Dame Rinda
On my personal blog, I used to host a fun exercise in visual writing. I’d post an image and invite readers to share what it inspired. We had a blast! Writers and readers alike came up with scenes, poems, funny one liners and even haiku.
The Dames thought this might be a great, interactive way to stir up some fantastic creativity, share an exercise in meeting deadlines and give us a chance to give stuff away. Every month, I’ll be posting an intriguing image with a link back here to the rules.
Rules:
We’re inviting you to give your imagination free rein. Share your inspiration in up to 250 words here in the comments. (Still ironing out the rules here. <g>) We want this to be a fun place for readers and writers of many ages. That means we reserve the right to delete anything overly explicit or if we believe something falls in the areas of defamation, copyright infringement, harassment– you get the drift.
You’ll have a week deadline, so next Wednesday, March 18th, I’m going to pick my top favorite five and then the Dames will put in a vote. I’ll post the winning entry in the next ROD post along with a link to that writer’s website. You’ll also receive a prize! This month, Dame Rachel has donated Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs—which is a fabulous, fabulous book.
UPDATE!!! Our own Dame Jackie just received some copies of her new book coming out in April and she’s thrown in a copy! Click on the cover to preorder at Amazon!
Blurb: “The Yearning” by Hannah Howell. Alpin has lived for centuries with a lust that can never be quenched with mere physical pleasure. And then he meets Sophie whose own search for lasting love binds them together in a cloak of shimmering sensuality…”A Hell of a Time” by Jackie Kessler. Jesse’s immortal life as a soul-stealing succubus is over. And now that she is human, she longs to tempt her lover with all her persuasive powers of total sexual seduction…”City of Demons” by Richelle Mead. Seth cannot resist the intense sexual allure of his demon lover Georgina. Yet their love reaches beyond the physical, into a place of complete untamed surrender…Bitten by Lynsay Sands. Keeran’s existence as a vampire has taught him to accept a life without love…until he saves Emily from certain death. And suddenly he discovers the soul-searing passion he thought he’d lost forever.”
Without further ado, here is the image for the very first Deadline Dames Readers On Deadline. Have fun!
Related posts:
I love writing these! I do these exercises on another site and it’s fun to see the variety of writing styles that emerge. And sometimes the result can be the springboard to a longer work. (That hasn’t happened to me yet, but I have a feeling it will.)
They are fun, aren’t they? Sometimes having a visual just opens the imagination right up. I’ve had several spring into longer works and one ended up in scene in book two of urban fantasy series. It’s on my website here.
http://relliott4.wordpress.com/2007/07/30/sfap-and-monday-poetry-train/
I’m going to enter! *runs off to scribble*
Yay! I can’t wait to see all these. Have a feeling it’s going to be hard to pick my top five.
The students all knew it, but no one ever talked about it. No one knew what it was though.
Oh, the students loved to speculate. Some said it was ghost. Some were partial to a demon theory. There were even some of the female coeds who swore up and down that incubus and it followed them home and gave them the greatest pleasure of their lives, but most of them were considered insane. The dude was incorporeal, how could he even do that?
The Ghost theory was the most popular, of course. The story was that this particular ghost was rather new on campus. Ten years ago, a young man jumped off the highest dorm roof. How he got into the dorm, no one knew, because, of course, all the dorms had security, and key cards so that only the residents could get in, and all that. No one can tell if its the same kid, because strangely – or maybe not strangely – no one could ever find anyone who knew him.
Who he was, or, indeed, what he was didn’t matter to the students. All that mattered was that every college campus has some story like it.
And, of course, it didn’t hurt that the thing gave them answers to their midterms…
Oh, I am so entering.
Uhm, it’s a bit hard for me to write in English, but this seems really interesting, so I’ll try!
What fun, Rinda! And something else to procrastinate with while I avoid revisions.
Here’s my entry:
Shadows. Insubstantial as gossamer wings and not nearly so user friendly. They haunted. And hunted. The unwary, the profane, the innocent, and not-so-innocent all fell prey to them. They lurked, hunting in pairs, ready to pounce when chance provided them with a victim. Like the disenchanted urchins swarming around old Fagin, the Shadows plagued humans and Sidhe alike.
He had a job to do. For whatever reason, she’d blipped on the King’s and Queen’s radar. When Oberon and Titania said jump, he didn’t stop to ask how high. She always walked home this way, at the end of her work day. Ariel spent several nights watching her, finding her rhythm. She wasn’t beautiful, at least not in the fairy tale princess sense. And she was human.
