As I lay bloodied in the soil, there were only two sounds that my ears could make out.

They didn't come from my surroundings, from anywhere external. Inside my brain, the noises were stored. Then passed through whatever path memories took to reach the present. And here, I heard them as loud as if they were around me again. As if they were screamed from a raw throat.

Two sounds: the tightness of a taut rope--and bones shattering into pieces as they tore through flesh. Again. Back-and-forth melodies of a never-ending song.

Any songs I'd heard in my two years within the swallowing cove of Wirnalor told stories. And were punishable by twelve lashings with the thorned whip. Same for dancing, not that most were up for that sort of lark. I thought those things--expression--were beautiful at one point.

I curled into myself further. Felt the realness of the bark digging into reopened wounds. The wet soil that I lay my palm over and squeeze into, shove my fingernails into. This was earth. Not the rough gravel, trodded dirt, or littered sands of the cove--the Hook, we called it, both for the land's curving shape and the small fact that no one had ever escaped before, as snared as the fish devoured by the wide mouths of our nets. But I wasn't there anymore. It was here I breathed. Here I blinked. Here my heart still raced. Alive.

I was alive outside of the iron palisades.

The only slave known to ever get out. Alive. Here. Breathing.

All because others were dead.

The irony was not lost on me, yet death was no stranger. I used to carve the names of those I'd killed into the wood of my bed frame in the House, before I was sentenced. I didn't want to feel less grief over time. I didn't want to feel unburdened by the lives I'd taken. But then I'd run out of space. I no longer knew the number, nor all of the names. Faces were blurred, the reasons for their demise blurrier. It was difficult to keep track of the souls you'd nabbed when you were so busy keeping an eye on your own.

Then there were the other deaths. The ones before and after Krudo took me in. The ones I'd seen throughout my imprisonment in Wirnalor. How many? The god of the dead loved me like his daughter, Krudo told me growing up. Said I was his favorite dispatch and preferred to study and employ me rather than bless me with his tender kiss. I'd come to agree, since it was the only plausible explanation for the nearness that I managed to attract Death's touch without ever knowing its softness.

My cheek grew damp against the forest's soil as I used my index finger to draw a figure resembling a man with his head sliced clean off. It was an accurate enough representation, although that one that'd I'd killed was only partially decapitated. I thought of blood dripping off the docks and into the ocean, a growing stain in the water that would be washed away by time. Were their bodies already collected? Would they take them away or burn them in the pits like they do the laborers?

Fruitless questions. A filling like cakes and breads to distract my mind from thinking about the one death that truly broke me. The death that had forced all of this, that unleashed the Beast I'd worked so hard to restrain. The death of one of the greatest friends I'd ever made.

My chest ached, and my muscles tensed. I slammed a fist into the ground, destroying my little artistic project and spraying moist, black dirt into the air. There was now a small crater where the Wirnalor guard's shoulders and torso should've been. Admittedly, it was a much more on-the-dum rendition of the poor jek than before.

I ignored the pained sound I made and rolled onto my back, immediately wincing and arching away from the ground. It had taken me slamming my skull against the tree hard enough to slip into immediate darkness to choke the Beast back into her cage. When I'd awoken minutes ago, I was relieved to realize it had worked, marked by the loss of red-tinted vision and hyperawareness of every living creature nearby.

I stared into the grey skies as the late summer stuck to my face. At least that remained the same: the clouds held a grudge against the sun and the humid heat wrapped its legs around your skin like a consumed lover. With everything else that had changed, it wouldn't have been surprising to look up and see the gusting sands where the open air should've been.

What was I to do?

I swallowed thickly despite the cracked dryness of my lips and tongue. Blood still coated the taste. Again, Dreyat flitted through my thoughts, her grey tattered skirts as bright as ever as she walked past. Her hair was an untamable shade of red, pin straight and as long and flowing as a river bend all the way to her thighs. It didn't matter how many times they'd made her cut it; it grew right back within weeks. A smile that could only be composed of mischief and courage. Eyes a blue so rich with life that they could water an entire desert village in Varrin. Those eyes would never be such a blue again. I'd watched them dull myself as her body swayed from a taut rope above the waves. And hels, even then, the color of an ocean brimming with force and power paled in comparison to her hue.

Dreyat was too loud for Wirnalor's gag. And she would never see all of this because of it. Never touch soil so promising or a forest so dense. She was born in Wirnalor. Raised there like most slaves were. She'd clung to my stories of the world I'd seen like it was her reason to breathe--clung to my promises to show it all to her one day even tighter. It was why she'd finally broken, why she'd stolen a boat, why she'd come for me in the middle of sleep with a shaking, fearful, believing, excited hand.

Another failure. Another death I'd forever bear the blame for.

Tears burned like fire, but I didn't let them fall. I didn't want to wipe them from my face, lest I touch the dried blood covering my cheeks. I didn't know if it was mine, or a guard's, or Dreyat's. The scents were too intermingled.

