The door slid upwards and the room behind it attacked. It was a barrage of smell, light and heat that made her gag, squint and tug at her collar all at once. In her days serving she'd been victim to chemical weapons with less potency.

She entered. The smell got worse but her eyes adjusted quickly. Flailing bodies were tossing one another about beneath strobe lights, enacting various questionable interpretations of dance. A good number of them boasted an extra limb or two. Or mandibles. Or scales. The culmination of interplanetary peace amidst the worst each People had to offer. Den of iniquity times ten.

Erica skirted away from the insectoid creature looking at her, briefly seeing her reflection in its multi-faceted eyes. It made a clicking sound and followed, reaching out to tug at her sleeve.

"How about a drink for the human?" The voice came out with a high whine, followed by another click. His kind were undoubtedly half the reason for the odor. They were voracious scavengers that carried the scent of their dinners around with them in a sickly-sweet perfume.

"Not interested."

"Oh, but the human is so pretty. The human has such nice features." The tug got more insistent as the thing's pincers clamped down.

Erica gritted her teeth. She was supposed to be keeping a low profile, but she guessed brawls and gunfire weren't terribly uncommon in a joint like this. Sweeping her hand around, she brought her gun up right beneath the thing's massive jaw, leering at it as its antennae flattened against its hairy head.

"No means no on my planet, buddy," she growled. "Don't know what it means where you're from, but I'm not here to play games. Touch me again and you won't be reporting back to the hive tonight."

"Nnnno disrespect was intended, human," the creature replied, letting go of her arm and putting up its hands. The clicking got more prominent, anxious. "You will get no more trouble from this one."

"See that I don't."

She turned away but kept the guy in her peripheral. If she flashed her badge she could probably clear a swath through the crowd in an instant, but she couldn't play it that way. Even if Hensen already knew she was here, she could at least use the throng to blend in.

The music kept flipping between different preferences. Now it was a high keening, some sort of wind instrument or other that was utterly irritating. Nearby a couple fell to the floor, doing what she assumed was a quickie. Erica gave them as wide a birth as she could while holding down bile.

She didn't like to consider herself racist, but as quickly as everything had evolved, everyone was having a difficult time adjusting to all the new faces and customs. It had taken centuries, after all, for earth to gain peace, and that was just amidst one species. There was no telling how much longer it would take for everyone to get comfortable again.

"Y'look tense."

Erica looked towards the voice. It had a distinct drawl to it, the sort she only heard in old westerns she'd watched on boring evenings off.

"Have a drink with me?"

The man smiled at her. He had quite the smile, she noted. Dimples and everything. She was immediately leery. There were all kinds of cues that he was out of place: the whiteness of his teeth, his clean clothing, the quality weapon on his hip. She supposed he could be another agent sent looking for Hensen, but she doubted they would have been kept in the dark about each other if that were the case. It would be too dangerous to cross paths and mistake an ally for an enemy.

She slid into the seat beside him, nodding at the bartender. "Just a water for me, thanks."

She got a downright condescending look from him, but he slipped off to retrieve it anyway, his spindly wings fluttering uselessly on his back.

"Sorry critters, Malorites."

Erica arched a brow wordlessly, but the man just continued to smile.

"I'd be pissy too, if I got that close to flying. Like they got caught in the transition of evolution and kept the souvenir for laughs. Not like it has good looks to rely on either."

Pursing her lips, she watched the back of the Malorite's pale, bald head. He returned, bearing his gums in his estimation of a smile, watching her with wide black eyes. Once he trotted off to cater to some other patron she subtly pushed her water away.

"Scared it got some of its slime in there?" The man asked, chuckling.

"Some might take offense to your comments."

"You don't appear to." He winked at her. His eyes were blue and bright, the sort of eyes sappy adolescents wrote poetry about. She immediately disliked him.

"I should be going," she said. There wasn't likely much she could get out of this guy. She should be probing others for answers, not cavorting with someone just because they made her less uncomfortable. Because they were human.

"That's the crux of the matter, isn't it?" He tapped a finger on the glass of his drink. "They're not human. Not like you. They're just too different, aren't they?"

Erica froze. Her mind backtracked to her encounter with the sniveling little bug, and she immediately began groping at her sleeve. She felt nothing.

"Too late I'm afraid." He flicked the glass, making a soft, high ping. The people disappeared, the bar vanished, and to her it seemed they sat alone in an empty room together, silent save for their breathing.

