the room, and the sounds of urgent winds and distant trains filtered through the window's imperfect seal. The man turned in his sleep. And, as the man slept, he dreamed. And through his dreams, a man named Michael died.

***

Michael's arms burned and his fingers cracked, white knuckles and bleeding palms proving to be a poor distraction from the abyss that gaped beneath him. A spasm threatened to shake his grip free, but Michael restrained it with a pained grunt.

Michael could feel the blood oozing from his hands, could sense the strength seeping from his over-taxed muscles. But he did not care. Any second he kept holding on was a second he was still alive. Time seemed to slow down, paralytic agony crawling in spiderwebs through his back, his shoulders, and into his arms. Muscles tore and he seemed to grow heavier by the moment. Michael let out a gasp and his fingers buckled. In an instant he was weightless, wind tearing past him as the walls of the shaft flew upward.

Faster than he could believe, Michael felt the flesh of his back being torn apart. The spike formed an ugly, jagged cone, arresting the momentum of the plummet as three feet of bloody metal burst through his chest and gut.

A spasm shook Michael's body as his spine caught and tore against the spike, and he died.

***

At first, Michael did not know where he was. The compartment was tight as a coffin, its walls blackened grating. Dawning horror drew the breath from his lungs as he saw the small jets of either side of him grow orange with anticipation. He screamed.

The jets erupted, pouring liquid fire into the cremator, blistening Michael's skin, causing pus and blood to ooze from every inch of his body. The red fire became white, and the weeping flesh blackened and caught fire, seeping the inferno into his organs and bones. Michael felt his eyes burst from the heat. Then, he died.

***

He was strapped to a table, above him, a man lowered the screaming metal teeth of a chainsaw onto Michael's neck. The buzz slowed for only an instant before pulling flesh and blood from its prey, hurling them into the air. Through the agony, Michael felt his aerteries torn, his wind pipe severed, his esophogus eviserated. The sudden inability to breath throttled him as the grinding blade touched bone, protesting with a halting hiss. Then, the blade was clear, the nerves severed, and Michael decapitated. He imagined he could feel his head roll off the table as he died.

***

A mere moment of awareness before a hatchet became buried in the back of Michael's head. Electrical impulses surged through his body, terrifying numbness cutting off his every sensation before one burst of pain filled his eyes and Michael died.

***

Suffocation, bleeding, poison, disease, starvation, crushing; Michael died again and again, without rest or mercy or hope. And rain splashed gently on a darkened window as a man slept blissfully.

Excerpt from "Patron's War"

2006-02-02T14:05:00.000-08:00

I suppose we have a little time free now. I can get to that question you asked earlier about the Sins. It's hard to pin down exactly what they do here. In one sense, they're our jailors, the wardens to make sure the inmates do as they are told. In another sense, though, they're prisoners just like you or I. I suppose for the sake of precision, the best way to describe it is to say that they "reign" but do not "rule."

It isn't that they're in charge because they're stronger, smarter, or nastier than everyone else... nesissarily. It's more like a representative study of the living world- people need to see someone in charge. And since we seem to be sort on pitchfork-wielding goat-men, we must make due.

They're also in charge for a more subtle reason- they serve the "common good." Each of the Sins, intentionally or not, makes life eternal a little more bearable and Hell a little more like home.

Indulgence's extravagences made an upper class in Hell viable. These are the sychophantic fools and flatterers that dance around in masks and inflate themselves with the title of "Devil," "Demon," or "Duke." Indulgence's court was the polarizing force that reestablished the conventions of social opression that we are all so comfortable with. Imagine a city where all men are equal... Now there is a real mess for you!

It is Avarice's tender mercies that give us the goods we enjoy so. Cloths that deteriorate in weeks, food that tastes as vile as it is unsatisfying, and weapons to strike down your fellow man. Still, despite the quality, something is better than nothing, you must admit. For a man whose tastes have been honed to a razor's edge, like myself, every single trinket pumped from Avarice's factories, forges, and farms is an offense as sharp as a knife in the, ahem, the eye. I dare say you'll be less troubled, however.

