Sooooo…

(a beginning).

I wonder why

there is so much poetry

on Prose

when prose

is obviously

superior,

thus the site’s name?

Poetry (spit). Bahhh!

(Pook will get me

for doing that

in her kitchen ;)

Curious…

does formatting

in this

phone-centric style

make my

prose =

poetry?

Or is that just

illusory?

If so,

then my prose

looks tantalizingly

poetic.

Does it not?

Even if it’s not?

Even if it‘s snot?

BTW,

apologies for the

grammar

(using it, that is.

You know…

poetry taboos).

But,

I am old and cannot

help myself.

And there is

precedence, being

that it is not really

poetry

at all!

It's 11:57PM

I'm finally eating my cake

Happy 19th birthday

But it's just me

sitting at the family dinner table that seats 8

And the cake that my long distance friend bought me

Surrounded by the ghost of my family members

Who couldn't even spare a hug

It's 11:58PM

The cake's good

I had a feeling

It would be like this

It's 11:59PM

The cake is half eaten and the ice cream has melted

And the tears are on the verge of spilling over

a sniffle here and there

time to pull myself together

And it's 12:00AM

The cake's in the garbage

And the longing for an embrace is heavy

All I needed was a hug and a 'Happy Birthday'

But it's 12 o'clock

Maybe I'll have better luck next year

The wintry night sky reminds me

Of some gaping void

Excited to swallow

The underlying Earth

And when the Sun

Slips below the horizon

Does it feel jealous?

Of its counterpart who gets to enjoy the night?

she woke up because her feet were cold

The window was open

and she had not the audacity to

stand and shut it in someone else’s house

He was still asleep

beside her

The sheets were stained with her maiden’s

blood

That was all right

She was twenty

But him.... He was also twenty but that’s not the point

This was the boy who

put her through hell during both middle

and high school

The bully

There was that time when he pushed

her down the stairs

and broke her thumb

that time during the field trip

when he threw a rock

straight into the side of her head

that time when he put

a frog in her

lunchbox

And another in her backpack that she

carried home

That time he kicked the ball

in her face giving her

a bloody nose

that time when he threw a snowball

at her ear

And there was another incident

resulting in a chipped tooth

and all of that was besides the

name-calling and the random hair pulling

and the tripping and the scaring

and all...

Yet now here she was

Here they were

In his house

In his bed

And all because he contacted her the previous day

and apologized for everything. Truth

is her life placed some nasty miles both

behind and ahead of her

and someone being nice all of a sudden...

It was so easy to get her

And what did he think of her now?

She felt tears trickling down

her cheeks as she thought of this and

stared at his sleeping body beside her

Maybe the time to

get revenge was now

Or was it not?

***

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO READING HERE:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cz5xy-zsec6/

It has come to my attention that, perhaps, I had been taking life a little too seriously. That, maybe, I care a little too much.

For as long as I can remember, I had been trying to build a system I could follow in my life. I believed I was in desperate need of a routine to pull my life together. And I probably wasn't wrong, to be honest. Life was a little complicated back then, and perhaps the lulling solace of a routine was precisely what I needed. Maybe it could have made me feel a little less helpless, and a lot more in control of my life. But I never built one. Or in other words, I built many, even brought out various cool adaptions and variations of such systems as life took me forward in time, but none of those could hold me accountable. They failed me. Or in a much more real sense of things, I failed to keep up with any of them. And here we are now! Perhaps, I had been taking life a little too seriously.

All these systems, they did not keep me accountable. Right? But did they help me? In some ways, they did, I wouldn't lie. But it did more harm than help. Attempting to keep up with those routines left me tired and unmotivated. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't just bring myself to do the things that I was supposed to do. And the to-do list of each day just remained the same, or sometimes grew larger in size. It was overwhelming, and the guilt was eating me alive, though I was barely getting anything done. Ironic.

Ever since I was young, there had been another thing I had forever struggled with. Doing something for myself. Ah, the guilt! It always eats me alive. The frolics every toddler put up to buy all the things they loved in the shop, I never had one of those tantrums. I never wanted anything. I wanted to ease the burden of my family. I was the good son. Did I even ever actually want something? I don't know. Maybe I did. But a long progression of that cycle eventually left me with this looming disinterest towards any given thing in this entire goddamn globe. What a tragedy. Most people struggle and end up demotivated and desolate in the rugged path to their dreams, while I had none to begin with. Or maybe I had, I just neglected it for so long that I can't find where I stored them anymore.