Again, the two sounds rang in my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and fisted the soil in my left hand, a patch of moss in my other. More sounds reintroduced themselves, having been late to the reunion.

Foaming waves crashing against thick dock posts. Those same floating docks clacking against each other as the rough water pushed. A willful, loud voice saying she loves me as hands rustle about to fasten a noose. Then reciting the words of a forbidden poem about the forgotten. My own voice screaming--my own body scrapping and scratching and kicking against armor and sand and hands. A wooden platform slamming open. A body rushing through air. A neck snapping. Lungs fighting.

The most catastrophic, unnatural, deafening, painful silence I'd ever heard.

Even the waves had paused. The wind. No one moved. I could only stare.

But then, Dreyat's mother had shrieked.

It was the only thing that penetrated the stillness. It was the sound of rage and grief and disbelief. It was the sound that had my Beast splitting open a dust-covered eye and rising to her height. It wasn't Dreyat's neck breaking or the sound of her fighting to breathe. It wasn't the dreadful silence that followed. It was the screeching laments of a childless mother that the Beast could not endure.

And for the first time in fifteen years, my eyes turned red.

I didn't take them off of Dreyat.

I'd solidified the blood moving through the two guards holding me back first. They'd dropped soundlessly within seconds. As I began slowly walking toward my friend, more soldiers took notice. Some wore looks of confusion as they approached, trying to figure out what they were seeing with hesitant hands on their sword handles. I looked directly at each of them as my previous notions of mercy, restraint, and some ridiculous, basic understanding that they were just doing what they were told slipped away. The fear when they took in my face--the blood-red, glowing eyes--was not enough. They didn't know fear in their cozy brick buildings above us, built into cliff sides heated by hearths in the winter and cooled by rock in the summer, warm meals in their bellies every night. While our people starved and worked and broke and died. Every. Single. Day.

Screams from the other slaves were heard only after I'd forced a guard wearing basic Narun armor to take his own blade and saw his neck off with it, right where the protection of his plate ended. He'd screamed until he'd reached the voice-producing bits of his anatomy. Couldn't quite get through the beheading before he'd fallen.

The crowd dispersed in different directions, screaming of dark magic and heresy. But only one word, proud and unforgiving while the Beast was out, rang through my veins.

Djeirh.

How many times had I heard others speak of my people as if we were nothing more than figment? As far as I knew, there were no other bloodweavers left, yes. But were they all so daft that they believed such foundational magic fiction? Who did they think built their armies, invented their herbatives? We were extinct, not myth.

When the Beast was out, she was arrogant. Brash. Vicious and without forethought of consequences. Completely opposite of my nature. Worst of all, once she was out, she was nearly impossible to pull back in until Crash. Besides the looming threat of being potentially executed or sent somewhere worse than Wirnalor, that was why I'd kept her locked up. She was uncontrollable.

I only took my eyes away from Dreyat to find the ones who had performed the execution. And once I did, there was no where they could go.

I only needed to be within range.

Two had done it: one to tie her wrists behind her, another to tighten the noose. I hadn't noticed which one had pulled the lever. It didn't matter. They'd suffer the same.

Distantly, beyond the crazed laughing of my Beast and her incessant demand for more death and violence and vengeance, I felt Lianet, Dreyat's mother, watching me closely. Sand and water sprayed as people fled, and more men with blades clanked toward me uselessly. Her wide eyes were on me as she knelt in the clumpy beach; it had rained in the night when Dreyat came to run away with me, making the cove rancid and sweltering. The soles of my feet crushed matted, clustered sand as Lianet gazed on, empty.

She did not fear me. She did not curse my name neither as heretic or murderer. She only stared, shivering, knuckles white as she gripped her skirts like they were the only thing keeping her tethered. Never had I seen the woman without a sure face until now.

It wasn't natural. Right. Fair.

Admittedly, I wasn't natural either at the moment.

That was the thing about Beastie: she took over. When the bloodweaving was on, when I could hear and smell and feel the life force of others around me, it engaged something primal and detained my autonomy. My laugh was manic when I saw the terror on the two killers' faces. One froze, unable to look away, and the other tried to run.

Too late.

I tilted my head. Internally, I watched myself, numb, not caring how little control I had. I looked more animal or creature than human. But I was human--half, at least--on my mother's side. It wasn't really evident at the moment.

The man was sprinting. Running for his life. No fight. No magic. None of the Wirnalor guards had magic, aside from a few of the fae commanders. I supposed the crown didn't consider it necessary to use it against an already broken people.

I splayed my fingers gently at my side with my right hand, and the coward stopped running. Both were now trapped in their own bodies, incapable of moving on their own. The white-haired one--the one who'd fled--began to beg. My smile dropped, and I clenched my fist to swell the blood to his throat until he couldn't speak. Or breathe. I ensured the oxygen within him still circulated where it needed to go to keep him alive while he endlessly suffocated.

