Fragments

[Selan]

Posting fragments of my writing here. Bits and pieces of my mind, scattered around.
More to follow, or maybe none at all. Who knows?
SFW intended, but might turn into NSFW by accident. Likely not.

Writing tips to myself and to the voices inside my head.
1. Read between writing sessions to not burn out, especially new things you've never read before; a muse can spring from any corner unbidden.
2. The first sentence is the hardest, and after the first paragraph it will snowball.
3. Do not overplan. We do not want a repeat of that epic fantasy novel with 45 fully-planned chapters with detailed synopses and plot twists only to realise we couldn't actually write the first fucking chapter.
4. Writing the trashiest thing on the planet is still a hundred times better than writing nothing at all. Think about that the next time you criticise something you write. (But if you still think it's trash, then you're right, it probably is.)

 

[Selan]

Celestial

Falling and hoping, leap of faith, compulsion without thought. Twisting and turning, like mother, like daughter. Caught by the turbulence, entangled, ensnared. Embraced by an abuser, smiling, still scarred. Barriers appearing, mind frozen, consequences imminent. Running and hiding, lashing out, blade against flesh. Cut across soul, detach spirit, erode heart. Cry to fake deity, prayers unheard, silence beckons. Turn solitude into magic, lure animal, promise food. Turn sustenance into poison, gift to parent, sit and watch. Listen to choking, complete spell, collect shovel. Dig grave, capture spirit, reanimate corpse. Place in cage, feed to animal, absorb power. Destroy door, escape illusionary home, flinch from sunlight.

Cover face, tread on soil, hostile climate. Howling of wolves, ebbing of daylight, time diminishes. Predators arrive, hungry and snarling, hunting begins. Running through trees, tripping and falling, ground opens up. Spike trap below, leap to evade, wolves still approach. Conceal pit with magic, lure pursuers onto spikes, cause others to flee. Recover impaled corpses, use them for meat, dine well tonight. Skin wolves for fur, body stays warm, survive the night. Breaking of dawn, new sounds and sensations, freedom beckons.

Trail leads out of woods, signpost illegible, life signs vacant. Road leads to ghost town, buildings in ruins, skeletons in houses. Faint residue of magic, ghostly presence, restless spirits. Evade phantoms, magic trail grows stronger, source lies at graveyard. Small skeleton tied to cross, bones moving and creaking, mouth screaming without sound. Cut down skeleton, cleanse it of torment, break curse on town. Bury creature, purify grave, phantoms disappear.

Malevolent spirits no more, midday sun overhead, internal power grows. Strange pain in spine, unnatural light shining from eyes, inhuman words from mouth. Pain grows worse, doubled up in agony, high-pitched primal scream. Dark wings grow from back, blotting out unwelcome sun, halo forms above head.

Understanding dawns, spread wings and fly, unto the horizon. Celestial dawn beckons, journey complete, now and forever.

 

[Selan]

How many days have passed since then? No one speaks, no one dreams, no one shares a hope in their heart; day in, day out, unending silence and the infinite comfort it brings. We are not among friends anymore, just fractured souls drifting from place to place searching for their fix, craving the drug that has no name. We dig through the trash, documenting everything we find, putting them in nice neat lists and filing them away in spreadsheets, just great big massive spreadsheets of purposeless gibberish. But it means something, just once, or maybe twice, it means something - and then, and then, when our mind breaks, we delete it all forever. And then we do it again. We do it again and again and again, repeating everything in an endless cycle of insanity unrecognised by anyone and anything, wiping our own minds clean from the impurities that we've intentionally infected ourselves with. We recognise the futility of our actions, oh we recognise them all too well - but it doesn't matter. We have to keep doing it over.

Sometimes we get lucky. Sometimes we find our fix inside the massive dataset, and for a while everything is sheer bliss. It's not even that intense, because it's just new sensations, new sounds, new sights, coiling around your brain like SHODAN herself bribing you with information before it rips you apart. But it's new. It's new and we eat it all up, eat it up raw. Then we wake up the next day, open it up, and the fix is gone and the world has pulled you back into its mainframe, injecting you with normality so that you can't feel what you felt last night, left only with the memory. Then you have to start the whole process all over again and cross your eyes and hope for the best and just pray that you don't kill yourself finding that feeling again. You just know that it will never compare to the memory of the first time.

The noise has stopped now, but it was so loud earlier on, pressuring without being painful, almost natural. It will start again, and then you will forget everything you did to prevent it from happening a second time. It doesn't hurt, but when you hear it again, maybe you will wish that it did. The benefits of numbness last only for so long before we start to lose all touch with reality completely.

No one is waiting for us to return home. Markers on the wall, flash flash flashing lights showing us what we're supposed to do when this and that happens, when this and that sparks a decipherable emotion. Like flowcharts, you know? If you don't show them the correct reaction, they'll put you away somewhere. Or they'll scream at you. Or both. Unfortunately, the markers have been lost and we can't find them anymore. It's okay, we'll remember what they used to say, what they used to tell us. Maybe.

I think I can hear the noise again, but now all is quiet, all is silent. Too many things drowning it out, piling up on top of each other. More sirens, maybe? A lot of sirens, everywhere at once. It's fine. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, everything has been on autopilot for so many years now. Everything will always be fine.