Movement in the gathering dusk jerked his attention from inward thoughts to defensive strategy. They were there. Across the street. Two Shadows. Waiting. Watching. For her. What made her so special? He intended to find out. The Shadows stirred, their sharp faces turning to the west, noses high like blood hounds shifting the scent of their prey from the breeze. Ari heard her laugh, carried on that same breeze and the muscles in his gut clenched, even as something else tightened in anticipation. She swung into view, turning the corner as she all but skipped down the sidewalk, spreading her smile like sunshine and rainbows. That’s when he knew; that’s when it all made sense.
I did a double take as I walked by the shimmering form.
A question formed in my mind at once: was it a ghost or Shadow Person?
I could see him more clearly with peripheral vision than I could if I looked straight at him. He seemed to be looking at me too, yet I felt as though he was looking through me, not really seeing me at all.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. As stiff as a freshly starched collar. There was a hint of smokey smell in the air, not wood smoke. It was more of an herbal scent, undefined to me, but comforting.
Suddenly, I was aware of a voice coming closer and closer. The voice was feminine and chanting softly in a language I could not understand. I whipped around to see who was coming and saw only a slight form wearing a dark, hooded cape. I could see the bright red light of the item she held in her left hand. It was glowing as if on fire. She was right next to me and I’d not seen her move closer.
As she spoke softly, and waved the burning stick around, I realized that it was a Smudge Stick and she was purifying the air. Banishing the spirit…
I am not myself anymore.
I am not anyone. Without solidity, I cannot hold onto my name. Without a name to anchor me, I cannot remember. And in time, I will drift away into nothingness.
I do not want to be nothing.
So until then, I am lost and lingering…but my legend has been born. They tell tales of ‘the ghost’ to freshmen, here on the lawn under the safe light of day. They watch for me at night. Their speaking of me keeps me here a little longer.
If only they would call my name instead of ‘the ghost’ maybe I could hold on! Until I fade, I will be the fearsome specter at the far end of those long halls when the incandescent security is absent. Not because I want to haunt, but because I seek to remember who I am.
Maybe I can use my ethereal, murky pieces, these wicked, vaporous molecules existing out of spite for the emotion that galvanized into this strange steam at my physical death. I am a hazy image of what I was, I know, a black breath full of cruel, conscious malice and the driving need to know my name.
If I touch someone like I was, someone who has both loved and hated as deeply as I have, can I learn their name? Can I claim it as my own, and in so doing, remember?
I shivered, though the air was quite warm. I pulled my jacket tighter around myself and quickened my pace. I didn’t see it–I didn’t see anything. That was what I told myself, anyway.
But I couldn’t deny it. It was there and I could see it, feel it, even smell it’s rotten-sweet smell…
No! I turned my head away and closed my eyes, refusing to give in to it. This was exactly what it wanted. I didn’t know what was wrong me with me; I just knew there was something wrong–especially when you could see things that weren’t there, things no one else could see. Invisible things.
Suddenly, I tripped. I cursed as the cold, dirty puddle splashed my new jeans and my hands. Couldn’t I do anything right anymore? I sighed as I picked myself up off the floor–and walked right into something shimmery, cold, and bursting with rotten-sweet humidity .
I knew as soon as I looked up that it was too late to run and that there was no point in screaming. No one would hear me, and no one could rescue me from something they couldn’t see.
As I met its cold, dead eyes I shivered again.
It slowly started floating closer, hissing something under its breath. Abruptly, it stopped and I could suddenly hear what it was saying.
“Jayne.”
It knew my name.
Cold fear rooted me to the spot as the creature threw itself forward and straight through me. I screamed.
Strands of hair whipped my face as I stood staring at the ocean, warm sand tickling my bare feet. A reflection of moonlight shone off the dark waves while my mind spun in a whirlpool of thoughts. Summer was almost over. School would start soon, and I’d have to see him.
Shadows fell across the sand, and I shivered at the sudden sensation of being watched.
I turned and glanced over my shoulder. Blinking at the empty air that met my eyes, I spun in a slow circle. Nothing was there.
With a shake of my head, I took a few steps closer to the ocean. Sighing, I breathed in the salty air and felt the rhythmic motion of the waves easing my tension.
