The Night’s Song
The night is a mystical time, full of strange and unusual sights. But, listen carefully, and along the wind you’ll hear a song. Deep into the woods it will guide you, this slow rhythmic tune. It’s an expansive and complex song of both love and pain, its smooth melody broken by deep, jarring staccato. Eventually, you will be led to a scene of both great beauty, and for those unaccustomed to the ways of the Witching Hour, strangeness. In a clearing, lite with the moon’s silver lighting, surrounded by birch, Cruciabuntur Amore, a squirrel temporarily given sentience in the Witching Hour, serenades Verus Amore, a rabbit similarly enchanted. Crucia plays his tune, knowing his time is short, for come morn the spell will diminish, and he will be cast back into the shadows of ignorance. Ignorance of this feeling, which burns deeper than the deepest note from the thickest string of the Bass he plays upon. He feels a love for Verus, one in which he knows he will forget, but never be without. As he plays he looks upon his love, laying in the grass, the silver light reflecting off her pure white coat, and the torment brought up by the thought of losing her is lost, lost in those shimmering eyes.
The Crimson Skull
A bare bulb swung from the ceiling. It traversed its endless cycle, swinging around and around, all the while casting shadows across the room. They’ve had me waiting in here for what, an hour? Maybe two? It’s difficult to tell time when the only indication that there is a world outside these bleak, barren walls is a massive pitch black one way window. Suddenly, with a near silent click breaking the maddening silence, the thick steel door that led out of this confined prison opened. A young woman stepped into the room, and calmly walked over to the only other chair in the room and sat across from me. Her gait was confident, but self conscious as well. She had probably joined the force a few months ago, and due to her skills was rising quickly. Now she was being asked to sit in a dark, cramped room with someone they suspected being highly connected to one of the largest gangs in the world. If she got the information they needed, this would be a massive help to her career. And, luckily for her, I’m tired of keeping secrets.
“So. You must be the infamous ‘Dark Spector.’ You’re here on suspicion of being connected to several murders, heists, and various other felonies, as well as being an associate to the gang ‘Crimson Skull.’ You’re being held in a top security building. There is no escape. No one is coming for you. But, I’m here to-”
“Help.” I cut her off. “Ya ya, I’ve heard this speech before. You wanna cut me a deal. Get some charges dropped, lower the sentence for some others, in return for information. Names, places, dates, everything I can tell you about ‘Crimson Skull.’ Well, today is your lucky day missy, you’ll be getting full access to an insiders knowledge.”
“Se-seriously?”
Her face was priceless. She’d probably been expecting a bigger fight from someone they’d put so much resources into capturing. Years of scouring dead ends and vanishing trails, just to have it all handed to them without so much as a bribe.
“Seriously. What do you want to know?”
“Well, as you said, everything. We need to know the ‘Crimson Skull’ inside and out.”
I took a deep breath. I was about to relinquish information that would be the beginnings of the Crimson Skull’s downfall, destroying the only family I had ever known. I was about to tear down decades of work, and incarcerate hundreds of people. Many people would call me a hero, but in truth, I was just tired of it. Sick of the game. And this was the only way I could get out of it and live to tell the tale. Speaking of tale telling…
“Alright. Lets start from the beginning.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had just joined the group. Simple druggy pulled off the street ‘cause I knew how to shoot. See, while Crimson Skull is a high end gang, they still needed cannon fodder, which they pulled off the streets and trained to be somewhat competent soldiers. I made quite a name for myself in training however, and was selected to be a part of the actual initiation process. That's when I met Mr.G. He was the one who taught me how to fight for real, how to live, and supervised my first kill. We were training to become, well, for lack of better word ninjas. But it was more than that. You see, we weren’t just trained to kill. We were trained to take out a room of a hundred people in a matter of seconds, and not give it a second thought. So, we went under extensive mental preparation. Our first kill wasn’t in the heat of battle, or against some major enemy of ours, it was a random schmuck dragged off the street. And we had to drive a knife into their exposed brain. We were then assessed, based off our reaction to the test, what we had to do, how we reacted to what they said, and what we did.
“Good luck in there, soldier.”
“Yes Mr. G.”
So I walked in. I saw the guy, upright, sitting tied to a chair. Next to him was a table with the long, curved bowie knife that I was to drive into him. As soon as I walked in, he started pleading.
“Please, don’t do this. I have a wife, two chil-”
I walked out, wiping the blood off my hands. I walk over to Mr. G. He looked down at me and said “You are an Enforcer. Training will begin in six hours. Be ready.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“What's an Enforcer?”
I look at her.