And where does Avarice get his wonderful, smoke-belching factories from? Why, from the fevered, icy mind of Hubris, naturally. The Inventor largely leaves the rabble untroubled, but every advance, upgrade, or break-through that we see, comes from her cold, clock-work logic. From what I understand, Hell is somewhat more advanced than Earth is at the moment, and there's a comforting thought, isn't it? That technology has taken the Damned to her metal breast first and foremost is rather amusing to me.

As you may have surmised, this is a big city. And, even with Hubris' most bizarre contrivances, it's impossible to know what is going on everywhere. That is where Resent claims her position: running the offical newspaper of Hell. Never mind that most of the news is a series of elaborate and sensational slanders against whom so ever seems to be enjoying a modicrome of fortune at the moment. Afterall, Resent gives us what we want- a looking glass to the misery of man and a magnifying glass for the misery of our neighbors.

For those who'd rather visit misery on his fellow man than simply read about it, there is Rancor's war. Before you ask, I don't know who he wages his war against. I doubt he even knows. Maybe it's against no one. More probably, it is against everyone. And all you have to do to sign up is to start following orders. Every atrocity ever committed in any war began with a man who was just doing what he was ordered to do. Before he realizes it, he begins to enjoy the status and- more importantly- to hate his opponent. Rancor's war gives people a place to channel their despair and frustration and, convieniently enough, keeps the Thorns fighting amongst themselves too much to depose of the Devils.

Which brings us to Him. For safety's sake, I'll try to be brief. He says that every raping, murdering, blasphemous soul down here went to Heaven when it died. That's right, this is Heaven. And what it lacks in halos, harps, and helping hands, it makes up for in physical pleasures. Why were we supposed to deny ourselves in life if not to indulge ourselves in the afterlife? And, if you don't believe the message, he will be more than happy to sit you down and explain it to you in Great Detail. That's why we avoid speaking of him, or saying his name idly; we've seen what has happened to those who attracted Passion's gaze.

Finally, we come to the most frustratingly important of the Sins: Apathy. Dante didn't quite have it right- we aren't totally without hope. That's what Apathy brings us. They say he knows everything; a doctor in all sciences and a scholar in all fields. The problem lies with his nature- with a name like Apathy, you can probably guess how eager he is to help those who call on him. So, we wait and wait and wait. Apathy gives us the fool's blind hope that keeps us from curling into a ball on the streets. And there are just enough rumors of Damned who get out to keep the hope alive, no matter how unsympathetic Apathy seems.

There are those who think the Sins are our natural guardians, appointed by whatever power sends the Butchers. I don't believe that tripe for a moment. For one thing, the Strangers- the only creatures down here that seem to know what they're doing- don't obey the Sins. They don't actively oppose them either, however. They seem to just ignore them. You wouldn't believe how furious that makes the Sins.

For another reason, there is this story that has floated down here for longer than anyone can recall. The story of a bargin between Hell and Purgatory...

But that's best saved for another time.

You and I

2006-02-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

Read me slowly if you have a chance; quickly if that is all you have time for. The point is not the comprehension or entertainment, just the act of reading itself.

You see, I am your friend. Secret, if you like, but I'd prefer if you shared me with at least one other person. But that's neither here nor there; I am YOUR friend. God's honest truth. I care about you and how you're doing.

Why? A fair question. I'm your friend because, technically, I'm your child. You birthed me. You own me and as long as you live, so do I.

I'm kind of immortal that way. Because here's the secret: I'm in your head. Right now. In some corner of your brain, I'm making you say these words to yourself. And no matter how quickly you finish this narrative (if at all) or disdain my arrogence, I'll always be in there, somewhere. Watching.

But it's okay. Like I said, I'm your secret friend. I'm your child. I'm you, reading this very sentence.