Out of nowhere, a bitter cold seeped into my skin. My teeth began to chatter, and ice stung my face. I watched my breath come out in white clouds while my entire body shuddered from the sudden chill in my bones.
I tried to run, but something held me in place. Fingers that felt like death encircled my wrists, and I fought to pull away. I closed my eyes and cried out, but no one would hear me. The beach was deserted.
Thoughts not my own filled my mind, and I struggled against the invisible bonds. I could hear something speak within my mind, and I knew two things without a doubt.
The thing that gripped me wanted me dead. And it was him.
Just because you’re dead, paranoid and schizophrenic doesn’t mean you’re not out to get you.
Shifting position on the curb, I tried to get comfortable. I never wore a watch so I don’t know how long I was there. I would normally check my cell phone but it had been stolen. Time seemed to have got all weird on me, like I’d been there for hours and only minutes all at once. Not having a clock didn’t account for the weirdness, though.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. Someone was behind me. I didn’t hear them come up, but I could feel them now. I never thought of myself as easily spooked but I’m man enough to admit right then it was all I could do not to pee myself. The friendship between the dark and I is beginning to fade.
If I wasn’t so anxious, I would have snorted. I’m sitting in the gutter waiting for my girlfriend with not only the threat of imminent Chem failure in my near future but with a weird presence behind me, and I’m making bad puns. Sheesh.
Inhaling, I closed my eyes, picking a deity at random to give me the courage to turn around. In my mind’s eye, I could see my back, shoulders hunched, breathing deeply.
As I watched, I realised my breathing matched that of my imagined self. It was unsettling. Not quite as unsettling as the thing at my back, but still a bit freaky.
I girded my loins, opened my eyes and turned around.
I saw, leaning against the lamppost, myself.
I told them this would happen. Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me? Well, I know why they don’t listen to me now. What, with the exception of a few true mediums, it’s not exactly easy to communicate with a ghost. Not that I haven’t tried. I’d do anything to find a way to cross over, to escape my own personal hell on Earth.
While I understand why they don’t hear me now, what was their excuse for not listening to me then? Back before that fateful day in March… What month is it now? Hell, what year is it? The changing of the seasons is so easy to overlook when time no longer holds any meaning.
I told them- no, I warned them… And of all places, why do I have to be Earthbound here? Sure, this is the building I died in, but it’s not like I held any sentimental attachment to the place. In all honesty, I think I only had one class here- the ever dreaded LIT 210 with that old blowhard Kensington.
Panic attacks. That’s what they called them. I knew better though. I knew I was going to die, and that it would be sooner rather than later. The overwhelming dread. The daily episodes of heart-racing panic. The raven perched outside my window that morning…
I knew what was coming. It was so obvious. Why couldn’t they see it too? Why didn’t they believe me? Does anyone even remember me? Does anyone even care?
Going back home is never easy, especially for the kid who never really felt at ease in their own skin. Standing outside my old high school, I could almost hear the old voices in my mind telling me to keep my head down. Bother no one. Don’t make a sound. Leave, you don’t fit. You never did and never will.
This autumn was no different. The shadows stuck inside me like dark, clinging bats. Feeling that I could never again walk this way without seeing the old ghosts of my childhood. Feeling their eyes on me. Judging me. Making me wish I could go back in time and spit in all of their faces.
Looking around I could tell the old fears were still there and only I could wipe them from my memory. The hopes of youth fading into a dull gray smoke. I pull my hood up closer to my cheek. I will not walk this way again.
Only one way out. That’s what they told me. Serene Meadows Hospital for the Criminally Insane might look like some highbrow university, but the security rivals Attica. As Jim Morrison once crooned, no one here gets out alive.
I’m Randolph Givens, and I’ve been here three years. I shouldn’t be here. Don’t get me wrong, I did bite those eight people, and a bunch of others. But I’m not insane. They just didn’t believe that my fangs only come out when I’m hungry. Those assholes in the press started calling me the Count of Death.
Anyway, until today, I was stuck here. Transforming into mist to seep under the doors takes serious energy, and jugulars have been short supply. I couldn’t just chow down and expect it to go unnoticed. But last month I moved to the ward with the catatonics. Five meals later, I was ready to fly.
The problems started near the road. My shape wouldn’t come back. I leaned against a tree, gasping with the effort. I staggered forward and fell to one knee. I guess I couldn’t undo three years of starving in a month. I needed to sleep. But if I slept now, I’d wake up burning death with the morning sun.