What was the point I was trying to make? I struggle to come to the point, I really do. And I am not editing this post. I am not going to filter myself, and present the version of me that I want to be seen out there. Don't get me wrong, but I'm doing this more for myself than for the ones who might eventually read this post. I want clarity. My brain had been in a haze for far too long, and it's about time I take it out for a rinse. And thankfully, I love to rant and write. So this is technically a rant to clear my brain. My life, actually. But I wouldn't mind some company. In fact, I would love some company! If there's someone out there going through similar stuff or actually just wanna help me out (because I'm such a beautiful person who deserves the entire world (: ), tag along! We can get through all of this together! After all, the company matters just as much as the journey, doesn't it? Maybe if we are all in this together, this could be a whole lot more memorable and fun!

Ah, yes, haze. Directionless. Dreamless. Disinterest. Unmotivated. Systems! Yes, systems! So yeah, I'm gonna just dump all the systems in the trash bin in the back alley. I know they had been with me for far too long for such a miserable farewell, but guess who left me miserable for a long time too? What you're witnessing right now might just be the rejuvenation of an ex people pleaser, who's about to enter his villain era. That is, I am about to put up some white little fences which anyone can jump across and still be overwhelmed with tremendous guilt when I couldn't help out the one person who would ditch me in a stranded planet without a second thought (: I'm just kidding, I'm not that naive. Oh! That's one of the fun parts, lemme explain.

I know exactly what I'm doing. The level of self-awareness I possess is almost otherworldly. It's the pinnacle of human evolution. And the desire to act on it is also such a force of nature! But do I? Probably not. I do tell myself that my apparent naivety is a guide to view the world with a pretense gullible-ness, which allows me the privilege of seeing right through people and their intentions and puts me in a position superior to them, all the while they consider me a weak, 'rose-tinted glasses' wearing, 'untouched by the cruel realities of the harsh world' optimist. I actually take some pride in that. And to some extent, I am not wrong. It does help me a lot. And when Waymond Wang came along in Everything Everywhere All At Once, representing the others like me, I was absolutely enthralled. But again, what was the point I was trying to make?

Yes, losing the systems. I was in an argument with a friend of mine the other day (let's call him 'The Productivity Monster' for privacy's sake), and all of a sudden, I coined, "Life's not a to-do list, stop treating it like one." At the moment, I thought I was liberating myself from the capitalist loop the world is stuck on. But am I? Nah, I don't think so. I believe it was more of a 'I want to retain this peace I somehow earned over the years, and I am not risking it over a conflict that I couldn't care less about'. But I do believe that life's not a to-do list. On the contrary, a freestyle isn't exactly the way to go about it too. It's not our fault though, hear me out.

Societal norms. There are certain societal norms out there. And it is not impossible to shut your eyes towards these norms, and live a life following your heart's fantasies. It's magical, it's transcending, it's what we all would have done with our lives in a different geopolitical landscape. But these norms not only influence the approach with which we want to approach our lives, but also influences the approach with which we have to. These norms were not exactly prepared by considering every possibility of human condition out there. So the ones who weren't born to the privilege of meeting the basic societal norms had to attain some level of privilege to even think about altering or revising such given norms. And sadly, most of our lives end while we are attempting to meet them. Again, what a tragedy. But what was the point I was trying to make?

So yes, I'm going to be a little silly from now on. I am going to loosen up a bit. Let myself act on intuitions and intrusive thoughts a lot more. Try and give up on my rather perfectionistic impulses. Try not to feel everything too deeply. But ah, wouldn't that be terminating the one thing that makes me special and lovable? Probably yes. But I'm fully confident that I'll never be able to ditch any of my uncalled-for compassion and empathy even if I try my best to do so. Who knows? Maybe I might even end up finding just the right balance. Hmm, this seems like such a beautiful step forward.

If you wanna tag along on this self-actualization journey alongside me, don't be shy! I'm shy myself, so we're gonna be just fine! Let's do it together! To a beautiful life, my friends! Let's do this <3

It took me a little while to recognize my fatal flaw, as a reader. It's not a question of extremes, as much as underlying interest. Undoubtedly, some enthusiasts immerse themselves in environment too much, or not deeply enough; or sink into plots, and become entangled in the knots of artificial problems or trip over allegory altogether; some identify empathilessly, or delve into infatuancies, with heroes and antiheros. That's not me.