“Well, there are four factions inside of Crimson. The order I’ll say them in is the order of least importance to most. Firstly, there is the Army. The Army are the dull witted people, the expendables if you will. Second, there are the Specials. These are the higher up soldiers, a secondary army that is used to quickly and effective take down large strongholds and other tightly secured structures. They are the true strength behind Crimson. Next are the Torchers. They are the people who, extract information from people we’ve captured, named for their most famous and effective torture method, the flame thrower. Finally are the Enforcers. We are the ones who are willing and able to keep the Crimson’s members from treason. We keep them from squealing, from trying to kill Boss, all of that.”
“And, Boss is the leader of ‘Crimson Skull’? Do you know his actual identity?”
“Yes, Boss is the leader. And no, I have no idea who he actually is. He always wore a mask, and only spoke to his closest advisors.”
“Ah. Please, continue.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surely enough, exactly six hours later I was called into the Training Room #405, aka “The Dead Zone.” And it certainly lived up to its name. One hundred candidates for Enforcer would enter that room. Only a handful would leave with their life.
The first of many bloody trails was a free for all. We were placed inside of a room, roughly the size of a football field, with weapons scattered throughout the room, as well as several obstacles such as small metal shacks, as well as waist high stone walls. We were lead to the center of the room as a group by a Veteran Enforcer, then given one instruction.
“Survive as long as possible.”
However, I had done my research to acquire a bit more information than that. We were to be judged on killing proficiency and ability to think under, stressful situations. The last ten candidates would be considered to move on to the next set of trails. Those who survived but did not demonstrate their skills well enough would be pitted against a veteran Enforcer. If they survived, they would move on with the rest. However, they were to be put under unfair circumstances, as the Veteran would not only have more experience, but a knife as well. So, we had our incentive not only to fight, but show ourselves to the judges, rather than hiding away in some corner and waiting till it was all over.
There was no buzzer. There was no indication that the battle had started other than the curt instruction given by the Veteran. Some hesitated to run into the environment around them and grab a weapon. They were the first to die. Luckily I was prepared, and had began running as soon as the Veteran had finished. I managed to find a suitable weapon, a Mark XIX Desert Eagle with .50 rounds. Not exactly my first choice, too hefty to be suitable for the stealthier approach I prefered, but flexibility was key in these situations, and I was just glad I had managed to find a long ranged weapon, as some people walked away with only sticks and pipes. Though, in fairness, I saw someone snap another candidate's neck from fifteen meters away with a steel pipe wrench. An impressive feat, but the candidate with a pickaxe standing behind a wall two meters behind him was glad to find an unarmed opponent.
The fighting lasted three hours, or so I’m told. The constant adrenaline, as well as lack of natural sunlight and timers made it near impossible to keep track of time. It was all I could to react properly in each instant I encountered another candidate, let alone maintain the mental effort required to keep track of time. But, after what seemed like a weird combination of years and mere seconds only ten of use were left. The loud buzzer that signified the end of every training session rang and echoed throughout the room, and we all froze immediately in our spots. Three of us were in a stalemate, I had my Desert Eagle pointed at another candidate's head, while they had a machete at the throat of another, who had a bow pointed directly at my spine. However, out muscles froze involuntarily at the sound of that buzzer. It was quite literally beaten into you that once you hear that sound, you stop, everything.
I had survived the first test.
Words
What are words?
Things we say, things we write?
Things that describe, things that let others know what we think?
Maybe.
But to me, words are more.
Words are a way to CHANGE people.
PERSUADE people.
With the correct words, with the correct feeling, mountains fall.
Raging oceans calm.
Immortals die.
Words are more than just what we say, what we feel.
You see, a word can change someone, do things they thought they never could.
Or lay them on the ground, distraught with fear and pain.
Words can pull at our hearts, or make them stop.
You may say “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”
But you are wrong.
You just haven’t heard them correctly, or they haven’t been said.
With a simple, flick of the wrist, you can make people long for things they don’t know exist.
Make hardened criminals weep for their sins.
But most important of all.
You can make someone forget their love.
If words can allow someone enough power to make them forget why and who they loved, then what power is above them?
Make a someone, anyone, forget the thing that kept them living, made them strive to go on in this cruel, cruel world?
Inconceivable. Unimaginable. But true.
For even now, you are being curled into a web of words, forgetting the troubles around you.
But why do you keep reading?
Why go on?
Why not go back to your life, those who know and love you?
Because you want to know where I am going with this.
Why pull along a string of words, just for it to end in nothingness?
Because this is my intent. Not to kill, not to persuade, but instead, make you wonder.
