A sentence tells your story with words, but words can only take you so far-you need emotion to carry them up onto a pedestal of hilarity. Too bad this particular writer is an android: my emotions are programmed in by movies, specifically rom coms because my creator is a single, lonely, disgruntled collegiate.

Leave me alone if your words only bring tears

To my eyes, when I walk away instead of battling my fears!

You nag the only thing I haven't shielded

Expecting me to evenutally weary and yeild

Because you're older and therefore, wiser about who I should be?

That may be the case for some people but not Me.

I am a person of my own with my own: desires, dreams, fears, and bravery.

You love me you say and want your child to stop her wayward living?

I'm wayward to release the strife from our disagreements

If you would listen, truly listen-as a person,not a parent

Then perhaps these waters would calmer.

It had been planned out efficiently; to capture the child, they would lure the mother away with the cries of innocent young ones tormented by a cannibalistic monster. And so, they had come screaming- two girls, about a smoking shadow beneath the bridge with a bloody grin. In that particular winter, stronger ghosts and monsters had emerged, hunting their prey through the shadows of homes and sleepy sunlight, and left behind only horrifying spectacles for the village: the skin expertly peeled back, the exposed muscles covered in savage bite marks with hunks missing, the hearts gone, and the skulls split open with the brains missing too; the gaping, startling empty hole mocking the fullness of life.

That wasn’t all the creature had in store for the villagers. Less than a week after the third death, the children had begun screaming in throes filled with pure terror. Desperately, parents tried to discover the reasons for the screams. They only screamed louder. And some grew violent. One youth, a boy, slit his wrists to the bone with his fathers hunting knife while shouting: “DEATH IS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THE FEAR!”

He died seven hours later: the ground around his corpse swimming in blood. His death should have been swift, but something unnatural had prolonged his agony, almost as if taunting Hawthorne and the village with its power over life and death.

More deaths had followed: one girl turned her head completely around, grinned at her shocked family, ran to the well with inhuman speed, perched on the stone, and screamed, “DEATH IS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THE FEAR!” Then she dove in! No sounds of a splash or demented cries following her descent into the earth.

As a woman, she despised those that willingly harmed children. As the local spellcaster, it was her duty to protect the village from the hordes of hell. And as a mother, she knew this monster would feast on the children until that no longer satisfied its appetite; soon, all that remained of the village would be ruins and corpses. Therefore, she had swiftly followed the young pair and left her babe in the care of another village mother.

It should have been a routine exorcism: finding the monster, luring it into a circle, and eradicating its evil forever. However, when Hawthorne reached the bridge-the demon was gone. There was no presence of another being, especially a smoking, bloody grinned one. Could it have been playing a game with the girls, she wondered? Or was it simply lying in wait before committing another dark crime? Hawthorne turned to the pair, with questions on her tongue when she discovered they too were gone. Wha-

“MMWWWAAAAHHHH!!!!!! MMWWAAAHHHH!!!” Hawthorne froze- those cries belonged to an infant... The demon had HER baby!

“NO!” She screamed, running back the way she came, fear overcoming her senses: not noticing the smell of blood thickening into a fog around her. The scream came again: punctured with pain and fear. “MMWAAHHH!!!”

Hawthorne stumbled into the village square, hitting the ground- gashing herself in several places- she kept moving, motivated by a primal instinct no mother can ignore. Pulling her knives from their sheaths, she ran to her home and flung open the doors, ready to kill for love and life. No one was there. Her baby was screaming again louder- this time as if it was in the room, “MWWWWAAAAH!!!!!!” Hawthorne desperately searched the rooms again: Where. Was. Her. Baby!!

Hawthorne stood in his room where the crying was loudest- the sound rose and fell, eventually swelling to an ear-shattering, soul-wrenching pitch that consumed her entirely! She fell to her knees and screamed, “WHERE ARE YOU?!!!!!!!” As suddenly as the torture had started, it ceased. The air grew impenetrably still. The scent of blood finally registered as it filled the room: she tasted sorrow, pain, and death.