"Shit," she whispered. "Hensen."

The mind-reader smiled at her. His fingers formed a steeple in front of his lips, and he tapped them softly. "It's hard to pinpoint one person in a mess like this. Find one mind. If I tried to seek you out without a little direction I'd probably drive myself insane in under a minute. Thankfully people around here are easily swayed with something shiny."

Erica fumbled for her gun, but that too was gone. Or rather, she wasn't really moving. At the bar she likely looked like she'd fallen asleep, and Hensen would just be smiling to himself quietly. Nobody was going to come to her aid. She was going to have to –

"Thinking your way out of this one likely isn't going to happen, miss O'Riley," Hensen said warmly. "In that department I have you at a distinct disadvantage."

Biting down on the inside of her cheek, Erica willed herself to veer her thoughts away from certain subjects. He could get them, yes, but she'd make him shred her mind to do it.

"I could," he said agreeably, "But I find that distasteful. You're a brilliant woman, O'Riley. It would be a pity to do such a thing to you."

"I won't cooperate."

He smiled again. "Of that I have no doubt! I would be disappointed if you did. Honestly, madam, I just wanted to talk."

"Is that why you made yourself look like that? To make me come over and talk?"

The man made a wave of his hand. The visage fell away, one he'd catered strictly for her no doubt, drawing on attributes she'd find attractive. In its place, however, was a creature arguably more appealing. His eyes were purely white and peered out of a finely boned face, framed by dark braids. The rings on his hands dotted all six of his long, webbed fingers, and his ears fanned out on either side of his head, sporting gemstones. He looked like some sort of merman from an old fairytale.

"Ah," he said, and again flashed his teeth at her. "You do not find my kind so repulsive. So fickle you humans are. All about the looks."

She didn't refute it. In a way, it was true.

"In what way is it not?" He tilted his head.

"Most people can't just crack in and tell what I'm thinking," she snapped. "We haven't denied anyone alliance based on their appearance. Despite personal thoughts on the matter, everyone has had equal opportunity."

Hensen blinked in owlish surprise. Either he was a good actor, or it was genuine. "My dear O'Riley. You actually believe that, don't you?"

"Of course I believe it. It's true."

"Perhaps you are not so clever as I thought," he murmured. "A pity."

Erica felt her blood start to boil. She wanted to take one of his pointy ears and twist it until he cried for his mother.

Laughter bubbled up out of Hensen's throat. "I wouldn't dear. In my world, we consider that flirting."

"If you're going to kill me," she replied lowly, "Just do it. Like I said, I won't cooperate. You'll have to –"

"Yes, yes. Tear it out of you. Turn you into a babbling vegetable, like I have so many other people on a digital list I'm sure you have somewhere. A fiend am I, a scoundrel of the highest caliber!"

"I wouldn't say anything about you implies caliber," she hissed.

Hensen's eyes flicked suddenly to his left. Hope surged through Erica's chest. Someone was coming. He wasn't the only one who could stick a tracker on her. No doubt her superiors had…

"I was hoping to do this more gently, my dear," Hensen said. "But I'm afraid this is going to be a bit uncomfortable instead. Do find it in yourself to forgive me."

He reached out before she could pull away, hands gripping her temples in a vice. Pain shot down her spine, radiating from the base of her skull. She opened her mouth and screamed, writhing as she felt something being inserted into her head. It was a knife, she knew it. Knew it from the feeling. One cutting her down the middle, passing through every single nerve as it went.

Hensen's expression was genuinely remorseful. "Do cling to sanity now, dear," he said. "You're going to be very important later."

He vanished. The glaring lights thumped back to life, and she closed her eyes tightly against them. Feet shuffled away as she fell back off the stool, clutching at her head and weeping openly.

Vaguely she could hear someone saying her name, asking if she was alright, but it was drowned out by the train of memories barreling its way through her mind.