What I didn't realize until early teens, junior high, or high school the latest, maybe, was that I was maintaining extended conversations with the authors. Made up of course, extensions on the basis of what was given in text, or interview elsewhere. Nothing fascinated me as much--- the rest of the story being "words on paper."

I guess, like a vampiread, I wanted the Life behind or within the story line. I wanted to understand, why the devil did so and so feel it necessary to carry-in to existence this work, this body? I suppose I hoped to see for a moment through the eyes of the wordsmith, and perceive what effect he or she was trying, hoping, to achieve, in the mind of others, through the manuscript as laid out, long or short.

In my own search for meaning, I must have made the (ghasted! I know) assumption that there is a Purpose behind all things. Note the capital, as denouncement of something grand: that accident in art is minimized by a closer analysis of impact, and a penultimate point of acceptance or rejection of it, before final publicization (form/media determining in large part the arena of distribution, as print, gallery, screen). In short, that the writer had something to say, beneath the tip of the berg of what now appeared in our glare of vision.

Not necessarily something new. Something personal. Vital.

It must have been in the early teen-years that I first revealed, and sighted, my flaw--these quirks being unjudged internally until someone else balks and stops you in your everyday stride. Discussing a book, I was subsequently met with indignant tonguelash. I can't remember what book or what I said, but I remember distinctively the response. That I was wasting my time.

Writing isn't like that. Words speak for themselves. It's about characters. The work takes on a life of its own. It belongs to the audience. A typographical orphan. Beyond control. The search for meaning as in our own lives is futile... The author like a God is long gone mentally and busy, anyway nobody is expositioning themselves. Book closed.

To my fellow student-writers, majoring in nothing at the time, it was as if personally offensive. Yet irrational. A barrier put up by the readers themselves in their minds, Private Property/ No Trespassing. It puzzled me that our teachers nodded along, though we routinely pursue potential acts of major and minor characters in our imagination in literary assignments. Character study we call it.

To be sure I don't like chained link or barbed wire, and would avoid these as well, still I conclude that unnecessarily imposed fences, especially intellectual ones should be scaled, down to size. In defense of the antagonists, the only thing I could think of was the fear of Writer's Block. If we spent too much time pondering over Purpose, we would create nothing at all. Maybe.

Yet I am inclined to the idea that understanding intent is within the Reader's purview, as much as it is part of the Writer's prerogative. As a reader, I give much respect to the Author, and freedom to take us wherever inspiration in the moment or future will lead us. I can't ask for it back, but I can pay it forward, when I myself scrawl something down, with that invisible prefix "Dear Reader..."

the butterfly

affects the heart

I take my imagination

open

to flights

and it flutters

and falls

into the open

venue of ozone

where it might

spark

or

go mussing,

in contrast

like red madder

on cerulean does

when not mixed

in the brush

I make stuff up

I believe it

like a fool

till seen

in the mirror

objective,

where a stranger

finds

no need

for courage---

in obvious state

to say

--Look!

there's brown

smudged

on

your face--

And I know,

know

with pain

everything

is joyfully

missed

as I lift

a timid finger

to the winged

shape

and grin

lightly

to touch

the impermanent

permeance of

our mixed

perceptions

"We have forgotten how to be good guests-- how to walk lightly on the Earth as its other creatures do."

~ Barbara Mary Ward

Vienna, Austria

May 14th, 2005

"Thank you, Mercy." The ageing man responded to the nurse. The falter in his voice had still not recovered from the peculiar events of the previous month. What had brought around the unexpected transformation in the great and proud Mr Aldrich Hunter was unknown to most. How could such an arrogant, power-hungry beast be so humbled over a few mysterious days? But everyone knew it had something to do with Nixie. Phoenix Landskein. His bombshell of a second wife. Unlike Mr Hunter and his son, she never returned to the mainframe, and no one knew where she was.

Neo Hunter took the chair on the other end of the fine dining. The table was older than the portrait of the Mona Lisa, spanning nine feet and carved with fine, intricate details from head to toe. The delicacies were not abundant enough to cure the hunger of an entire state anymore. Only what was required was served, and nothing went to waste. Neo ensured that was the case, and no one had any objections to raise. Perhaps it all had to do with the generational transfer of authority from father to son, most people believed.

But Neo Hunter knew better. Neo Hunter knew firsthand what had brought around the radical transformations in the Hunter household. It had everything to do with Mrs Phoenix Landskein, his enigmatic stepmother.

