Lying there beneath the ground Where I could not be found I screamed but made no sound To the earth I was bound
I wished to be alive From this fate I could not survive The gates of hell I would soon arrive After I begged and pleaded to revive
There is no harder war than against death For it wages until your final breath
The mountain trail went on forever. Great tall pine trees loomed overhead as the path winded ever further up. Each step sounded the crunch of gravel and earth and their breaths mingled with birdsong.
They had been walking for almost three hours and Beth could overhear the other three talking about their plans for the summer while she trudged behind wishing she hadn’t finished the last of her water. Her legs were burning and she wondered if her Vans were really the best footwear for a hike. A rest was needed.
Within seconds of the thought bright light broke through gloom, and and the path was lit up as the trees melted away behind as the path began to lead up to a giant house, defying physics somehow as it leaned over the mountainside.
The house gave Beth a sense of renewed energy and she caught up with the Temi, Amy and Mia as they all stared up at the mansion together.
‘It’s beautiful’, said Amy ‘Should we go up there?’ Mia asked Temi, who had organised the hike, nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s where the path leads and we should be near the top in an hour.’
Beth nodded in silent agreement. They walked up the trail and it passed the front of the house. Long rectangular windows looked out over the mountain and also gave them a view of inside. Four girls were inside the house making food. As they walked along the path past the door one of the girls from inside smiled at them through the window and opened the door.
‘Hey there! Do you want some water and some food? We’ve got tons!’
Beth immediately nodded, along with Mia and Amy but Temi answered for them.
‘We’ll be okay thanks. How long is it to the top?’ ‘A couple hours from here. You can’t be going up there now surely? It’s about to rain!’ Beth looked up and saw that the girl was right. The sky had gone grey and dark clouds were gathering. Rain started to splatter Beth’s face.
‘You can stay in here with us for a while!’ ‘Are you sure? We don’t want to bother you’ ‘Of course, it’s fine. Come in, come in.’
The matter settled, Beth, Amy, Mia and Temi rattled in through the doorway as the rain began to fall heavier.
The girl led them to the front room where they met the rest of the group and they all introduced themselves. ‘I’m Temi, that’s Amy, that’s Beth and that’s Mia.’ The other girls came and hugged each of them respectively and Beth caught their names; Destiny, Faith, Hope and Eden. Eden, the girl who offered them shelter then offered Beth a glass of water, and Beth went into the kitchen with her, while the others all sat on a U shaped sofa in front of a fire.
Beth thanked Eden for the water and devoured it so quickly that Eden smiled and brought her a second glass. ‘It’s a long walk, you must be tired.’ Beth smiled. ‘It’s the first hike I’ve done in years, my legs don’t won’t to move for another ten years.’ Eden laughed. She put a hand on Beth’s thigh in such a way that Beth didn’t jump back or ask what she was doing. ‘How does it feel now?’ Beth walked a few paces. Nothing. Her legs felt as though she had hardly walked at all, in fact they felt stronger than they had ever done. ‘What just happened? My legs feel amazing’ ‘Have you heard of Wicca? We’re Wiccan here and we can do special things. I’m sure you must have realised it before now.’
Beth thought back to how the weather changed immediately and how they had found the house as soon as she desperately wanted a rest. A feeling inside her knew that Eden wasn’t lying yet she wasn’t afraid. ‘Wiccan? What is that?’ Eden smiled. ‘We can do things, heal people, read minds, even see the future. We’re humans in case you were wondering, but our abilities are not. We only reveal ourselves to those who we think are worthy of sharing our gifts.’ Beth was taken aback. ‘You think I’m worthy?’ ‘You all are. Even Temi, though she will find it the hardest.’ ‘I can learn magic? You’re not joking?’ Eden put a hand on her shoulder. Instantly Beth felt a surge of energy and she stood up straighter. Beth looked her in the eye. ‘Okay, I’m in.’ Eden smiled.