I walked until I was on the platform, taking the stairs carefully. Sounds of choking and screaming and scuffling became muffled as I looked to Dreyat gently drifting in the air, her red hair a flag flown at mast to mark her torturous death.

I didn't look away from her. Couldn't. Even the Beast didn't laugh.

We'd been caught. It was that simple. She'd woken me, whispering frantically in the thickest accent I'd ever heard her use; it always was strongest when she was most emotional. I'd hardly understood what she was saying--had to grab her face with my two blackened hands and make her stop for a moment.

I'd tried to tell her no. That it was a bad idea. But then she'd been crying, begging me to come. Her mother and brother, Deltry, were already on the boat. That's what had done it for me. They'd never make it alone, and the damage had already been done.

I went.

By the time we got there and started to untie from the dock, guards were everywhere. Others woke. Watched silently as we did our best to fight and escape. Mourning for what was to come. But our bodies were too frail. Malnutrition and unending labor did that to a person.

They whipped us first. Forty each, ten for every slave that'd tried to get away. They did it while we were still on the water, right within reach of freedom, never to brush its cheek.

Then Deltry had found a piece of strength when he was on his knees, forced to watch his twin take the whip. His back bled heavily as he managed to steal a sheathed weapon and cut a guard's throat.

It did nothing.

They drowned him over the side.

I could still hear Dreyat's piercing keening. It was somehow worse than Lianet's.

"How does it feel?" I asked calmly, listening to the choking and the brown-haired man's terrified whimpers. My voice was irreversibly shredded, and the question came out hoarse. I'd never screamed so loud, so much.

I could feel him trying to fight the bloodweaving, nothing more than a trapped mouse for my Beast to toy with. Other guards raced up the platform. I absentmindedly flung my magic out to them in spurts, swelling necks so spines broke through the skin, bursting capillaries in the lungs, and stopping flow to hearts. Humans were simple to kill. Weak. I didn't like that they were--how little they drained me. I knew I didn't have much time before the commanders arrived, though. They'd be a different story. They'd kill me one-on-many, not that I cared. The only reason I'd chosen to live was for Dreyat. And Mell, but he was back home, and I'd never see that place again.

He'd move on.

Fae blood--that which flowed through the commanders--was different. More difficult. Required more control than the Beast allowed. And I'd never killed one with bloodweaving before.

It didn't matter, as long as these ones--these worthless men--got what they deserved.

"P-Please," the one who could still speak begged, tears streaming down his ruddy cheeks. "We're sorry. I'm sorry!"

I hummed thoughtfully, staring at the bottom of Dreyat's feet. They were covered in heat blisters from the sands, splinters from the docks where we worked to haul in boats and fish every day, bruises from beatings with the stick if we ever failed quota or performed with any minor fault. And now, they were bloodied. From trying to run. From the whip's ravines spilling her life down her back.

"You really will be," I said quietly. The man wailed.

I glanced to Lianet. She remained the same. But now, she nodded. Only shallowly, only once. But I saw it. It was enough.

Behind me, another guard tried to sneak up. I could feel him. I seized his body and forced him to drop his dagger, commanded him to walk over. His face contorted as he uselessly struggled and obeyed. Not older than ten and seven years.

"Take her down gently," I said, twisting my wrist.

The young guard was awkwardly forced toward the pulley, but he got there. Complied as he pulled her down. Removed her noose and restraints. When he was finished, I pinched a blood vessel in his neck; he blacked out instantly. Not quite dead. My strength was beginning to waver, but the Beast wanted so much more. She wanted him obliterated, as all of them should be. But with the magic beginning to deplete, I had enough control to keep the jek from death. Maybe he deserved death. Maybe he'd be raised to become a killer like the rest. But he was young.

I walked over to Dreyat's body, which now lay as if she were just on a cot. Sleeping. As she should've been this whole time.

It wasn't right that her colors seemed so muted.

I bent down. The tears were silent and hot and red--blood. I reached down to close those blue eyes forever. Gently pressed a trembling kiss to the crown of her perfect head. Scooped her into my arms on weak legs. I shouldn't have been able to support even myself, but I managed to keep my grip on her two slaughterers and held onto her tightly as I descended the platform and approached Lianet.

She broke finally, the shocked width of her eyes shuttering as she held out her arms for her daughter. Her baby. She didn't get to hold Deltry; they'd tied a boulder to him and let the ocean have him.

She sobbed as I lowered Dreyat into her embrace, rocking her and brushing her wild mane out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. I imagined it must've looked like it did when she was born here in the sands. Like the first time her mother rocked her to sleep.

I gave one last look to my friend, to the person who dreamt higher than anyone I'd ever met, and turned back around. To the men who ensured she'd never sow those dreams to fruition.