Words can pull you to places you would never go on your own lonesome feet, but why?
Why follow something that doesn’t even exist in the third dimension, but one on a 2d plain?
Because we subconsciously know the power of words.
And we hope, that one day, at the end of the page, those who don’t know, will find it.
Soul’s Color
They told me the sky was blue. They told me the jeans I wore were blue too. I always saw the same nondescript blandness that is the absence of color. In my darkest hours I would gaze into the heavens. It always filled me with hope, a promise that somewhere out there, she was waiting. And so, I had to fulfill my end of that promise. I couldn’t give up. Not till I learned of the beauty of the color blue. I gave me strength, this eternal promise, the strength I needed to get through life. Sometimes I would dream of her, try to envision her in my mind's eye. What would I say when I met her? What would I do? And what would I do with the new found ability to process blue? I would go sailing for sure, a disorientating experience before, as the sky and water melted together into a sheet of blandness. I knew she was also out there, looking for the same thing. I knew, and was reminded every time I looked in the mirror, as I looked into my own eyes. We would discover it together, this blue. I would find her, and together we would look anew at this world, seeing what was once locked away from us, what was once a dull haze of absence, and enjoy it together.
This is what I thought anyways. But I never found them. Never in all my years did I ever find them. Maybe I was looking in the wrong places. Maybe that man I saw, so many years ago, with the strangest eyes I’d ever seen knew where she was. Maybe he knew where my blue had gone.
A Humble Attempt at a Longish Poem (Could be called a Ballad if you would be so bold)
The night is a mystical time, full of strange and unusual sights. But, listen carefully, and along the wind you’ll hear a song. Deep into the woods it will guide you, this slow rhythmic tune. It’s an expansive and complex song of both love and pain, its smooth melody broken by deep, jarring staccato. Eventually, you will be led to a scene of both great beauty, and for those unaccustomed to the ways of the Witching Hour, strangeness. In a clearing, lite with the moon’s silver lighting, surrounded by birch, Cruciabuntur Amore, a squirrel temporarily given sentience in the Witching Hour, serenades Verus Amore, a rabbit similarly enchanted. Crucia plays his tune, knowing his time is short, for come morn the spell will diminish, and he will be cast back into the shadows of ignorance. Ignorance of this feeling, which burns deeper than the deepest note from the thickest string of the Bass he plays upon. He feels a love for Verus, one in which he knows he will forget, but never be without. As he plays he looks upon his love, laying in the grass, the silver light reflecting off her pure white coat, and the torment brought up by the thought of losing her is lost, lost in those shimmering eyes.
The Crimson Skull
A bare bulb swung from the ceiling. It traversed its endless cycle, swinging around and around, all the while casting shadows across the room. They’ve had me waiting in here for what, an hour? Maybe two? It’s difficult to tell time when the only indication that there is a world outside these bleak, barren walls is a massive pitch black one way window. Suddenly, with a near silent click breaking the maddening silence, the thick steel door that led out of this confined prison opened. A young woman stepped into the room, and calmly walked over to the only other chair in the room and sat across from me. Her gait was confident, but self conscious as well. She had probably joined the force a few months ago, and due to her skills was rising quickly. Now she was being asked to sit in a dark, cramped room with someone they suspected being highly connected to one of the largest gangs in the world. If she got the information they needed, this would be a massive help to her career. And, luckily for her, I’m tired of keeping secrets.
“So. You must be the infamous ‘Dark Spector.’ You’re here on suspicion of being connected to several murders, heists, and various other felonies, as well as being an associate to the gang ‘Crimson Skull.’ You’re being held in a top security building. There is no escape. No one is coming for you. But, I’m here to-”
“Help.” I cut her off. “Ya ya, I’ve heard this speech before. You wanna cut me a deal. Get some charges dropped, lower the sentence for some others, in return for information. Names, places, dates, everything I can tell you about ‘Crimson Skull.’ Well, today is your lucky day missy, you’ll be getting full access to an insiders knowledge.”
“Se-seriously?”
Her face was priceless. She’d probably been expecting a bigger fight from someone they’d put so much resources into capturing. Years of scouring dead ends and vanishing trails, just to have it all handed to them without so much as a bribe.
“Seriously. What do you want to know?”
“Well, as you said, everything. We need to know the ‘Crimson Skull’ inside and out.”