Sighișoara, Romania

April 9th, 2005

That bitch. Neo Hunter rolled down the haystacks piled so high atop one another. How could she? Neo always knew Phoenix Landskein was up to something, but everyone refused to believe him. But with hands tied against a coir rope and rashes of his allergy presenting themselves on his pale skin, Neo knew that was his best chance to prove his suspicions right before everyone. Phoenix Landskein was a gold-digger bitch.

Vision yet to be stable, Neo raised himself to stand, gaining support from his elbows and knees. The whole world spun around him, dizziness almost throwing him into another long daze. But Neo was desperate not to lose consciousness once again-- he slammed himself against the wall in the hopes of steadying his composure, his head held tight between his arms to squish some sense into him. Neo felt his throat ache and his entire frame sweating, leaving his body devoid of moisture. He needed water. Lots of it. Quick breaths. Long breaths.

The barn doors opened with a rasp to reveal before him a courtyard left unchecked for years prior. Ferns and rust had reclaimed all the fences and adornments once white and lustrous. Hints of a winding path leading to an old estate hid beneath the extensive flora consuming whatever men built over its natural state. The tall stone manor at the end of the road-- made almost entirely of stone and iron-- was all too familiar for Neo Hunter. It was his childhood home.

July 1986

The nights were the hardest. So were the days, but the newfound solace of jabbering strangers at school offered Neo an odd comfort. Was there a name for the fear of dinners? But it wasn't the food that scared him. It was what came with it. The people. His family. Every time he heard his name being hollered from downstairs, every step he took towards the dining room-- it all took an act of courage.

Gripping silences. Heaviness in the air. Neo often attempted to not let his cutlery touch the dishes, to not produce the slightest noise so that his parents wouldn't notice his presence. He only left the table once his mom disappeared into the kitchen and his dad to the porch.

But some days, even his silence could not save the tumults which were to befall. Sometimes, it was a hair in the soup, sometimes a tad amount of extra salt in the bacon. But his father's outrage always shook the entire cabin to the core.

Neo never looked at his father when that happened. He looked at his mom. How her eyes were shut, and a lonesome tear caressed her folds. How her palms clutched the dress she was wearing. Before long, when his father disappeared into another room, Gaia always asked Neo to go to his room. And there, he would sleep to the muffled cries of his mother in the place of lullabies, pillows tight against his eyes and ears to tuck himself into dreams where everything was alright.

April 9th, 2005

The rashes grew bigger and redder with the passage of every minute. Unable to find anything sharp and steady, Neo headed to their old kitchen, hoping to find something to free himself. But it was empty. Hollow. The fire and aura had long settled into smoke and filth. That was when he heard a cry from the floor above. Father. Rushing atop the stairs, Neo shouldered open the doors to their old bedroom.

"Finally. You're awake." Phoenix Landskein was a woman of stature, or at least she possessed the charm of someone alike. There she stood, at 5"7', holding what seemed to be a leash made of the creepers from the grounds-- stains of red embellishing the light green of the stem. His father lay on his chest atop the busted cot, his bare back adorned with streaks of blood as he struggled to flee his chains. His restraints were not coir, but cold iron, leaving him zero chance of escaping the onslaught.

Phoenix walked up to Neo, stopping only a few inches away. Neo wanted to back up, but the notion of her kicking him down from the foyer persuaded him to keep his ground. The whip safe in her right hand, Phoenix stared right into his soul-- her green eyes threatening to claw out his deepest fears. In the end, a smile. She took his arms and twined her palms around the coir ropes, only for the yarns to magically untangle themselves, freeing him from its clutch. She passed the leash to his hands, whispering to his ear, "Careful."

As Phoenix strolled down the stairs, Neo ran to his father to help him escape. He needed something to break the chains apart, and soon upon his search, he found all the utensils from their old kitchen on the bedside table, spread neatly on a wet towel. And while picking up the hammer, Neo noticed how his rashes had faded into his skin, no longer inducing an allergic reaction.

But before he could carry his father out somewhere safe, Neo felt the temperature rising around him. Fire. He walked faster only to nearly slip over the stairs, losing the clutch over his father. His rather plump figure tumbled down the stairs, and for a moment, Neo was afraid he had marked the end of his father's life. But the day had other intentions, not a life being lost, though the stone-cold manor collapsed in on itself, leaving no reminiscence of the world Neo once knew.

Vienna, Austria

May 14th, 2005

Putting his father to sleep and piling a heavy blanket atop his fragile frame, Neo walked out of his bedroom to the cold verandah. Phoenix Landskein was never found after that day. Even the most capable investigation teams couldn't gather a clue as to where she was. And the non-cooperative silence of the father and son only led to more and more suspicions and never a proper answer.