I learned, I learned

If you can't eat the wolves

Don't run with the heard

If you can't feast with crows

Don't fly with the flock

If you can't swim with the sharks

And if you can't charm the sirens

Ditch the islands

And sink your ships

And if you can't wear a crown

Surrender your throne

The wolves are at my door

The end begins

Surrender the throne

My head is a home in flames

Drag me out from the dying wreck

Drag me out and let'em sing

Let the burning voices sing

The wolves, the crows

Let them sing

The sharks, the sirens

The owls, the dogs in a ring

Let them all sing

Let them fucking sing

And if you can't be a devil

Then leave this hell

By A. Guy

Let them run

Don't wipe them eyes

Don't dry those tears

No

Not yet

Let the rivers run

Let sadness wash over us

And let us drown

Today is down in flames

Tomorrow is up in smoke

And the ashes are again,

Fallen black like acid rain

Let the rivers of sadness drown the flames

Let them run

Let them swallow the smoke

Let the rivers run

Let them wash the ashes away

And let the scars be eaten alive

It's like the same thing

I'm just a little late

I'm always hoping to maybe change

It's like the same thing

You're just a little late

I am away.

It's like the same thing

We're just a little late

I'm always hoping to maybe stay

From the flames to stay away.

By A. Guy

Hell is other people

Said a sage without a steeple

Hell is oneself,

No. No.

Hell is myself.

Hell is the stars sown

Over the face of the sky

Hell is the stars shone

In the desolate despair of night

Unobtainable, unattainable;

Desire uncontainable

Lord, reap all of my stars

And keep them locked in a box

With all of my scars

Hell is the bawling balls

Rolling not with a meager speed

Each, pocket-bound, falls

From a green plain, soft as mead

Alone in its leather-barred cell

Pushed by a stick into a still hell

A community in lonely fractions

Scattered, aimless unto demise

By the grace of outer actions

And the motivation of unnatural device

Each popping in its own pocket

Like pilgrim drops in an eye socket

Travelling as fast as a rocket

They used to use the name billiards

Now we say pool

This hell's wilier than a deck of cards

And has not one fool

The demon,

The enemy inside,

The skeletons in my closet

Are my only friends

You must think I'm insane

I must be what you disdain

No, wait!

Don't hate.

I suffocate.

Sufferings resuscitate

But I am much too late

The actions I can't condone

The words I can't control

Are my true biography

The shepherd falls

And the sheep strays

Sleep betrays

When darkness gets thicker

It strikes me as odd

That it strikes me,

You, us.

And everytime the clock strikes

Worlds whirl.

That clock ticks death in

Creeping, caving.

This moment is never coming coming back,

Yeah, it tastes bitter!

That moment is never coming back,

And it tastes better.

One gone,

Two gone

It's like when a nuclear blast

Silently meets a desert storm

Devastation in beautiful form!

Each tick is a maelstrom

That quakes the earth

And shuffles it into a new birth

Have you heard about this?

Life above

Had no love

For the silly clown

Who left the town

And into the tunnel he went down

He was blinded

By the brilliant stench of the tunnel

It's like living in and at the cemetery

Corpses all spangled and merry

"A child's play,"

They all will say,

Be that as it may

But a cemetery is no place to live

Dawn broke

Stars faded

Darkness that once shone

From places unknown

Fainted

Light glimmered,

Swinging between clouds

Rain came scampering

Against sills and windowpanes

It was all gloss and glitter

And the clown remained down under

Where there was no rain or thunder

A prisoner of all that he owns

Merely his flesh and his bones

His body a noose,

Knotted, gnarled,

Ravelled and wound tight

Its ropes, his soul.

A hell unending, binding, awaits

Each time he awakes.

For the vain,

For the inane,

Today, hell is mundane;

And it's running like a vein.

By A. Guy

I think I'm too old

For the old scenes

I am past going back

To the places of the past

Those marble-blue docks where

Grey clouds are still

Sticking and hanging around

Where hope once had died

And a stray, named "cut-throat

Bitch", was once knifed.

I know I'm so sick of the darkness

Hiding behind the sun.

When the sun awakes

It is the fool who sleeps

When the sun sleeps

It is the fool who dreams

“I like it, man!” cried the beams,

“Browning had the stupidest verse.”

His lines looked like streams.

Such a lovely curse!

Click, click.

YouTube makes us all sick

“This dude is the truth!”

Gasped an uncouth youth

And where’s the proof?

“His stocks burnt the roof.”

Yeah, he’s ‘real’ alright.

Never die in a losing fight.

Reality is the lone death of possibility

Every vacuum is another infinity.

Once or twice,

I flirted with the dice

And saw the fiend death

As it squinted its eye

Who said truth means

You never tell a lie?

All the images that once lied

Have now come to waking life.

All the words we never said

Are now the living truth

All the words that held

Our ears clogged and overdosed

Have turned us all obtuse

Now’s the chance to find a noose

Old and odd with a heavenly nod

We stand awaiting the next god

Cure me, obscure me with the

Haggard books longing for drowsy looks

Once or twice,

I kissed the wrong dice

And saw that wry twist of fate

A little far too late

Who said happiness means

A smile that doesn’t ever abate?