I managed a few more steps. Maybe I could get it together. I felt solid pavement under my feet. And then a loud honk. I looked up into two blinding lights, almost on top of me. And then nothing.
All of my life, they haunted me. Lurking, creeping, hiding under the cover of shadows. They mocked me, flashing by like thin wisps of smoke drifting in the night. But no matter where I traveled to, I could not escape the visions I saw.
Some have called me a visionary, others consider me just crazy. And I, I am stuck between the reality most experience and the chaotic cosmos I battle with daily. I’ve come to enjoy my gift; I can see what others can not, I can understand what lies on the other side. Sometimes these apparitions pass along messages to me, but more often than not, they just want acknowledgement that they still live on.
Yes, there is an existence besides the current reality. I have witnessed it almost everyday of my thirty one years in my mortal body. Ghosts, spirits and haunted souls live among us. They are everywhere and anywhere. And as I sit here outside of a café in front of Esplanade park, I notice one, veiled in the camouflage of dusk, leaning against a lamp post, beckoning me to join him.
I sip my coffee and watch him intently, knowing from the way he is observing me that he has purposely revealed himself to me. Extinguishing my cigarette I stand up and eye him again; he is now crouched near the curb arms crossed, waiting.
I saunter past him and he calls out to me, “Welcome home. I have been waiting for you.”
cool image. looks so European. my brain is too fuzzy to churn 250 at the moment so i will let it mull awhile.
With a shiver I wrapped the scarf tighter around my throat as I traipsed my way through the old neighborhood in Vienna. I needed warmth and with every step closer I took to those damnable buildings it became harder to attain. Looking up from the uneven sidewalk, barely visible in the encroaching darkness, I caught a glimpse of two guys not far from where I was.
Frightened, I did my best to stay on course and not look directly towards them. While the one closest to me, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and leaning on his knee, looked the most intimidating his friend against the lamp post hardly looked like the welcome wagon.
Feeling a sudden breeze slam into me I lost my footing and fell hard on my knee. Great. Just great. Seeing a hand in front of me, offering help, I reached out without thinking. Leaning forward, with hand outstretched, I fell right through it scraping my palms as I fell face first towards the ground.
Shaking my head I looked up and saw the boy in the hooded sweatshirt wearing a distressed frown.
“Shit!”
Immediately ashamed at my cursing having run amok again I looked directly into the confused face of the young ghost and said, “Sorry about that. Did you two need help?”
Didn’t he understand that it was over?
I sat in my car and stared at the flickering figure that crouched across the street. Even now, when we were separated by so much more than just distance, the sight of his face and those hands was enough to send tingles of warmth through me. I shook my head, scrubbed my face with my hands and got out of the car. This had to end once and for all.
He stood up as I approached, offering me a familiar half smile. “Hey.”
For a second I stared, unable to believe that this was happening, let alone to me. “That’s all you have to offer me? Hey? Is this some kind of joke? Why are you here, Kevin?”
He shrugged and looked away, giving me his perfect profile. “I wanted to see you. I miss you.”
“Kevin.” I sighed, trying to gather my thoughts. “You shouldn’t be here. I have a life now, a pretty good one.”
“A boyfriend?” His words came out sharp, almost cutting, causing me to flinch.
I bit my lip and looked away. “Maybe someday.”
“You shouldn’t be here.” He threw my words back at me, voice harsh now. “You should have come with me instead of staying behind. It’s only a matter of time before the scales come back into balance and we’ll be together again.”
He flickered, starting to fade out and I couldn’t hold back my anger and fear.
“What do you know? You’re dead!”
I had lots of fun with this. Here’s mine.
Jake thought it was cruel that I’d pester the living when they walked past the orphanage. When one got close enough I’d breathe down their neck and watch them cringe and pull their jackets tighter. Sometimes I would let them walk through me. Jake didn’t understand. It was his choice to leave the world of the living. Me? I didn’t know what hit me, literally. One minute I was walking down the street, the next I was looking at myself mangled underneath a car. By the time I worked out what had happened the light had gone and I was stuck with Jake. Once you missed the light, you had a pretty hard time getting that one way ticket to the next world. I guess I felt a little ripped off.