But whenever Neo brought around a change in his father's allocation of wealth for the better, the trees and animals seemed to bow before him. The sun seemed to shine brighter on the days' Neo had felt his best. And on the days when Neo felt despair, the clouds taught him to let his tears fall. And whenever he reminisced about his mother, he felt the air tug him into a warm embrace. The leash no longer had the stains of blood, but it bloomed and flowered in the courtyard of their home.

Neo knew what had happened to the Hunter household. It had everything to do with Mrs Phoenix Landskein.

#####

I struggled with writer's block for a long while in between, and I'm sure a lot of people out there has the same issue. I'd never been much of a pantser and had always leaned to more plotting tendencies, and thus reading upon and listening to a lot of storytelling theory and experimenting with a lot of techniques, I'm figuring out an outline to help me with the task. It's not rigid, it's arbitrary, it's constantly changing, and it helps me gain more insight into the stories I want to write, and helps me explore what all I could incorporate into them. And I thought this could be somewhat helpful for someone out there too (: So, I'm sharing the outline I used to write this story here, and... hope it helps!

Outline: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l0Rc2EuvqCKDFnmw-Z6wv5yXSWdZTDa9aqVUS51F28o/edit?usp=sharing

*****

Shoutout

[cuz it feels like a wholesome thing to do (: Also, these will be some of Prose's best, so keep an eye on them (:]

The Evil Series by @Danceinsilence

The Evil Series by @Danceinsilence feels like an episodic thriller with its division into separate books and parts. Featuring a team of cops with the primary focus on a divorced female law enforcement officer and single mother (with the most adorable son), Janis Baker, this series really justifies its title throughout its course... Trust me, no matter how humane a person you think you are, you'd root for some of these characters to suffer the most-brutish-deaths possible... The evil is constantly on the rise and the saviors are on a never-ending effort to keep the streets clean. Sacrifices, serial killers, assassins-- An over-arching threat, loved ones to protect-- this series will not give you a break! Do check it out!

*****

Instagram: (Um, I'll edit that in later...)

Am I a good person, or am I trying to be? Is there any difference between the two? Or am I, after all, a bad person?

At the end of every chapter, it is for you to judge. Forget everything you think you know about me. I need your judgement to be objective and free of any bias from the assumptions you might hold. I want you to discover who I truly am. And thus, I want to try and understand myself and what I'm hiding from. Let's begin.

The experiences I will reveal throughout these chapters are mostly specific to my life and is not, in any manner, generalized. But I hope I can leave enough ambiguity to these posts so that you can meanwhile judge yourself to some extent. Why judge? Because we are fundamentally judgmental creatures. Because no matter how perceiving we believe we have turned over the years, our judging mindset rarely fades into inexistence; so does every stigmatic belief we are born with.

For the first chapter, I assumed it would be best to provide you, the reader, with details you can cross-check from my profile. Because at the end of the day, every little thing we do, every little thought we bare-- it all invariably points to who we truly are. (Also, good liars always build their version of the truth on a foundation of lies.) I had enough reason to suspect my protagonists over the years did the same. I discovered that I hid within their hearts a piece of my soul. A fine quality in a writer would be to lose all consciousness of self when creating a character, but one of my fatal flaws was always being a self-absorbed narcissist, no matter how many steps I took to alter myself.

The Dark Alley featured an unnamed protagonist who upheld his newfound love for a girl he had befriended above all his friends, who he considered muppets to his threads. From being alone with no connections, he finds friends who, he believes, are tolerable. The teenage protagonist adds and subtracts these muppets according to his will to find a suitable social circle. In addition, he values himself for having something special from the so-called nerds who lacked the social skills he comparatively had in abundance. And even so, when I narrated the story from his perspective, a part of myself rooted for this unbearable egomaniac, which led me to convince the readers to do the same.

The Constrained Journey featured an irritable toddler gathering her courage to leave her loving parents, all because they neglected her compulsion to be bought a bicycle. And yet again, I narrated the story from her perspective, almost justifying her actions, only to leave the readers with a conclusion with barely any change in her personality but only in her immediate needs. In the Needs & Wants Theory of Character Design, I deprived every protagonist of mine of meeting their actual need. In fact, I left them devoid of even realizing a transformation is essential to their character arcs-- as any person who neglects to confront their necessary evils would.