The warming sun will not rise in the morning The snow capped mountains of the earth will crumble Deadly cracking earthquakes will rumble The universe is in mourning
Cold brisk winds will screech through the air And the wind will be still and it’s silence so loud The once light blue sky will be covered in dark clouds The universe does not care
Volcanos explode and lava spills from the crust The earth goes cold and people will freeze Tides wash away civilisation
All of our history is reduced to dust Faith remains only, faith and belief This is the price we pay for globalisation
Sunday is my favourite day. No work, no stress, no nothing. I wake up late, drink early and watch the football. Perfect.
It was half time and I went to my fridge for my third beer. I had Chinese food on the way and was feeling good when I heard a crash and the breaking of glass.
The man was all in black and holding a gun. In an instant I tackled him to the floor and started kicking him. He coughed up blood and teeth and I stood over him. I reached up for the gun he dropped and pointed it at his head
‘All I wanted was a lazy Sunday, but now I have to kill you.’
I need to get these feelings off my chest Time has passed and now I have moved on But faint memories and good times linger We are different, and yet somehow the same
I used to love you, you used to love me Now we just text occasionally We used to be close, now we are distant It feels right and wrong at the same time
You have changed, I have changed, time changes us all
I do not want to fall into this trap Where I start to feel for you once more Time has made me safe, and it protects me You and I are bonded, but not like before
I knocked twice on the black door. Not too hard that it scared the people inside, but not so soft that it warranted curiosity. A dog barked some way off and I could hear crickets chirping in the grass across the road. I held my gun in my right jacket pocket, making sure that I had the silencer screwed on tight. I relaxed my shoulders and waited for the door to open.
Being a trigger man for the mafia isn’t what I wanted to be. I grew up in a family where my parents always preached education. They never let me miss a day of school. I had a cold, flu, head was hurting, they made damn well sure that I attended. They wanted for me what they hadn’t had themselves. My father worked himself to the bone in a steel factory, while my poor mother had three different jobs to support us. They always told my brothers and I that education was the most important thing a person could have. Their words never left me, and I carried them around with me like a backpack throughout my childhood and into my teens.
I was fourteen the first time I smoked weed. I know that nowadays it’s considered harmless but I don’t agree. My friends and I used to spend more time smoking than anything else and before I knew it my grades were dropping and I was failing in school. Then a year later my father died, after working an extra shift at the factory. They told me his heart gave out and after that ma was never the same. She couldn’t find it in herself to work and it fell to me to look after her and my younger brothers.
I knew guys involved in drugs from smoking weed and I eventually met the connect, George. He was older than me, and took me under his wing. He would pay me a grand a week if I sold all his weed for him in my school and others. Eventually they kicked me out after I got caught selling to the son of an English teacher and I started working for George full time. First as a dealer, but when I turned 20, he told me that he needed a loyal bodyguard. Of course I accepted, it was thanks to George that I was able to support my family.
George had enemies. More than I thought for a middle ranking mobster but enemies he had. I killed my first man at 22, a crack dealer who had been stealing money from. Then two soldiers from a rival mob. I’ve got seven kills under my belt and I’m still only 24. By the time I get to 30, who knows how many men I’ll have killed.
I heard footsteps inside the house and saw a silhouette approach through the pane of glass on the door. A stocky tall man opened it. I reached into my pocket.
‘Hello George.’
I always sleep in on weekends. I stay up till 2am on Friday night, and so on Saturday, I wake up around midday. Unfortunately for me, Dracula woke well before I did.
I felt a pain in my neck when I woke, and a deep soreness through my entire body. I could barely move. Another hangover I sleepily thought to myself, until I saw him. He was sitting in my desk chair, in a fine brown suit, black hair slicked back, pale as morning snow.
He saw that I was awake and stood over me. ‘Unde sunt?’ he garbled. I couldn’t speak. I was terrified. Who was this man in my room and why couldn’t I move!? He shook my by the shoulders. ‘Unde sunt!?’