Jake was leaning on the pole when another walked past. I got up and as always he shook his head at me. Before I even got close enough to work my magic she had spun on her heel and glared at me. To say I was a little freaked out would have been an understatement. I stepped from one side to the other but her gaze remained on me. This had caught Jakes attention now and he walked down and stood beside me. The girl turned to him and her expression softened. “Jake.”
In all the time I had known Jake, not once had I ever seen him cry, until now.
Six months has passed. How can something still hurt that much after so long?
I’d stayed away, stayed away from that place. The place I had called my home till that ill-fated day.
If I’d known then, what I knew now, I would have never ever dragged Miles into that loft apartment to investigate the strange weirdness.
Tenants on every floor knew the story, rumours surrounding the tenant who had supposedly been involved in the occult and the dark arts. That had mysteriously come to a very, very sticky ending. Whispers circled the building that his blood still coated the walls. Every time the Super had re-painted the room. Some said that blood just would not be covered, would not be silenced.
Miles and I had been high school sweethearts. We had just been looking for an adventure, a good time, but that was light years away from what we actually got.
Everyone had seen the spirit, the guy with the piercing green eyes, who was said to walk the grounds, never coming into the building, never crossing the threshold.
We should have known better, we should never have entered that room. Especially on the night of the full moon, and especially on a Friday 13th, we had been young, stupid.
I had been investigating this case; I knew I had to go back. Especially now that another murder had happened! Murder happens, but now like that. Not like in the way I lost Miles.
It wasn’t just that I saw two obviously transparent, dead guys by the post. I could handle that. But no one else seemed to see them except me. People pushed past me muttering rude comments while I stood and stared.
“Retard.”
“Get your head out of your ass.”
“Move it, bitch.”
Hey. Some attention was better than none,right? I pulled my hoodie over my head to keep the damp fog from sticking my hair to my head and cold rain from dripping down my neck.
It was the third day I’d seen the ghosts, apparitions, spirits. They hadn’t done anything,yet. They hadn’t even moved,until now.
The one sitting on the curb stool up and was directly in front of me in a flicker. Dark eyes stared into me,draining the warmth out of me, body and soul. It smiled.
I ran.
There was someone watching. The hairs rose on the back of Andie’s neck as she looked around without seeming obvious. There. Right across the street, one leaning up by a light pole, the other kneeling down, where two men. The hoods on their clothing were pulled up to conceal their faces. Within the darkness, two pin points of light indicated where the eyes were. No one else was reacting to them and she could see the Administration building behind them.
Her eyes darted down to her book again. They were the second pair she saw that day. The others had been in the back of her class. They made her … afraid. Run like a rabbit and find a dark warren to hide away from the ‘foxes’.
Her stomach lurched and her dinner threatened to come back up. Her fingers tightened on the book.
Something cold brushed against the back of her neck, freezing the cold sweat running down her spine.
“Run, Andrea. Run now.”
It was a small whisper.
She didn’t want to look behind her. She slammed the book shut, snatched her bag and ran.
She heard the ghostly screech behind her.
She ran faster.
He was a vampire; strong, handsome, and much faster than my human eyes could travel. His movements blurred my vision as he paced in front of our dorm, waiting for me.
Humph. I still couldn’t believe he wanted to take me out. A boy like that, interested in a regular girl like me, it didn’t make any sense.
My roommate wouldn’t shut up about it. She kept saying, “he’s dangerous…he drinks blood…everyone on campus knows what he is.”
It was all true, as far as I knew, but he made no attempt to hide his nature, never shying away from who he was. That spoke volumes to me.
After the priming ritual was complete, I caught another flash of him resting against the bare tree outside. In an instant, he was standing before the window. Our eyes touch briefly then he was gone again.
“What if something happens to you?” She questioned again bringing a damper on my mood.
I smirked slyly then replied, “At least you’ll know who I was with,” before grabbing my purse and sauntering out the door.
He was there in an instant, pale skin glowing, dark eyes shimmering beneath the twilight. His lips turned up in a smirk, revealing the tips of his sharp fangs. He closed his mouth and put his head down then returned the smile, this time fangless. “Are you ready for the night of your life?”
My cheeks blushed as I nodded, wondering what would come next.
I was walking to my English 101 class when a ghost startled me.
I’ve grown accustomed to spirits popping out of the woodwork at me. It’s an occupational hazard when you have spook-a-vision, but there are some places that I took for granted at being ghost free. I never expected to be accosted by a spirit while walking to class by way of the quad. I did a double take at the lanky boy who was winking on-and-off like a defective hologram in the middle of my path. His undead presence as effective as a stop sign.
