“Your hands, Boy.”
Dust sifted through the forest air, the only sound the old teller’s scratchy heaves.
“Give me them!” she snapped impatiently.
Ms. Melli turned over his palms, gauging them: dirt nestled underneath his nails with unkempt cuticles and calloused, sickly skin.
There they sat on a cobblestone dais; Rome watched with bated breath. For ten years, he had traveled through kingdoms and cities, searching for the full prophecy of his future.
Each time, the tellers would spew hoaxes or dance around ambiguous generalizations. None of them knew. Those more skilled gave him variations of the same answer: your future is a unforeseen, it will be volatile, unpredictable!
But Melli? He trusted her, that finicky witch. Despite her quirks and odd mantras, Melli was powerful. For millennia, she had masterfully predicted the lives of the esteemed. Her counsel was a secret whispered only in the halls of royalty; and yet, Rome—through a year of book scouring—finally found her forest.
It was his resolve that impressed the old witch.
In each skeletal tree, each twisting blade of grass, Rome could feel the wisdom and magic teeming from the earth’s very energy. Its signature was unique, omniscient and complex like Melli’s. If anyone were to help him, it’d be her.
“Hmm,” Melli hummed. “Come closer, Boy.”
Rome inched forward.
She began tracing each crease in his palm with her ebony talons, muttering to herself softly. Each touch elicited feverish sparks.
When she completed the entire hand, her body shattered. Into a million black shards. At the speed of unfathomable light, the pieces dashed into his body, every part, and eerily cut into his skin.
His vision went pitch black.
“ROME.”
“…ROME…”
He was trapped in his own mind.
“ROME.”
A magnetic, alluring voice called out to him.
_“The relic of your undoing shall find your hands. _ _To hold it is to invite Death herself to a dance. _ To forsake it, is to abandon your chance—at living.” __ __ Low hums scattered around the endless void. __ __ “When Death finds you—and she will—you will love her for it.” __ __ High-pitched laughter flooded his hearing, echoing like a haunting melody: forever it lingered.
“Now it begins!”
Pure white flooded his vision as Rome dropped to the floor! When his sight came back, his clothes were tattered and his blood poured over the cobblestone. Dread gnawed at his throat.
Melli was gone; but there was a strange amulet presented before him.
Naturally, he reached for it.
And as Rome took it into his palms, the amulet’s red flickering faded gently. As though to say it was dying along with it, the forest sighed longingly...
Wesley’s bare feet sifted through the morning grass, cooling dew clinging to his ankles. The lingering moisture from the rain’s fog left the air heavy, and as Wesley paced through the village’s fields, his shoulders slouched with an unsettlingly heaviness.
The fields seemed to wilt with woe: the type of sorrow that held mysterious depth, not often uncovered. The trees wallowed in their roots, twisted and broken, their skeletal arms reaching for something unattainable. Wesley’s eyes narrowed into slits. Why did the fields look so strange today?
The sharp stillness of solitude surrounded Wesley in a tight embrace. He was alone.
Then—
A distasteful scent glided in the breeze. Burnt flesh.
Wesley’s brain stuttered in confusion, barely conscious before his foot caught on fabric. Something strange loomed at his feet.
No… it can’t be… NO!
With sobs caught in his throat, Wesley slowly pulled his gaze downwards. Beneath him, laid two unblinking, unfeeling eyes.
His own eyes.
The dead body was his.
“Wesley.” A voice, with a sweet lilt, emerged from darkness, echoing with strange intensity.
“Wesley, wake up.”
W e s l e y
. . . . . . . . .
Your eyes flash open.
The sky, too pale, glares below at you… and you wake up slowly… rubbing your head with a strange smile.
Grass pokes at your side.
The bony trees wave goodbye.
But the air tastes subtly like smoke, and when you inhale, it clings to your chest with familiarity—Home, she whispers.
Every night, the architects shape the dreams of the mortals, but when one architect falls for a dreamer, the boundaries between their worlds begin to blur…
…-~>^*!~-…
Landscaping is extremely intimate. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying!
Maybe it’s because I’m young, that I don’t have enough control over my patience. But you try spiriting away into someone’s dreams—a manifestation of their vibrant, inner lives, where they hope and fear and love—and tell me it’s not personal. Tell me it doesn’t leave you raw… like a fresh wound exposed to the harsh winds.
For architects, this is supposed to be work. A responsibility. We are to craft dreams like potters twist clay, with precise hands and stable minds. We’re not supposed to feel them.
I wasn’t supposed to feel them—wasn’t supposed to feel her.
Her dreamscape was rough, at first: blunt at the edges and sharp enough to cut. We—she staggered through a feverish tornado, getting scraped with unimaginable pain. I could sense her fears gnawing away, desperately clawing towards her.
It took everything in me to still that storm, to guide it into a calm, light breeze. My heart had ached as I transformed the fallen trees into a beautiful golden-lit meadow. Green and heavenly and infinite. The kind of place where even our greatest fears dare not disturb.