And boiled them.

Blood heats slowly to prevent, well, overheating. It takes enormous amounts of energy to reach bubbling.

I poured all of my magic into it.

For two minutes and seven seconds, the one who'd bound her hands screamed and screamed, unable to move, until he drowned in his own fiery blood rising into his throat. For two minutes and eleven seconds, the one who'd tied her noose looked at me with wide, bloodshot eyes as he struggled to breathe, unable to voice his pain, until he suffered the same fate. I let it burn them inside out, melting their flesh and skin. By the end, they were no more than mash and blood, and I was covered in all sorts of it all. An artist's stone now lathered in a new-age art.

With the sudden release on the intense use of my abilities, I stumbled, pressing a palm to my head. The world was tipping, but the red haze remained. I needed to Crash. Or die.

Preferably die.

But when I turned to leave the platform, to face whatever magic was sure to end my life, no standing guard or slave dared move. I flexed my fingers in confusion; I wasn't controlling anyone anymore.

My breathing was heavy, head pounding. Still, my pulse was not nearly as quick as the onlookers.' I placed my sticky hand onto my chest to settle the bloodlust. The Beast, regardless of my impending exhaustion, screamed fuck-all. If she could, she'd kill every guard and every innocent bystander. It was Djeirh nature at our basest, primitive foundation. But I wasn't an animal. I wouldn't allow that sort of lark.

That's when I felt it. A light weight in my blouse pocket, right beneath where my stained palm rested.

I stuck my fingers into the hole and pulled out a brown, water-stained piece of parchment. The ink was streaked. Like it hadn't been given time to dry.

When I saw Dreyat's writing, my throat closed. I'd taught her to read and write. I'd also taught her sleight of hand.

The letters were jerky and messy. Beautiful.

More bloody tears slipped out, tainting her last gift to me as they splashed onto the paper.

Amra,

Live. Do not stay and breathe. Do not take the coward's way. Live.

This world you glabber on about can't handle yer grace and resilience. If we don't see it together, at least see it fer me. I'd love to witness its outrage when you return.

Leave a piece of me on one of those green mountain hills yer always excited about, hear?

- Drey

My body shook. My breaths broke.

A few guards were slowly creeping back in now, risking another chance at my head. I didn't sense any fae yet, but I wasn't trusting my sense anymore with how drained I was.

I shoved the note back into my pocket and eyed the only entrance through the palisade gate.

Live.

I didn't know if Mell was still around. If Krudo would accept a wanted escapee into the guild again. If Siran, my beloved wolf, was still in Naru--still even alive.

But Dreyat.

Dreyat wanted me to live. To chance at seeing it again. With her.

My chest cleaved. I faced where Lianet was, but she was gone, as was her daughter's body, likely off to bury her despite its forbidden tradition.

I clenched my fists and screamed, sending a surge of power outward--toward every source of life I could feel within range. People screamed as they fell, and I raced through them. Guards--many, many more now--shouted and hurried to their feet as I went, but I was quick to fling out a hand, using their blood to sway them away or into the ground as best as I could. I wouldn't be able to fight them all now, human or nilt.

Tears blurred my vision, but I pushed. Pumped my arms. Shoved my legs into the ground. Pulsed my magic around me to remain unobstructed.

An entire mile.

An entire mile directly up the cliff-face, to the only entrance or exit that wasn't on a boat. The switchbacks made it difficult, and more guards flooded down, trying to trap me between them and others chasing behind me.

With no other choice, I allowed the Beast complete control over my broken and battered body once more. I gave her the ability to drive me, to steer me out of Wirnalor.

She flung bodies off the cliff like they were nothing. Still no fae commanders arrived.

When we got to the gates, she enslaved the guards at the watchtowers to open them, then stopped their hearts for good.

None of the other slaves, who were now roaring, cheering at the opportunity, could escape before they were beaten back and the gates were closed once more. Their hopeful, fleeing numbers were the only thing preventing all of Wirnalor's forces from hunting me into the wilds. Very few actually attempted running up the switchbacks as I did, but it was enough that the guards were forced to abandon a single escaping slave in favor of keeping several. Guilt feasted upon my belly. Over my shoulder, I watched one of them have their head beaten open just before the gates shut.

Mounted guards gave chase on horses. Twelve men, twelve equine. The Beast forced the animals into sleep mid-gallop and made the thrown soldiers' hearts beat so fast that they exploded in their chests. I heard each one happen within the confines of ribs.

And then...

And then there was nothing.

I stopped for a moment, only hearing my rabid breathing and the distant shouting and clamor beyond the bordered cove.

The lack of crashing waves, sounds of shouting about boats' arrivals and departures, fish being cleaned, whips, and general misery was jarring. The quiet was too much. I could hear myself, my blood, my Beast, too loudly.

I ran.

And ran. And ran. And ran.