I took a deep breath. I was about to relinquish information that would be the beginnings of the Crimson Skull’s downfall, destroying the only family I had ever known. I was about to tear down decades of work, and incarcerate hundreds of people. Many people would call me a hero, but in truth, I was just tired of it. Sick of the game. And this was the only way I could get out of it and live to tell the tale. Speaking of tale telling…
“Alright. Lets start from the beginning.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had just joined the group. Simple druggy pulled off the street ‘cause I knew how to shoot. See, while Crimson Skull is a high end gang, they still needed cannon fodder, which they pulled off the streets and trained to be somewhat competent soldiers. I made quite a name for myself in training however, and was selected to be a part of the actual initiation process. That's when I met Mr.G. He was the one who taught me how to fight for real, how to live, and supervised my first kill. We were training to become, well, for lack of better word ninjas. But it was more than that. You see, we weren’t just trained to kill. We were trained to take out a room of a hundred people in a matter of seconds, and not give it a second thought. So, we went under extensive mental preparation. Our first kill wasn’t in the heat of battle, or against some major enemy of ours, it was a random schmuck dragged off the street. And we had to drive a knife into their exposed brain. We were then assessed, based off our reaction to the test, what we had to do, how we reacted to what they said, and what we did.
“Good luck in there, soldier.”
“Yes Mr. G.”
So I walked in. I saw the guy, upright, sitting tied to a chair. Next to him was a table with the long, curved bowie knife that I was to drive into him. As soon as I walked in, he started pleading.
“Please, don’t do this. I have a wife, two chil-”
I walked out, wiping the blood off my hands. I walk over to Mr. G. He looked down at me and said “You are an Enforcer. Training will begin in six hours. Be ready.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“What's an Enforcer?”
I look at her.
“Well, there are four factions inside of Crimson. The order I’ll say them in is the order of least importance to most. Firstly, there is the Army. The Army are the dull witted people, the expendables if you will. Second, there are the Specials. These are the higher up soldiers, a secondary army that is used to quickly and effective take down large strongholds and other tightly secured structures. They are the true strength behind Crimson. Next are the Torchers. They are the people who, extract information from people we’ve captured, named for their most famous and effective torture method, the flame thrower. Finally are the Enforcers. We are the ones who are willing and able to keep the Crimson’s members from treason. We keep them from squealing, from trying to kill Boss, all of that.”
“And, Boss is the leader of ‘Crimson Skull’? Do you know his actual identity?”
“Yes, Boss is the leader. And no, I have no idea who he actually is. He always wore a mask, and only spoke to his closest advisors.”
“Ah. Please, continue.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surely enough, exactly six hours later I was called into the Training Room #405, aka “The Dead Zone.” And it certainly lived up to its name. One hundred candidates for Enforcer would enter that room. Only a handful would leave with their life.
The first of many bloody trails was a free for all. We were placed inside of a room, roughly the size of a football field, with weapons scattered throughout the room, as well as several obstacles such as small metal shacks, as well as waist high stone walls. We were lead to the center of the room as a group by a Veteran Enforcer, then given one instruction.
“Survive as long as possible.”
However, I had done my research to acquire a bit more information than that. We were to be judged on killing proficiency and ability to think under, stressful situations. The last ten candidates would be considered to move on to the next set of trails. Those who survived but did not demonstrate their skills well enough would be pitted against a veteran Enforcer. If they survived, they would move on with the rest. However, they were to be put under unfair circumstances, as the Veteran would not only have more experience, but a knife as well. So, we had our incentive not only to fight, but show ourselves to the judges, rather than hiding away in some corner and waiting till it was all over.
There was no buzzer. There was no indication that the battle had started other than the curt instruction given by the Veteran. Some hesitated to run into the environment around them and grab a weapon. They were the first to die. Luckily I was prepared, and had began running as soon as the Veteran had finished. I managed to find a suitable weapon, a Mark XIX Desert Eagle with .50 rounds. Not exactly my first choice, too hefty to be suitable for the stealthier approach I prefered, but flexibility was key in these situations, and I was just glad I had managed to find a long ranged weapon, as some people walked away with only sticks and pipes. Though, in fairness, I saw someone snap another candidate's neck from fifteen meters away with a steel pipe wrench. An impressive feat, but the candidate with a pickaxe standing behind a wall two meters behind him was glad to find an unarmed opponent.
The fighting lasted three hours, or so I’m told. The constant adrenaline, as well as lack of natural sunlight and timers made it near impossible to keep track of time. It was all I could to react properly in each instant I encountered another candidate, let alone maintain the mental effort required to keep track of time. But, after what seemed like a weird combination of years and mere seconds only ten of use were left. The loud buzzer that signified the end of every training session rang and echoed throughout the room, and we all froze immediately in our spots. Three of us were in a stalemate, I had my Desert Eagle pointed at another candidate's head, while they had a machete at the throat of another, who had a bow pointed directly at my spine. However, out muscles froze involuntarily at the sound of that buzzer. It was quite literally beaten into you that once you hear that sound, you stop, everything.