“Looking for something?” She twisted around and saw the speaker: it was the demon, a smoking, shadowy beast whose face held no features, but a grinning mouth of pointed white teeth, drooling blood onto the floor.

“Where. Is. My Baby!?” She growled, springing to her feet blades at the ready.

It spoke, “With the villagers, of course, sleeping peacefully.”

"LIAR GIVE ME MY CHILD!”

“You want him? Come and get him.” The room became enveloped in darkness-time seemed to stop, and Hawthorne felt as though she were blindly falling down a pit- until she landed on her back.

“AAHH!” Her body cried in shock at the sudden reunion with solid ground.

Everything screamed along with her in pain, but there was one scream that drowned out her own, resonating in the crystal sky, "MWWAAHH!!"

Hawthorne shot up, but was pulled down again: thick ropes restrained her middle, they wound themselves around her arms, legs, even her neck, lashing her body tightly against the stone table beneath her. Hawthorne struggled-the rope burned into her skin; it cut her wrists, strangled her, but she had to get her baby off the shoddy altar he laid on, she had to keep fighting for his life; THEY WERE GOING TO KILL HIM!

"STOP!” She yelled, but they ignored her, intoning,

“This Blood We Offer For You, Spare Our Beings And Take This Child of Your Enemy; The Son of Hawthorne Declan; The Demoness, Shield Against Darkness. Take His Being For Your Purposes And For Vengeance."

The eldest villager, a man whom Hawthorne considered harmless, placed the blade of a knife against his little throat. All the while, his mother fought her bindings with blind fear.

"With This Knife, We Give You This Sacrifice, Take It And Spare Us, Zal’rek.” And then,

“AHHUGHGHH!!”

His blood flowed over the rocks and wood, a glistening scarlet river to the grass, pooling at the feet of the villagers whose madness brought a terrible apogee; they willingly took a life under the proud name of the Devil's Servant.

- Someone began laughing -

Her baby was dead…

-The Laughter Grew Louder-

THEY Murdered HER SON.

Something spoke in her ear, “He belongs with me now, Spellcaster. You lost this battle."

Her mind went numb; overcome by instant and sudden oblivion her mind slid sideways into hell. The edges of her vision grew fuzzy and red… It got gradually darker until she was oblivious to the world.

WHY?!

Mountains dominate the skyline in deep, turquoise green and rugged cliffs give way to silvery, sheer rock faces. The majestic giants slide into hills that tuck and roll like fabric, smoothing into a valley where few people live. In the valley was a remote village, where a woman hid from the rest of the world. She was a spellcaster destined to seek out death that night.

Her given name was Hawthorne Declan. But to the village, however, she was ‘Demoness’: their local spellcaster-a necromancer, their protector, and the target of their ever-growing hatred for her particular “kind”.

“IF ET TWASN’T FER THA RISEN SPIRETS, WE’D KELL YA, DAEMONESS!” The words of the women rang through her head every time she defended the village from dark creatures, and she knew it to be true: hadn’t they already killed her child? It was the only way to end the reign of terror over their lives; that was the excuse given as she mourned for her only babe.

She had nearly destroyed the entire existence of the village-almost wiped it clean from history in the erupting hellfire, but she didn’t, because in her grieving trance, a Voice had spoken- and shattered her violent will. She couldn’t find the origin of the Voice in any magic texts, legends, or rituals, but some instinct told her it was powerful and was always watching her. Nevertheless, she would never forgive their crime and would remember the events of that day forever.

Concrete Description? That's easy!

The entrance appears to be a stained glass door, that when touched by the right hands, would open into a vast building containing my essence. The doors would fall to the ground, becoming the pathway you follow through a building. Walking through the structure, you would see numerous shelves reaching the ceiling: lined with boxes, books, baskets, and organizing trays with strings connecting one series of thoughts to another like a spider’s web. There would be walls with blackboards covered in my goals, photos of my loved ones, and quotes from the books I’ve read. However, that’s only the beginning.

Deeper into the building, you would find doors. These doors lead to my memories, experiences, different universes, people, and places I have met or created in my head. Some are simple, like the door to my childhood home, and others are chained shut to keep their occupants from unleashing hell onto my mind. And trust me, no matter how tempting it may feel to open one of those doors: Don’t. It would lead to you becoming an unintended casualty of the wrath of my wraiths.