Darrel, a student who had been reported missing a week ago.
He was no longer missing by the transparent look of him, but dead with a capital D.
Stepping off the sidewalk I shifted my textbooks anxiously, copping a casual lean against a nearby light pole as I watched him. I knew eventually he would come over, doing his shiver-inducing routine meant to make me aware of him. Lately I was some type of ghost magnet after a bad scene with a local poltergeist, restless spirits couldn’t help but be drawn to me. It made my job easier, but it was definitely a downer when ghosts started crashing my dates.
“Darrel what did you get yourself into,” I sighed softly as he began floating towards me, disappearing and reappearing through the bodies of straggling college students running late for their next class. “You look like hell.”
[...] The Deadline Dames are having a cool writing exercise/contest over at their blog this week called Readers on Deadline. [...]
Another scream ripped itself from my throat, and I dropped to the ground, my legs refusing to hold my weight. I scrambled, trying to pull myself onwards. I needed a hospital. Whatever it was that had bitten me had given me something, some sort of disease.
First the dizziness, then the headaches – I could live with those, they were small everyday pains.
But now this pain, this wave of burning agony, hacking itself through my body. This was too much.
I shuddered, twitching onto my back as the torture bloomed up my spine, stabbing into my shoulders.
Would it ever end?
I kicked out at nothing, my hands clasped into fists, as I fought the tide of nausea threatening to suffocate me.
Blood leaked from my hands, as my nails dug into my palm.
Then I felt it, another being, ripping it’s self from me. I cried in horror as whatever it was began to pull itself from my body. It felt like my skin was being stretched, that my very soul was being sliced in half.
Nothing could compare to this, nothing.
My final throat searing scream was cut short by this other being tearing itself from me. My voice seemed to have died, part of me gone, torn away.
I turned my head to see the being that had caused me so much pain.
Bright green eyes met my own. And I chocked as I realized who the being was.
It was me…
His presence had left echoes for me to find. It wasn’t that I could see where he had been exactly, but I could feel it and my mind translated those feelings into images.
I was starting to think that he was toying with me. He knew about my ability somehow, he had to. It was unfair. I knew almost nothing about him. I only knew that bodies were turning up where he’d been and that no one ever saw him. No one except me. I never really saw him either. I could sense him. I could tell where he had been. It wasn’t real though. I couldn’t really see him. I didn’t know what he really looked like. I wanted to see him. I wanted to know what he looked like.
That was a crazy, wasn’t it? Why would I want to see a killer? Why would I want to see him face to face?
I had never sensed that he was actively killing people. I never felt him doing it. He had just been there at the scene; watching and waiting. Sometimes it seemed that he was watching me.
This wasn’t the first murder scene I sensed him at, or the second. He was definitely our top suspect.
He was starting to show up in my dreams.
This morning when I woke up I felt him in my room. He had been there watching in the night. I had yet to mention that to anyone.
I swore quietly to myself as I pulled the developed photo from the chemical bath it had been soaking in. Cold liquid dripped soundlessly into the tub below and as I clipped the picture onto the drying line, I wondered what I had done wrong this time. I had been practicing with my camera, with different exposure times and the lights around the park and evidently, I had forgotten to advance the film forward between frames because ghostly images were staring back at me. Some budding photographer I was.
Sighing with resignation and knowing I had failed another assignment, I flipped the protective red light off and blinked against the white light that flooded the small developing room. My frown deepened as I leaned forward, examining the image on the paper more closely as I tried to see if I recognized the man in the picture. His phantom eyes matched the impending twilight and upon even closer inspection, I realized there was more than one figure.
One man might have been an accident but two?
Shock slid down my spine, raising the fine hairs on the back of my neck as I remembered standing in the park, taking these pictures for a project my professor had assigned. Bone chilling cold settled inside of me and caused my stomach to turn over on itself as I swallowed back the bile threatening to rise.
There hadn’t been anyone else in the park when I had taken those pictures.
I had been alone.
So, this is my entry. Hope you like it. 249 to be exact.
Called Nostalgia… Rinda I am so happy you brought this here.
____
“Do you feel sad?” Mr. Verdant’s voice spilled from the lamp post he leaned on and ran smoothly in my mind. I contemplated.
“No.” I croaked and huddled on the darkness from grass.