I wasn't sure how far away I was from Wirnalor when I stopped and slammed my head into the tree after failing to wrestle control away from the Beast. I didn't care.

I just wanted the noises to stop.

The following excerpt is from "The Djeirh War" in A Glimpse of Byrian History, recorded in 1957 P.D by the royal scribe of King Lucien Crauft of Naru, first of his name. For authenticity, the tome was originally notarized, attested, certified, and acknowledged by His Majesty Sorden Crauft III of Galdur, Ruler of the Minded, and Great Descendent of the Savior of the Burned. The text has since been translated and redacted for simplicity and accuracy, as well as updated on the current events of the century regarding the well-being of Byria. These documents shall never leave the premises of the Narun royal library, secured and safely stored against weathering, separate from the common literature.

It was King Lucien Crauft of Naru in 1897 B.D who declared civil war on the Djeirh people both in retaliation and with the objective of purging dark magic from Byria. Most scholars and citizens alike believed this act was most likely spurred by the death of the king's late son, who had met his untimely death defending a small training outpost in the eastern wilds of the kingdom. It was reported the night before the declaration that a bloodweaver had seized the heir's body before taking his life.

This was the first time a Djeirh had been known to have killed a royal. His Highness, Vernon Crauft, had bore the magic of a mindweaver, the rarest of all natural-born abilities, but he had not yet grown into mastery at the time of his murder. King Crauft was considered fast-paced by the masses, who were known at the time to adore the Djeirh and their dedication to being the greatest healers and soldiers in history. Indeed, the bloodweavers' contributions to the health and safety of Byria were notable. Many thought King Crauft's decision to wage war to be rash, driven by grief.

It wasn't until 1903 B.D, six years into the Djeirh War, that the majority of fae, humans, and other races across Byria began to passionately side with the crown. During this period, there were many massacres of men, women, and children throughout each kingdom, many of whom were not involved in militant responsibilities or battle. While the Djeirh were not a densely populated people due to their well-known infertility, they remained numbered enough to take control of the war for the first 30 years. In fact, it was not until The Great Seven, the final 7 years of the effort, that the tide turned in favor of Byria.

Drumal was the innovative answer that the continent had been searching for. There had been rumors of a crowned ruler that the Djeirh had been following for the better part of the last three decades, which naturally concerned the seven kings of Byria. It was King Lucien Crauft who'd tasked himself and a large team of scholars and soldiers to discover a weakness in the bloodweavers. A captured enemy was extracted of critical information that ultimately led to the destruction of the Djeirh armies and bloodline; this information was the leveling concoction, drumal, that is extremely well-known today as one of--if not the most--rare intoxicant in alchemic history. While no one outside of a few royal select know how to create the oral mixture thanks to its devastating biological effects in the war, its impact in the success of victory is renowned across Byria.

With whatever temporary, makeshift royalty the Djeirh had followed into battle eradicated, the organization of their armies quickly fell, and it took less than a third of the time to take down bloodweaver forces than it took for them to start the bloodshed. By 1934 B.D, the war was over, and left behind were the captured Djeirh--along with millions of Byrian soldiers and citizens dead and a broken foundation to rebuild off of. The death of the land's mothers, fathers, and children could not be remedied, but there were solutions crafted after much discussion between kings to decide what to do about the multitude of other problems left in the fighting's wake.

Dozens of large labor bases were erected in every territory in order to supply the kingdoms with renewed wealth and peace. All Djeirh were sent to these communities (following incapacitation with drumal) to both keep them separate from the vulnerable people of Byria and ensure the regrowth of the economy.

End of original excerpt

As of 3768 P.D, there are 207 labor bases used as criminalized punishment for high-profile deviants causing disruption within the borders. The original 38 still stand today, representing their success and strength in the uplift of Byria. Among the most efficient and reputable are Mindur, Dreknal, Wirnalor, and Stronec, each producing the most vital number of stock and trade supply for the kingdoms.

The public has since forgotten about the fabled Djeirh War and its people, a minimized event in comparison to other wars and conflicts over land and power since the tragedy occurred. Bloodweavers now extinct, it is far simpler for the history to appear as a legend in a storybook for mothers to read to their children before bed. This natural progression of memory fade is crucial to maintaining amity within the continent and the operations of the labor bases, and thus prompts diligent protection of the information.

With the current, minor struggles between the north and south, driven by Zephyrian motives to expand faithful devotion to the gods and pushback--particularly from Naru and Eldoria--due to its potential implications on sovereignty, the exposure of Djeirh history is of no concern. However, these texts should remain in safekeeping for the reference and continued inheritance of future monarchs. There are no Djeirh left with bloodweaving abilities to disrupt this fragile intelligence, but the hearts of the scorned may be unpredictable if they discover their ancestry. People, especially humans, tend to be far too emotional when presented with reality; securing the details of the war is always necessary.