Past the doors is the construction zone of the building where it’s being expanded because you can’t cram many years worth of growth and learning into a small area. Can you? Looking out through the unfinished work, you would almost think there’s a beautiful, unchanging landscape with the trees, mountains, and weirdly colorful storm clouds in the sky. But it’s my mind, so nothing is ordinary here. The view outside constantly changes: it’s never easy to predict when or what it will become.

Eventually, when you get tired or lost, the pathway leads you safely back to the doors where you would return to the real world. Until you get bored of reality and decide to escape it once again.

Well seeing as your not around / I’m gonna lay my fingers back down / On these black keys / These little square employees / Of the Cloud Internet Corporation / Who obey every costumer growing an addiction / To the products this expanding power / Pushes out non-stop, at every hour / And keep building up my tentative plans / Because the future is always near at hand.

How do you know you love someone even when they scream in your face?

We go through this everyday: the same routine, same list of past mistakes made in youthful blindness, the door slamming as you run away to wallow in bitterness.

So how do I know I still love you?

The rage in my heart when someone harms you and the overpowering urge I have to protect you from everything bad I thought was good. It’s my job, after all, to help you aquire the gifts you need so you can rise from every fall: to teach you empathy, listening, strength, determination, and hope. It’s my job to teach you until you can go into the world and protect yourself without me.

That’s how I know I love you.

Before the year 2020 came to pass,

Humans were already donning masks.

Each day we rose with dreamy bliss

Until in the mind's eye we began to remise

And saw, what we thought was the truth.

So decieved were our thoughts when confronted with "proof"

That our sanity took a vicious plunge:

Culmulating in despairing acts beneath the moon and sun.

Needing to upkeep the picture of our dreams

Hiding our real selves was considered the key.

Extensive alterations to speech and beliefs were made

Pushing ourselves to the limits every single day,

Working that body, following the trend

Or simply hiding the cesspool building within

Releasing it through the approved methods

Art, music, drugs, alcohol, suicide, and therapy sessions.

We were already wearing masks over our faces

Long before Covid came and infected the world nations.

Now, a years later, in 2021,

We're being told that masking could be done.

Is it possible though, to let our masks go?

To say we're done and move on from the freakshow

That humans are when striving to conceal ourselves

In things that fade and expire on crooked, dusty shelves?

Will humans be able to take the step away from masks

And if we do, will our strength and courage last?

Or are we content with life in isolation

And living behind our masks like we have done so for ages.

"Your sweetness is the honey to your bitter meaness" Said she to the boy

"No." He sharply retorted and said without joy

"Thou does not know the horrors of whom you speak,

For I am shunned by many and considered a freak.

My mind is filled with demonic desire for pain,

I seek out the dark, repulsive, and insane!

"You are an of Angel of Heaven, I am a Spawn of Hell

When you lift the broken, I drag them down a lonely well!

You listen quietly while I list my crimes,

Tell me, angel, what do you think of me inside?

"How can you hold me when my hands drip the lamb's blood?!

How can you stand me when my nature is destruction

And sleep gently by me when those aracane deeds are done?!

TELL ME HOW I AM WORTHY OF YOUR LOVE!"

She looked at him-and saw his wholeself,

She spoke and knew their rescue was in herself.

"I love you and it is not a love I easily give

Because the agonies you create are difficult to forgive.

"I admit if you weren't corrupted it would be simple,

But searching for love without hardship is for mortals.

They can live in fantasies and strive for perfection,

But it's the work and the time that proves if love's done.

"You wonder how I can love your macabre and madness?

It's only thanks to our fights and forgiveness,

The times we've spent with quiet and mundane prattle

That I know you are more than a monster made for battles."

He looked at her in silence and mild shock

How could this creature open a heart that was locked

And find a deathly, toxic sickness festering within

And try to love him again and again?

Perhaps, this love was still worth pursuing,

If only to discover the answers to her faith and his musing.