She stood peacefully, her back facing me with her auburn hair brushed by the wind. I couldn’t quite decipher that longing gaze she held towards the aureate horizon. But I should have left then. Let her explore the peace in solitude. But I didn’t.
I stayed.
And then that one fated night, she turned to me. She saw me.
The mortals don’t know we exist. To humans, dreams are their subconcious. And it is, primarily—which is exactly why we’re not supposed to interfere. I was not supposed to interfere.
But my soul reaches for her.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I whispered, my voice gliding like silk, softer than my spirit. I wasn’t quite sure who I was warning—her, or myself.
Young Victoria stood limply in the center of the onyx road, a huge bloody fissure pooling on her flushed knees.
It wasn’t anything unusual, though, not for her. Her body already began to crack years before she could even lift her wand.
_Mistake. Mistake. Mistake. _
Two chasms, charcoal black, ran jaggedly through her forearms until they reached her neck. Lightning Veins: a condition that made her hungry and ravenous, inhibited her, and increased her ambitions and appetite for blood. She preferred rabbits, mostly, but her own blood tasted better when she was starving.
Today she was insatiable.
Hunger struck her down and her knees gave out. The cobblestone scratched against her as her lightless satchel jostled beneath her.
Where was her knife?
She ransacked her bag, until she felt the tip of her knife prick her index. She barely felt a tingle as she clutched the blade—blood and pain had become her friend many years ago.
With a wolfish snarl, she nicked the palm of her hand and sucked until she could feel a warmth return to her face. The sweet tangy aftertaste placed a smile on the macabre girl’s face.
She needed more.
Blair’s little coven of wannabe witches: potions of gnats and voodoo doll stitches.
At midnight they dance then vanish to the stone well— to convene their secret rite, in susurrations laced with magicky spells… And, of course, they’re talking about you!
When they come back, You can feel their macabre little stares. Don’t let them get to you! You were meant to be here.
You await their verdict in dreadful fear— but the oldest steps forth and tells you what you’ve wished to hear: Do you, New Attendee, solemnly swear, _To protect the coven with a witchy flair? _ Your heart screams YES! I do, I do, I DO!!!… but you remember to play it cool! __ The moon hangs overhead, shining a pearly star onto your hand. You wish to tremble and shake, but your mighty heart has a confidence that cannot break. So instead, you jut out your chin and nod with a firm smile: the assurance of a witch.
Great! The little one grins, taking your fist into her bony, white palm for a magical second. A low hum lingers and the frosty breeze kisses your neck as you step into the circle and raise your prideful hand.
I am ready, you announce. And you are sure of it. The ruby dagger dances lightly in your fingers and wickedly slashes along your starlit palm. You’re ready to become a witch!
Miasma above will cling to our love. Match each movement, am I enough?
Mesmerized by your sardonic eyes—
murky and mysterious—
my demise.
“Men will come and men will go,” More I say, less I know. Minds apart in a slicing flow, Motion halts in a violent kiss, My mantra is this: Make me bleed… let it show. Make me bleed…I won’t say no.
Mirror my movements, concealed in silk.
Marks on skin, sharp as our desire.
Make me crave that metallic savor, Mimic the blood on my ruby, red lips. Make me unravel, silk by silk.
Miasma above clings to our love. My push, your pull—a final shove.
His laced boots were a deep tinge of dirt, stained by all the marshy mud they trudged through: battered leather that had lived a thousand years, walked a million miles—each marking an indelible testament to the worlds he had visited. They had crossed damp, weighty rainforests, sifted through endless deserts, scraped mountainsides, breezed through the windswept seas, and skipped by sequestered towns.
With every stride, every step, the boots lit with a fiery wanderlust—leaping closer and closer to the infinite horizon, a world—wild and untamed—in which only the restless understood.
He would be there soon.
My aureate arms dance towards the seraphic night, they’re illuminated by the blazing * *. . * stars *. * . * who shimmer and shine with resplendent light.
I land on one, its fuzzy glow enveloping my skin, a warmth deeper than fire’s breath, tenderly turning my melted soul— from the tortured tips of my toes to my aching whole.
Life is so serene,
when I
_ drift_
away from it.
Young blanketed night cradles me with love and might and the stars’ lullabies sing a soft kiss, whispering in dreams, a soothing bedtime milk.
With gentle susurrations, I close my eyes. I… Cl… close… my… . . . . drifting. . . eyes…
Hush your words and extend your ears to the slicing susurrations of the most adeptly beautiful instrument.
Her lovely fine hairs cascade elegantly around her aureate body. When plucked, her strings can deliquesce anything into pure liquid gold.
Her saccharine voice is full of sweet whispers that sometimes crescendo into a staccato bite—sharp and sudden when elicited by passion.
But when cared for right, the angelic tone becomes roses personified. When loved properly, a man could lose himself in her homely embrace.
Worthy of a devoted orchestra, worthy of a hundred followers.
The instrument had always been her voice.