Long live the Pure.

There's this taste you get

On the back of your tongue,

After you've ran too many miles,

And your legs are numb,

And your mouth is blood and pain and metal.

Something about pressure in the lungs,

Or irritation in your throat.

But really,

It's just a warning

To stop.

More like a blaring alarm,

Red and flashing and bright,

Screaming and crying

For you to slow.

Breathe--

Please, please, please.

But there is the mind,

House of Logic and Survival,

King of Sight and Knowing;

And there is the heart,

With no name or title,

Willful yet shattered,

Bleeding without cease,

Simply because he has nothing to lose,

And everything to gain.

If he leaves his wound open,

A gaping maw of agony and rage,

Maybe another set of hands,

Warm and uncalloused,

Will offer a white cloth of surrender

To stanch the hemorrhage.

So the heart demands the legs

To lift their leaden weight,

And orders the shoes,

Now red

And worn with tears in the rubber,

To march.

The thing about the heart:

He does not know

If he is an organ

Or a muscle,

And so it often depends on the brain

For guidance.

But he also has no ears,

And should he lose enough blood,

He will find that he has no way

To listen.

So,

Through fields,

Through puddles,

Through neighborhood streets,

And downtown city roads

That smell faintly of abandon

And freedom,

You run.

The heart cries out

At every unfamiliar face

You pass,

A trail of blood following.

He assumes

Empathy is something

We all must have.

But people see the red

In your wake

And do not blink.

The King of Sight and Knowing

Breaks through the walls of obsidian

The heart had constructed,

For just a moment;

The heart tells the legs to stop,

And you trip

From exhaustion,

Collapsing into the grit

Of a dark alley.

The heart weeps red

As he pauses

To heed.

"They do not know you,

And they will not care,

When they see your river

Stained red with despair.

Find a needle,

Find some thread,

Breathe slow while you sew

Lest you find ourselves dead."

A childish omen,

The heart nearly roars,

Its tattered flesh

And ribbons of tissue

Flailing in denial.

But he sees you there,

Nose buried in the grit,

Knees split and burning,

Nails cracked

From pulling yourself forward;

The tears,

Long since dried,

Not enough moisture left

To grieve properly.

And worst of all,

He sees the shoes of a hundred others,

Not red

Or worn with tears in the rubber,

Shuffling past,

Their owners silent

And unfaltering

In their gait.

The heart slows in defeat,

Lying close to you within your chest.

He finds a needle,

Finds some thread,

Breathes slow while he sews,

To prevent your death.

If not the heart,

Who would it be?

You deserve to live,

To rest when your tongue

Tastes of blood and pain and metal.

And maybe,

One day,

If you walk slow enough,

You'll catch sight

Of someone worth the same.

Below is just a paragraph. Just an excerpt of something unknown inspired by my hometown in western Colorado. I don’t know why, but it feels intimate to me, so I thought I’d put it out there. Maybe it’ll end up in one of my novels one day. Hope anyone reading had a beautiful Christmas.

——

“The fields were dry here, the harvest well passed as the air grew sharper. It was that time of year where the skin webbed between your finger and thumb turned chapped and white with a lack of moisture. A painful, rationing season. But there, off in the distance, there were what seemed like thousands of little blackbirds landing in the chopped wheat. If I stared long enough, they looked like poppyseeds atop a cornbread muffin, just like the ones my mother used to bake.

Even though my stomach was pained with hunger, my heart hummed with the happy delusion that she was still here on the wooden steps behind me, braiding my hair.”

I sometimes remember how I once was the loudest person in the room. But thinking of what went wrong for me after your death feels wrong.

Linked through blood and bonded through time, the loss of you is a rock sinking through my stomach. But it never stops. There is no bottom, just as there is no reprieve from the wreckage gouging ravines into my foundation, leaving only splinters behind. You, the roots and anchors of my soul, are now nothing but a possibility in another world. What a gutting waste of who you were supposed to be.

You were better in every way, even though we looked the same. You were the deserving one. It should have been me.

And now I have to remember you for longer than I knew you.

He’d waved awkwardly, peach skin a messy blur just beyond my face as he looked at each of my eyes for any sign that I was listening. I blinked and smiled with a weightless laugh, which satisfied him, but without weight a laugh doesn’t have value, does it?

No, I wasn’t truly there at all.

I didn’t want to be rude. Honestly, I looked forward to the next male connection. But I couldn’t get over it: his question, “What’s your favorite color?”

It wasn’t a bad question. Many married men do not even have an answer prepared for those words. But suddenly I wasn’t there, and I was here. With you.

“The countertops? Will they be white marble or cherry wood?”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter, so long as I can cook our two girls breakfast while you hold my waist behind me. So long as you keep looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

You grinned knowingly, though. You knew how your eyes heated and glowed. How you smiled so soft and precious. How you made my heart skip and shudder at the pace of your laughter.