I had survived the first test.
Words
What are words?
Things we say, things we write?
Things that describe, things that let others know what we think?
Maybe.
But to me, words are more.
Words are a way to CHANGE people.
PERSUADE people.
With the correct words, with the correct feeling, mountains fall.
Raging oceans calm.
Immortals die.
Words are more than just what we say, what we feel.
You see, a word can change someone, do things they thought they never could.
Or lay them on the ground, distraught with fear and pain.
Words can pull at our hearts, or make them stop.
You may say “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”
But you are wrong.
You just haven’t heard them correctly, or they haven’t been said.
With a simple, flick of the wrist, you can make people long for things they don’t know exist.
Make hardened criminals weep for their sins.
But most important of all.
You can make someone forget their love.
If words can allow someone enough power to make them forget why and who they loved, then what power is above them?
Make a someone, anyone, forget the thing that kept them living, made them strive to go on in this cruel, cruel world?
Inconceivable. Unimaginable. But true.
For even now, you are being curled into a web of words, forgetting the troubles around you.
But why do you keep reading?
Why go on?
Why not go back to your life, those who know and love you?
Because you want to know where I am going with this.
Why pull along a string of words, just for it to end in nothingness?
Because this is my intent. Not to kill, not to persuade, but instead, make you wonder.
Words can pull you to places you would never go on your own lonesome feet, but why?
Why follow something that doesn’t even exist in the third dimension, but one on a 2d plain?
Because we subconsciously know the power of words.
And we hope, that one day, at the end of the page, those who don’t know, will find it.
Soul’s Color
They told me the sky was blue. They told me the jeans I wore were blue too. I always saw the same nondescript blandness that is the absence of color. In my darkest hours I would gaze into the heavens. It always filled me with hope, a promise that somewhere out there, she was waiting. And so, I had to fulfill my end of that promise. I couldn’t give up. Not till I learned of the beauty of the color blue. I gave me strength, this eternal promise, the strength I needed to get through life. Sometimes I would dream of her, try to envision her in my mind's eye. What would I say when I met her? What would I do? And what would I do with the new found ability to process blue? I would go sailing for sure, a disorientating experience before, as the sky and water melted together into a sheet of blandness. I knew she was also out there, looking for the same thing. I knew, and was reminded every time I looked in the mirror, as I looked into my own eyes. We would discover it together, this blue. I would find her, and together we would look anew at this world, seeing what was once locked away from us, what was once a dull haze of absence, and enjoy it together.
This is what I thought anyways. But I never found them. Never in all my years did I ever find them. Maybe I was looking in the wrong places. Maybe that man I saw, so many years ago, with the strangest eyes I’d ever seen knew where she was. Maybe he knew where my blue had gone.
A Humble Attempt at a Longish Poem (Could be called a Ballad if you would be so bold)
- A child’s misfortune
- Always lays with their blindness
- Their insistence
- On being addressed “Your highness”
- And so,
- One such lad
- Led an empty life
- Living oh so sad.
- For in a child’s fit
- He had to miss
- An opportunity
- To obtain all he had dissed
- “LEAVE ME”
- He screamed at the barred door
- “LET ME LIVE IN PEACE”
- Oh, if only he had cared a little more…
- She was a determined woman
- A beast in his eye
- Determined to burst into the chamber
- Rather than huff a “Good bye”
- That was the beginning
- The start to a story of true love
- For, it is true,
- They never do start with a dove,
- But, as the years crawled past
- She worked to lure
- The elusive creature
- Oh, for how long she had to endure
- Till finally,
- She got what she had worked for
- A self centered child
- Who couldn’t see her as more
- So once more she waited
- And that child grew
- Matured,
- And turned into,
- A temperamental brat
- Who couldn’t see her for more
- And so she left
- She closed the door.
- The brat looked around
- After she had left,
- And saw nothing
- So it wept.
- These stinging tears taught it something
- In her absence the child grew
- He learned and truly changed
- And applied what he knew
- He was ready to see her
- When she came to his door
- Ready to open it
- And see her as more
- But when that door it opened
- Her face had fallen
- From misfortune of a greater kind
- She had made a mistake
- It had affected her mind
- But the boy had grown
- And he knew well
- She was not at fault
- He could tell,
- If he had grown a little sooner
- If he had opened his door
- All could’ve been avoided
- If he had seen her as more.