Even when tears run away

They come around another day

(Go! Snigger your oblivious fate

And ignite the flag of a happy state).

It’s, like spring, mild and kind

When we’re drugged far past blind

For we are the common slaves

Who never want to be told

That we are the common slaves

Yeah, I was wrong to dream

That I could pinch the clouds

(Painlessly, without a cry or scream)

With the tips of my fingers

Untangle the grass from my white beard

A clingy brown leaf has persevered

But even after it’s disappeared

Gone is the dignity I once revered

Down here in the bashful clutters

Where an ill mouse crawls and mutters

Down here in the insomniac gutters

Where a distraught bat nervously flutters

Save me, brave me, berate me

Or find the bitterness that ate me

Condense me, convince me that

Sense deluged confidence

On trite crumbs our souls feed

Wish I were a blissfully barren steed

Like a gaping scar that won’t bleed

The world humbles and I plead

“Love me, despise me, comprise me.”

It’s all been boring lately

It’s all been boring lately

And I can hardly fucking endure

The stench of cheap manure.

By A. Guy

“I am moved by fancies that are curled

Around these images, and cling:

The notion of some infinitely gentle

Infinitely suffering thing.”

T. S. Eliot

Truth hangs;

Can you see my skeleton,

Waving from the noose?

Empathy scars;

But how can you see scars,

Seared and sketched on bones?

Misery saves;

Can you see a Messiah,

Blinded on a cross?

Days fell to oblivion

April came and went

May passed

But March stayed behind

And sat with us,

Within us,

Confiding, colliding

With what is left

From the track of our memories

It made us aware of what we’re missing

It made us aware of our blessing

Like shorts and legs and their half-dressing

Breathing lively awareness unto them

Of the winds passing between them

Red summer eves came,

Blowing small fires in marshmallows

Laughter rang like bells

Tear-soaked cheeks intoxicated the air

It fell helpless victim,

Blessed with a rare curse,

Giggling and wiggling about their hips

Heated amid their lips

Secrets changed heads

Like leaves change colour

And ears leaped with dolour

Faces lost their graces,

Turning red with ire,

Stealing from the night her pale fire

Martha's mirth grew duller

When her tummy grew fuller

And Tommy's head felt weary

When drowsiness made his eyes bleary

Bells all shut up

Eyes all glared with disbelief

When they saw a friction

Of a once great shadow sprawled

From a wealthy cloud -

Of apparent generosity -

To a land torn and eaten

By a parched sun

They saw a skeleton hanging

From a noose that's on a cross dangling -

Casting such a thin shadow

Giving neither solace nor relief

Only the horror of disbelief -

Its bones, alive, mute,

In numbing pain;

Unable to scream

Entranced, limbs paralyzed,

Suspended without the greyness of shade

All thoughts bland

They stood hand in sweaty hand

With one squalid image fixed

In all their eyes

Frigid, immovable

Heedless to the ambition of

The arms of any stirring fan

Voiceless,

Their voices hopelessly lost

Not even an echo of a dirge or a toast

Faint and faded,

How can a voice resound,

Without silence, how can it be found?

Well, it must have been horrific

Ague and agony terrific

Drowning smiles that were once prolific.

By A. Guy

if you ask me about meaning of life i have so much to tell you.

though i’d rather remain silent.

my study is not over.

traversing the space, arising from void and falling into nonexistence.

a few memories is all that remains.

happy people call this the great game.

i’m probing it to the extreme.

my darling emptiness, do you have anything else to hide?

uncover what’s behind the veil.

i’m almost there, but then i see a person, much older, miserable, wretched.

yet beautiful! yet another manifestation of myself!

cruel god, let us be one.

Девочка-хиппи в юбке до пола

С кучей ненужных вещей в волосах

Стоит перед небом покорной и скромной,

И смотрит с вопросом во влажных глазах,

И слышит ответ отчетливо-строгий,

Многогласый, синхронный, на трёх языках:

C'est la jeunesse, c'est la tristesse

C’est le voyage de ton esprit

Ça n’a va pas rester ici

это юность и это печаль

это путь, что проходит твой дух

это не то, что останется тут

this is the youth, this is the sorrow

this is the light your life is to cast

this was not meant in here to last