What is my favorite color?

It used to be green, deeper than a sea of grasses in spring. Than basil or pine. Those glowing green eyes.

But it hurts to think of green anymore.

“I wish it was winter,” I blurted.

He had been talking. Had been in the middle of the word job or food. It was natural that he was confused.

I continued, “I like to see the world reset. In the winter, I mean. When everything dies, and you know it’s only a matter of time before it all grows back again.”

He nodded slowly, and I felt my cheeks warm as I grabbed my coffee and pretended to sip at it.

Painful. It was painful to seem like I'd been listening to him for the last fourteen minutes and forty-three seconds when I couldn't even recall his name. I wanted to feel what I once felt for you; I couldn't wait to feel as if I belonged in another's embrace again. But I didn't want to wait. I didn't want to start over.

I didn't want to learn his name or talk about favorite colors or unravel years of carefully and particularly spooling myself into you. To go back to knowing a stranger--not a man--was the most wretched and horrible thing I could think of.

He'd been talking again, this time about the weather in hopes of relating to my randomly voiced opinion about the most freezing, painful time of year. But I stood. The chair screeched in surprise at the audacity of my interruption, and a few heads turned.

As I walked out, the only thing making my stomach dip was the guilt of being such a selfish lover.

In the center of some abandoned midwestern town stood a water tower, tall and unyielding to nature's lashing winds and thunderous storms. On the outside, its white paint was chipped, revealing steel aged with rust. And within, its surface was covered in layers of vulgar art and scribbled messages. The walls couldn't read, but they knew that the writing likely wasn't marked out of their appreciation.

The tower yearned. For what, it didn't know. It wasn't meant to be a sentient thing--even though it had become so--instead planted to serve a small, once-thriving people. But they grew old--aged, as it had--and they were not made of the sort of metal and concrete that could withstand the brutality of the world. So, the tower watched them wither away, until no people were left in the lovely little homes and swishing grasses, the only evidence of their existence being the four-legged structure looming overhead.

At one point, the town's name was written there, but the tower could no longer remember what it said, the letters ripped away by the harsh breath of a restless sky and scraping hail. Lately, it noticed, that sky seemed more devastated; it raged and sobbed and battered--sometimes day and night. The loss of its admirers brought forth the absence of those red and orange hues the tower often loved to watch fade into darkness. But the tower had no voice, and it could not tell the sky that it was not alone.

So, the tower, dried and empty and voiceless, could only endure the tantrums from above. And it waited for whoever came, hoping for another kind and wrinkled face to gaze upon. But in recent years, the only eyes it saw were full of youth and mischief and rebellion, peering into its empty chest and climbing within. And the hands along with them pelted the tower with stones. The laughter that echoed sounded as if it knew it shouldn't be there, but decided to be anyway.

The tower hated those young eyes, aggressive hands, and taunting laughter. Hated that it could do nothing as they came and went. So, when a girl crawled into the empty cavity where water and joy once swirled together, it wanted nothing more than to finally crash and crumble, finished with the anger and despair.

But she appeared with a tool made of wood and strings. The tower hesitated, waiting for whatever infliction the girl would begin. But she simply sat, and the tower peered closer into eyes that were young...old. Young, and old. As if she were one of the tower's beloved, wrinkly faces despite her unblemished cheeks and full lips. And she seemed to take the tower in, swallowing every detail and imperfection with those new yet mature eyes. What had she seen to have such experience in those rings of green and blue?

The tower soon discovered that the girl was a weaver. Not one of fabric, but of the songbird Mrs. Finley so frequently spoke of to her farmer husband. The songbird of a tropical world in a place called Africa. She did not look like any bird the tower had seen, but it had never known a place called Africa, either. It must have been her, the songbird. The weaver.

There was no other explanation for it as she used her hands to begin crafting such music. Her fingers brushed the strings on that tool, and it did as she commanded, humming and coaxing a melody so rich that the tower felt it through its stairs, its inlet, its drain. When she sang, there were words of solace and redemption. For the forgotten places of her world.

The music flowed through the tower like a gentle breeze, caressing its belabored walls. Each note was a message of hope, compassion, and understanding. Those walls trembled, as if recognizing a long-lost friend.

The paint sprayed onto its surface, which the tower believed to be permanent, slowly melted away, replaced by the delicate, haunting sounds that wove through every crack and crevice. If the tower had skin, the music would have been a thread sewing old, gaping wounds. Its concrete was a desert, absorbing every chord with desperate thirst.

By the time it was over, the girl had dug into a pack and pulled out something soft and warm. Though it could never feel such a thing, the tower knew of exhaustion and sleep. And it recognized it in the girl as she closed her eyes and did not wake until the sun rose once more.

When she finally did, the girl played one more song.

And the tower relished in every second.

It did not have ears, but it was glad that it could listen.