And I wonder if you'll help me out? When you die, I die, see? Why not share me? Give me a few more years. I promise I'll always remember you.

My secret friend.

Excerpt from "Patron's War"

2006-01-31T19:48:00.000-08:00

"Captain Kurtzwhile! A moment, if I may!"

The Captain arrested his pace, sighing quietly. He recognized the voice. Turning about, he adjusted the opaque monocle that perched protectively over the gaping socket his left eye once occupied.

"What do you need, Lord Corelli?"

The Devil Corelli wore a fine, grey vest and jacket- both slightly too long for his smallish frame. His entire head was encased in a featureless metal sheath, mesh grating over his eyes and mouth. Corelli's voice was hollow and echoed as if he were at the bottom of a well. He raised a white-gloved hand to greet the captain, his iron mask as unreadable as ever.

"Captain Kurtzwhile, I am glad to have caught you! How are you fairing in these darkening days?"

Kurtzwhile's one eye gazed coldly at the disfavored Devil. "I find myself well contented to remain in the good graces of the powerful, my lord," he replied, his scarred lips curling into a sneer.

"And yet you remain so poorly clad," the masked noble returned, resting his hand on the captain's shoulder. "Your shirt torn, your vest bloodied, and your medals tarnished. How shameful that such an important man should live in a genteel poverty."

At the word 'important,' Kurtzwhile glanced over his shoulder. His betrayal of the Rose had been too recent for some vindictive spy not to be close at hand. The captain wondered if Corelli was intentionally playing his fears or was merely too dense to appreciate the danger of this discussion. The Devils' Masque made seperating the schemers from the fools difficult to the uninitiated.

"What's your buisness?" the captain asked, his discomfort throwing his control, allowing a trace of vulgar accent show through.

"Merely this, dear Captain: were you aware that incursions from the Waste have gone up 300% in the last few weeks? A disturbing trend, I am sure you will agree," Corelli explained, his arms folded in front of him.

"Just chaos in the Gates, I'm sure. Nothing to get worked up about," Kurtzwhile responded, finger tips running over his balding scalp nervously.

"Perhaps, valuable friend. But I think we would all rest much better if our fine protector took some loyal troops to investigate?"

Kurtzwhile did not like the path the conversation had taken. "To what end?"

The masked devil chuckled dustily from within his iron shell. "I fear a storm approches our fine court. And when the pieces are well and truely shaken, an ambitious man might, say, cross the Rubikon?"

Kurtzwhile looked down at his tattered, rotting uniform, then back at the Devil Corelli. He nodded, slowly.

The King and the Bee

2006-01-30T15:38:00.000-08:00

There was once a king who was much hated. He was not tyrannical or selfish. He was not unjust or faithless. The only explaination for his unpopularity might be on account of his age, for the king was little more than a boy, for all his wisdom. He did his best to placate his foes and to win friends, but no matter what he did or said, he found no respite from the rancor.

One day, while contemplating his sorry state, a simple bee flew into his chamber and alighted on the back of his hand, so casually outstreched at the time. At first, the boy did not notice the visitor. Gradually, he became aware of the creature and started with dismay, for he was deathly allergic to the sting of such beasts.

"Are you some assassin sent by my myriad enemies?" He questioned direly. "Or perhaps a manifestation of the hatred cultivated against me?" He wondered.

"I am no assassin, my Lord, for you see, I am a Queen myself," the small bee responded. "And am equally no manifestation, for I bear you no ill will."

The boy king marveled greatly, for it had been many years since he had met one who bore no secret ire toward him.

"Would you ever consider me a friend, small queen?" He asked, his heart welling with hope.

"You strike me as kind and noble, fair king," the bee responded. "I would like very much to be your friend."

And so the king found companionship in the Queen bee. Each day grew less unbearable, until the boy began to smile once more. He leapt from his bed in the morning and kept a favorable disposition, no matter what vitrol was thrown at him by his court.

The boy and the bee found that they shared a great many interests, and the King grew to love the bee exceedingly, even calling her "my Queen," for he had no human counterpart.