“Am I to have indefinite certainty in your statement, Mr. Alabaster? This is your hometown after all. Despite being a curse to it, you must feel something.”
I remained silent. I watched night swim through the lake of artificial light. Ahead office buildings, pubs and stores emanated the same cold shine. It seemed pointless speaking to speak to a carbon copy of myself. Or was I carbon copy of him? We shared the same build, the same voice, wore the same clothes and only his arrogance set us apart. We were never allowed to look in a mirror or take our hoods off. It was the same as being faceless. This we were too. So blank, so sterile. Nobody noticed us even though we were there amongst them, the people.
“I don’t do sentimentality. I never liked it here to begin with.”
“Well then, you wouldn’t feel a thing. The plane is losing height. Let’s go.”
He disappeared and I had to follow. I opened my hand. A scythe coiled out of the shadows and turned solid in my grip.
“Yes. We must reap.” I looked one final time at the square and felt something cold sliding down my cheeks. All those years feeling hollow and only now did I cry. Such pity.
Zoe stood on the steps of the library and looked out across the quad. Behind and above her, the campus clock tower struck three, the tolling bells accompanied by a tune that she really couldn’t place, but was sure she’d heard once in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Only a few lights were on in the windows of the dorms on either side of the tree-lined quad. Zoe had never been to college—life had gotten in the way—but, she thought it was odd that there weren’t more people about, even this late on a week night.
“Geez,” she muttered. “I thought college was supposed to be a four-year party.”
Zoe scanned the darkness, paying close attention to the pools of light created by the old-fashioned, cast iron lamp posts placed at regular intervals around the perimeter of the quad, as well as along the footpath that snaked through the center of the carefully manicured grass.
A recent string of break-ins on campus, with little or no evidence left behind, had baffled local authorities. That’s why Zoe had been sent to investigate. Sure, the others would have been just as capable of handling a shapeshifter, a telepath, or an energy manipulator. But, Zoe brought something special to the table.
There. A trail of ghosting images flickered at the edge of the shadows between lamp posts: tall and slender, dressed in jeans and a black hoodie.
“Speedster,” Zoe said, grinning to herself. “Takes one to know one.”
Have you ever felt like time stood still?
Frozen.
No matter how fast you pace, it won’t speed up. You wait; sitting, leaning. Still no change.
Where is she? Why doesn’t she come? Has something happened?
You look around, but nobody is there. You are all alone, the moon your only companion.
Is it cold? You don’t remember. It should be, but all you feel is this restlessness urging you on to keep on moving, keep on hoping that she might still appear, even when deep down you know she won’t.
How long has it been already? Minutes? Hours? Years? The wait seems neverending, but you linger here. Where else would you go?
There is something – just out of reach. Something you ought to know. However, with each step you take your memory gets vaguer, until all that remains is that one purpose: to wait for her.
You are frozen.
For you time stands still.
My apologies for running late. Then again, you wouldn’t want to see what I wrote earlier while on medication for a sinus headache and sore throat. Just trust me…
Beneath the pale glow of the street light, two wraith-like young men waited, watching the empty street before them. Dressed in jeans and hooded sweaters, they blended in with the dark expanse of lawn and sky behind them like modern ninjas.
Twilight was their time. The youngest, Jakob, sat on the curb, leaning forward, his expression pensive.
“We come here every night, Erich, and no one notices us,” he complained.
Erich remained leaning against the lamp post. He shrugged. “What do you expect? Not everyone believes in us.”
Jakob frowned. “People feared us. We haunted their sleep with nightmares, drank their blood during full moons. And this is our end? To be forgotten?”
Erich shook his head. “Who cares?” He gestured at the row of apartment buildings behind them, stucco facades bathed in the artificial light of aligned street lamps. “This is the humans’ world now. Light reveals the monsters. They have no need to fear us.”
Jakob tugged at his sweater. “And these clothes? You insisted we ‘blend in.’ Don’t you think we’d be more effective if we looked like real demons?”
Erich chuckled and Jakob grimaced, unhappy at being laughed at. “Fine, then,” he muttered, turning his head.
Erich placed a friendly hand atop his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it,” he smiled, fangs sharp and glinting. “Just remember who we are. Some people still believe in us. Otherwise, we’d suffer the same fate as the ancient gods.”
Jakob shuddered. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered.
“Never,” Erich promised. “Never.”