Raindrops clouding the pane,

A beaded curtain,

Glistening and shining,

Twirling down the glass.

Silky shadows mimicking,

The choreography of each sphere,

On the carpet

Which burns like sandpaper

Under her feet.

Until they form a puddle,

In the grime and filth

At the sill.

The bottom of the window,

Which has not been cleaned

Since they moved in.

The window is cold,

Its damp chill soothing

The heat that rises in her chest.

Calming,

As the clouds reach through

And gently brush her hair

Through the pane.

Looking out,

She would not mind the aftermath.

Because the raindrops,

A beaded curtain,

They also run--and spiral down the glass,

To flee from whatever chases them

And join one another in asylum.

Together.

For the raindrops which create a beaded curtain,

Which concealed her truth for years,

Now join one another,

Together.

Together,

In the filth and the grime and the mold.

The rain cannot be isolated,

Each drop's path joined

At the final destination,

Embracing in the mire.

Refugees who have bonded

Under the crashing storm,

Lurking,

Threatening,

Suffocating,

Overhead.

I am a healer, sworn guardian of life, bound by oaths that cannot be broken or obscured. I am obligated to sacrifice my hours, my youth, my indecision for others. I am obligated to sacrifice time with my own child to serve another, and another, and another.

There is honor in the words I once promised to believe in and to uphold. Before, I would have breathed in that promise—lived it. I would have died defending it and seeking justice against those who broke it.

Now, as much, I expect my colleagues with any shred of integrity to seek it against myself.

And I do not care.

The man in the chair squirms, rope tied tight enough around his arms that I’m sure several abrasions will be documented during the autopsy. His face is a deep red, the pressure from screaming and sobbing pushing the blood into his skin. But his tears should allow for some relief—or they would, if they were not also hot with fear and rage.

I think of my rounds as a medical student as I weigh the 1911 steadily between my palms. I was nervous then, hands shaking and unsure while I applied blood pressure cuffs and pricked fingers for glucose readings.

The Colt .45 was my grandfather’s before he died of myocardial infarction. Heart attacks and the elderly—a common deadliness, as many know. I was surprised to inherit what little assets he owned. I never knew him.

Neither did June.

The .45 is suited with a pearl grip, white and heavy like marble. So beautifully crafted that my mother's late father hardly ever used it; it simply rested in a glass case in his bedroom that smelled of dust and shaving cream. When I found it there, I never intended to use it. I wanted to sell the thing, being that I never had an interest in guns.

But the stranger before me—he was a stranger to June—is sniveling and whining and pleading. And nothing makes me want to land a round into the eye more.

Did June cry? Did she beg?

Those questions are what steel my spine. Straighten me. Leave me without doubt or hesitation or shaking hands as I raise the weapon and aim it at the brown ring around his pupil. There's even a small smile dancing on my lips, fading in and out while the physician wars against the childless mother within.

"Please," he cries. "I didn't--I never should have done it. I'm sorry. Please!"

I pretend to consider, the only sound being his breath wheezing in and out in anticipation.

I pull down on the hammer, and the breathing comes to an abrupt stop at the sound of a click.

"You can spend eternity worrying about how you'll never have the chance to touch my daughter again."

I am close enough that—with only practicing once—his eye can no longer be identified, replaced with a gaping hole that looks something akin to what I feel. I lower my arm and walk over to his slumped-over body, careful to not step into the growing puddle of red. My white coat brushes my calves when I stop before him, and I blankly press my gloved fingers to the flesh covering the carotid.

There's no pulse.

There's no one to report time of death to, but I had to be certain.

Where I'm going, I cannot predict the direction of the wind, and I'm glad for it.

Forgive me if I sound histrionic, but I am headed off to craft a story.

I was five years old the first time I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. And since then, I've had this notion ingrained that I must always have a plan for what I should do next with my life. With no other alternative offered, starting at five years old, I couldn't get enough of shooting up vision boards and snorting lists. What a drug forethought became--something not just useful but now akin to taking a deep enough breath to survive the next second.

The worst part about it was that I hadn't known I had an addiction. It was just life, and everyone else was doing it, so it couldn't be that bad. It took an overdose on twenty-six college applications for reality to hit me; I'd spent months vomiting up what I'd been told to say on essays and shivering through the night after wondering if my GPA would be worthy enough at some ivy league institution.

When I detoxed, I realized just how severely I'd poisoned myself and just how much my dealers had profited from it.

I will be a writer, education and its indomitable debt be damned. And my favorite part about it is that I have no idea how.

I am still in recovery, thinned from improper nourishment. But I've started eating seconds when it comes to a lack of expectations and a surfeit of arbitrary moments.

Now, I will craft a story where the direction of the wind cannot be predicted, where the birds and the wolves follow nothing but a feeling, and where the words I write next are guided by something between peace and spontaneity.

Cheers.

To no plans--and to no foreseeable future.