But, as seasons passed, the King found his Queen growing more distracted, more distant. He feared the loss of so close a friend, and felt himself exceedingly unworthy of the affection she had showed him in the past. What sort of friend was he, to let her suffer under a private burden? And so he resolved to confront her on the matter at once.

But their meeting that day was not to take place. She sent her regards, but explained that she could not meet with him on that day. The next day, a similar message was left, and the same on the day after that.

The King grew greatly anxious and depressed as his Queen's emotional distance transformed itself into a physical distance. The King began to blame himself for the bee's troubles, loathing himself far greater than any of his foes might.

It was in such a state that the Queen bee flew into his chamber one day, and landed on the back of his hand, once more.

"Why do you pine, my King?" she asked.

"I feel that I have driven you from me," he responded, "and you are more dear to me than even my life."

"I... understand," she responded, haltingly. "And... I am sorry."

"For what-" the King began, cutting off as he felt the Queen's stinger pierce his skin, her venom pumping into his bloodstream. Without a word, the bee flew out of his life, leaving no explainations to those left behind.

As the poison coursed through his body, the King sat stock still, twin trails of tears weeping over his flushed cheeks.

"Why?" the King asked of the empty air. And, in his pain, the King grew very wrathful.

"I showed her every consideration, every kindness!" he stormed, his tears not lessening for his anger. "How could she betray and abandon me thus? I will...! I will..." The King fumbled in his wounded declaration.

"I will destroy everything she holds dear, dooming all that she loves, even as she has doomed me!"

But, as the poison ran into his heart, the King sat back down with a heavy realization.

For he saw that love had done this to him. He had long hid behind friendship without ever truely considering his love for her, and hers for him. And love, he saw, was a madness of sorts, a contagious thing that seizes the mind and vanishes as quickly as it came.

The dying king knew he could have no revenge, for the woman who he loved no longer lived. She had died quietly one day, and another had taken her place.

And what revenge might he visit upon a stranger? Indeed, it was no surprise to have been stung by this new Queen, for was the boy not hated by All?

So, the King concluded, his breath coming in fractured gasps, perhaps it was best this way. For what is life without your Queen? And the boy king died, his wounded hand clutching his chest, just over his poisoned heart.

Meditations on Hatred

2006-01-29T13:34:00.000-08:00

We first learn to hate from a sense of powerlessness in the face of percieved injustice. As we become aware of our selves and our surroundings, we begin to develop a sense of justice and "right," even if our early conceptions are very mono-centric. When the world fails to live up to this definition, we become aware of how helpless we are in the face of natural operation. We lash out at injustice and our own weakness in a mutually destructive rancor- hate.

If hate stems from weakness thought, it is certainly nurtured by fear. More than anything else, people fear what they do not understand, what is different or alien. It is far easier to hate differences in others than to ammend intolerence in the self. This fear and rejection give hatred a new outlet, but fundamentally keep it in the realm of ignorance.

The final maturity of hate is, paradoxially, love. Love is a maddening, infectious, subtle thing that weds sacrifice and destruction to nobility and tenderness. In understanding the scope of devotion and love, we expose ourselves to betrayal, heart break, rejection, and scorn. Even more insidious, love breeds isolation and envy, which corrupt the heart and the mind. We learn to hate when we are young, but we do not understand hate until we feel love's talons tearing into our brains and hearts.

Love is a sick and mad thing. Hatred follows as swiftly and surely as love's own shadow. How many are condemned to stand in that unhappy shade for the interum of their lives by a careless word or a thoughtless gesture, repeated and multiplied a thousand times by a thousand people?

Excerpt from "Patron's War"

2006-01-27T11:20:00.000-08:00

The stench was overwhelming. It was the kind of miasma that crawled into your nostrils even if you held your breath. It was an odour that paralyzed the other senses. It crippled the mind. It hung in the air and settled on every surface in an almost tangible film. It was omnipresent.