I couldn’t say anything but he looked into my eyes and understood I knew nothing. He lay me back down, almost gently, moved my hair from my neck, leaned down and I passed out again.
For weeks it continued. Me, laying in my bed, while Dracula fed on me. Slowly I started to become more attuned to his will. I could feel his thoughts. He was afraid, he didn’t know where he was. All he had was me. And then a day came where I woke and felt stronger than I ever had before. Blood ran through my body like sprinter and I moved so effortlessly it was like time was slower. And yet I felt no animosity for this man who had trapped me and fed on me for weeks. I felt as if we were kin.
I got out of bed and there was a hint of surprise in my eyes. ‘esti familia ta acum’ he said calmly. I still couldn’t understand what he was saying but I still had my understanding of the world. I opened the laptop on my desk. I went to google translate and encouraged him to speak into the mic. ‘ce faci?’ he asked. Google detected Romanian. After five hours of back and forth on google translate, Dracula and I were able to communicate, and I told him where he was and who I used to be. And we planned to feast. It was curry night at weatherspoons and I told him there was quite a buffet down there for us.
The air tickled. I could feel it, gently touching my face and hair. I walked slowly through the field only using my sixth sense to guide me. Even though the gods had taken my eyes they had given me other gifts. It was a big price to pay but all my senses were heightened. The wind blew through the field of long grass and I knew how tall it was from the whooshing sound as it was blown this way and that.
I ran my hands through the grass, feeling the wetness of the afternoon on my palms. The gods will always balance. They took my family from me but gave me a home in nature. I smiled sadly as I remembered my family, my mother and father, and my younger sister Myra. Their faces were blurred now, as time had eroded them to shifting features but I still remembered their purple eyes.
My bare feet felt cool on the wet dew but when the grass started to retreat and I could feel the fresh soil under my feet I knew I was in the the right spot. I dropped to my knees and began digging with my hands, scoping handfuls of wet soil out of the earth and throwing them over my shoulder. After an hour of digging I found the three skeletons.
I stood up. The gods will always balance. I breathed deeply and reached out with my sixth sense. All the blades of grass, the worms and insects, the weeds and the trees, I could feel them all. I could feel the life in them all. They all had an energy that could be used elsewhere. I pulled the energy from them, not very hard, but in a blink of a spiders eye the energy was gone, and formed into a cloud in front of me. I remembered the faces of my family, of little Myra, and directed the energy into the skeletons, lying in the dirt half covered in soil.
Some days, it feels like I have nothing I lie in bed, alone, not worthy of loving I find it hard to connect, I find it hard to be trusting I don’t go out, for I’m scared of their judging
On days where everything feels so wrong And I feel in my heart that all hope is gone I can put on some music and feel the soul of a song And for a touch, a whisper, I feel strong
There may be days where that strength doesn’t last When the songs and the music only stir up the past So perhaps I instead find my favourite book And curl up in my bed like a crook
For a while I will feel engrossed in the story But then it will start to do less and less for me The words start to feel more and more corny And eventually the book will start to bore me
I get frustrated and throw the book on the floor I hide under the covers, I can do this no more I want this pain to stop, I want it to end Then I hear a chirp from my phone, it’s a text from a friend
‘Haven’t seen you in a while, how have you been?’ ‘Are you going to come out this Halloween?’ My mood perks up and I smile at the screen I tell her my feelings and come totally clean
I smile to myself as I lay on my bed But an hour later my feelings hang by a thread Because I know in my heart she has left me on read So I reach for my phone with a sense of dread
I open the app and it’s just what I suspected The tears start to flow, I’ve been throughly rejected The worst part is that it’s just what I expected I sob even harder feeling thoroughly neglected
I sat there for hours and hours and cried I calmed down, I breathed deep, and the tears dried I realised that to myself I had lied Because the best kind of hope comes from inside
I realised external forces were only temporary And that the well of my Hope was within me I needed to stop being the person people wanted me to be I needed to be myself to be free