And in A Day in the Life of a Kleptomaniac, yet another unnamed young protagonist with recurrent stealing tendencies gets away with their acts of mischief. And subconsciously, I rooted for him to be safe, and I inflicted the same evil will on the ones who read the tale.

In The Mysterious Lady, Susan, an obnoxious and overly curious teenager, is gifted with the power of invisibility, and she uses it solely for her personal desires, including beating up a fellow student she hates and stealing from a roadside store. Only towards the end, when she is faced with an individual, much more in the lack of self-control, does she finally have an opportunity to learn what she could have done with her powers. But instead, she regrets being at the wrong place at the wrong time and is only affected by her fear of death.

In Out of Love, we meet Harry, an ageing widower and retired advocate, in the last proceedings of adopting a child. Towards the end, he realizes the child he was about to adopt was his granddaughter. But no details whatsoever were revealed on how the adorable grandfather loses touch with his daughter, so much so that he is unaware that he even has a granddaughter. And the fact that he is in no condition to raise a child is emphasized countless times in the story, and even being aware of it, Harry decides to proceed with the adoption. He places his want to cure his loneliness over the need for his granddaughter to be raised by someone capable of handling the pressure.

David McKenzie was an outright criminal and a brutal assassin, fuelled only by the instructions he received from the higher-ups and his perfectionistic love for his field of work, and later vengeance. 'Vampires are Made' featured a protagonist who never recovered from a regret so early on in his life and thus drowned himself in the ocean of his fears and regrets. Andromeda featured a protagonist who never returned to her normalcy after her parents died in an accident, only to be solaced at the magical return of her deceased mother.

'Has Anyone Seen Jo?' featured an arrogant guardian angel who boasts of his superiority and devoted purpose and regards any mortal being as inconsequential and worthless in the grand scheme of God. Sabrina was narrated as a helpless woman in the clutches of a carnal society when nothing, in reality, substantiated that there was nothing to incriminate her with.

Something Wrong featured a bold female law enforcement officer who is unable to put her mind at ease after receiving a call which she was unsure whether a prank or not, only to leap into action regardless of the consequences when massive protests challenge the very State because she was selfishly unwilling to live with more regrets after the death of her supportive mother. And Blaue Augen attempted to humanize the actions of the most notorious, wretched dictator of all time, only to end with a malicious sneer, once again denoting nothing has changed throughout the story.

There, a myriad of flawed characters shying away from their actual needs only to meet their immediate wants-- or even worse, gain zero insight from the tainted events that held enough power to transform their lives. There, individuals with unique strengths and sometimes a strong awareness about themselves neglect the need to confront the necessary evils in the voyage of life.

There is no objective good or bad. But when a character realizes their flaws and attempts to act on them, it forms a positive arc. And when a character doesn't even realise their needs or refuses to redeem themselves, it leads to a negative arc. Is it not possible for us to choose the journey we would traverse in our lives?

But it is far easier to identify the needs and wants of a character built within the bounds of a story scape. On the contrary, our lives are multi-dimensional, and our personalities multi-faceted-- a tapestry of intertwining elements forming intricate yet delicate patterns, hard to untangle.

So what is that you want? What is it that you need? Are you like one of my questionable protagonists, shying away from the life you're meant to explore? It sure would be impossible to comprehend every last thread woven into the fabric of our personality, but does that mean we should never attempt to understand what makes us who we are? In a life bounded within the chains of time, finite, isn't it one of the best explorations we could go on? To go on an adventure exclusive to ourselves which might even answer the much larger-in-scale questions of free will, fate, purpose and belief?

At the end of every chapter, it is for you to judge. Forget everything you think you know about yourself. I need your judgement to be objective and free of any bias from the assumptions you might hold. I want you to discover who you truly are. And thus, I want to try and understand myself and what I'm hiding from.

So are you a good person, or are you trying to be? Is there any difference between the two? Or are you, after all, a bad person?

#####

1400 words, exact (: Hey everyone, um, lemme know what you think about the post! I know this one feels a bit distorted. I was unable to convert the post to exactly what I had in mind, so... And also, with the upcoming chapters, I'll try to be more general instead of being this specific, and try and present the underlying ideas in a better manner too (:

Also, check out Controlling Madness by @booklover_2020! It has this almost-dystopian world featuring a bunch of very intriguing characters with their own agendas, and everyone seems to hold so much depth! Action, mystery, family ties, secret agencies, military control, prison systems, insiders-- it has everything required for the making of a good thriller! Do check that out! Love y'all <3 <3