The Devils of the court squirmed in their fine, formal clothes, each trying to appear unaffected by the reeking wind that nearly oozed from their patron, the boy-king Indulgence. From his too-large throne, the Sin slid a haunch of flesh into his gaping maw, seemingl oblivious to the discomfort of his masked servants. To the disproportioned child, the Devils that filled the lavish hall might have been statuary or discarded play-things. The Devil nearest to Indulgence shifted. The man wore a crecent moon mask of pale bone that hid half of his face and throat. He smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from his pressed ivory suit and adjusted the cuffs of his crimson silk shirt.

"Master Indulgence," he prompted.

"Lord Saul," the child whined, "I am eating at the moment. What is it?"

"Master," Saul pressed, "your sister has been waiting on you outside the hall for nearly a day now. Should you not send for her?"

Indulgence scrunched his face up. "Not that terrible Resent, I hope."

"No master. Your sister Hubris."

Indulgence waved dismissively, his anxiety soothed. "Let her in if you wish, Lord Saul. I surely have no better use for my time than to listen to my big sister's pleas for ever more resources."

Saul nodded curtly at the shackled fallen angels who stooped in deep self-pity by the grand double doors of the feast hall. The broken exiles slunk to the golden ringed handles and, with a back-breaking effort, the slaves managed to pry the barrier open.

Standing patiently, the full eight feet of Hubris seemed- to all appearences- content to wait another week, if needed.

"Mistress Hubris!" Lord Barr called out from under his bug-eyed, frog-faced mask.

Hubris' lip curled up slightly as she regarded the sychophantic flesh filling the room. The metal talons of her prostetic hands dug into her palms as she forced her fingers from digging into the Devils, to improve them. Clouds of black soot began to belch from the curving smoke stacks that rose from her back as she moved into the chamber. She strode foward briskly, if somewhat stiffly, her tattered lab coat billowing out behind her.

Indulgence tossed his silverware into his mouth with a hollow, metalic crunch and waved his food away. Leaning forward eagerly, he balled his long, spindly fingers into fists and rested his head on them.

"What gifts has my favorite sister brought to her loving brother?" the child asked with possessive glee, emphasising 'loving' a touch too long. The tip of his tongue licked his lips expectantly.

Hubris made a 'tch' noise in the back of her throat, and a spasm of polluted flame licked the top of her smoke stacks.

"Unlike some," she sneered with condescending disdain and an empty voice, "I can look beyond the purely carnal. I have, in my infinite comprehension of science, torn back the veil of ignorance and fear the creator has blinded men with, and begun to decode the mysteries of Heaven's Butchers."

Indulgence settled backward, stroking the patchwork fur of his rich mantle. "And I must suppose you need MY help?"

The half of Hubris' face that still wore skin twisted in bemused disbelief. "Help? Ah ha, no. This is far beyond anything you might understand. I need only your fallen Angels. The batch I rounded up earlier did not quite make it through the initial tests."

The fallen Angels of Heaven- the "Lords" of Hell- shuddered in their place by the doorway.

Euphoria

2006-01-23T18:46:00.000-08:00

"Ah..." she sighed, basking in the feeling. It had been ages since she felt this good. Her fingers tapped out a little pattern against her thigh while her knee bounced to the music humming through her head.

"Ah..." she sighed again. Again, the smile came to her face; her lips drawn apart by the smile, revealing the white teeth that lightly rested atop one another. The bouncing of her foot sent minor vibrations through her body, like little tremors of muscle and skin. Her hair swayed to the rhythm, bangs falling over her eyes like a fine veil.

"Ooooh...!" She murmured, her back arching in a cat-like strech, while her arms went out to either side, hands balled into small, trembling fists. She could feel her spine cracking in appreciation and waves of pleasure radiated through her body, mixing with the soothing bask of her happiness. She could not imagine a place she'd rather be; indeed, it was difficult to imagine any thing at all. Her senses were simply overwhelmed.