All I ever wanted to do was forget about this horrible hellhole. Everyone here treated me like I was the strange one. Even the teachers knew I was an outcast. Getting even with them would be the happiest day of my life. I’ll teach them all. NEVER treat Jeremy Blitz as an outcast or you’ll die.
It was a long time in the planning, but it wasn’t so hard. Them stupid kids on the news made the mistake of telling someone else and getting caught before they could teach their lesson, but I‘m too smart for that. No one knew what I was up to. Carrying out my revenge would happen, and with the maximum amount of casualties. Of course, one of them would be me. But at least I would be done with this place forever!
I’m not sure how many I took out, but between the three classrooms I hit, then those in the hallway, it had to be over 40. Ah, the element of surprise. And the look on Mr. Shaley’s face as the gun turned toward him was priceless.
So why is it that I’m still here? That is my body I see on the ground. The bullet went from the roof my mouth, through my brain. I must be dead. I want to go NOW! Wait a minute… Could it be that I’ll end up here for eternity?
This sounds great. I think I’ll try a poem.
The lights flicker
Shadows grow
Ghosts appear
And then they go
But one leans against a slender tree
Then suddenly is crouched in front of me
A hand reaches out to mine
But the touch I cannot feel
Silent tears escape eyes
If only he were still alive
To feel his kiss
One last time…
[...] [First, a note: today's the last day to enter Dame Rinda's Readers on Deadline challenge!] [...]
[...] don’t forget that today is the last day to enter the first Readers on Deadline challenge. The Dames will be picking a winner after tonight! Winner gets a copy of Iron Kissed [...]
The crisp autumn air, with an assist from the generic street lamps lining the cobblestone sidewalks, gave a sense of normalcy to the evening.
A cruel deception that.
Inside the worn brick façade of the historic building, Cassian’s enemy plotted their strategy. No doubt they thought to wrest the leadership of his coven away from him, a leadership he’d inherited more than three centuries ago.
He didn’t take kindly to this vile insurrection, made even worse because the one instigating it had been his closest friend for well over seventy years. In the past, those who mistakenly viewed his calm demeanor as tacit permission to challenge his authority ended up paying the ultimate price for their transgression, and this time would be no different.
With an unearthly stealth belonging to those of his kind, Cassian scaled the wall and changed into a wraith-like form in order to seep through the locked window. He floated through the halls, many of them lined with suits of armor, until he stopped at a closed door.
The furious scribbling of a commander preparing for battle could be heard within, his enemy plotting his next move.
He slid under the door, and resumed his former shape, inhaling the shocked gasp as if it was manna offered by a heaven that wanted no part of him.
“Cassian. This cannot be.”
Cassian smiled, allowing his fangs to lengthen. “I plan to repay you tenfold for your betrayal. Before it’s over, you’ll be begging me to kill you.”
Two spirits fading
Double exposed memory
Choices time forgot
I watched, waiting, my heart weeping for Sebastian as he hovered lightly over the boy’s body where it lay in the underbrush. I could hear the wind whispering through the trees, but felt no breeze. Nor, I knew, did Sebastian.
Sebastian lifted his hand, and ever so gently touched the boy’s cheek. The skin had already taken on the pallor of death, the features slack, but in no way resembling any restful repose. As I watched, a faint light began to glow under Sebastian’s hand, through it. It expanded and Sebastian slowly rose, “Go in peace, little brother,” he whispered under his breath, watching as the light slowly began to rise, gathering more speed, then shooting through the air to the stars.
Connor was the boy’s name, I remembered, and he had such potential. Most of the boys at St. Nicholas had at one time or another been hurt, abused, misused or simply neglected. Connor had experienced all that and more, until he was shoved into the system, and miraculously transferred here.
All that potential was gone now, and I could see it was tearing Sebastian apart. I pushed myself away from the tree I had been leaning on and slowly walked to his side. I reached up and gently stroked his cheek, much the same as he had done for Connor only moments before. “I won’t let you fall,” I whispered, “I won’t let you fall.”
I can’t wait to read all of these! Thought I’d drop a note in to say we’re cutting off at 42. I’m so glad you all had fun with this.
Wait until you see the next image!
[...] of deadlines, I am using the Readers on a Deadline contest on the Deadline Dames site as my next writing workout. To enter, you submit your 250-word [...]
Без преувеличения можно сказать, что пост тему раскрыл на все 100 процентов.