The Queen of Hearts

She devours the hearts that she receives, like they were chocolate buttons, hoping that the more she takes the more likely that she'll have one of her own someday. Her body grows with the rolls of puppy love fat and the hunger intensifies. When she grew taller and bigger than anyone before her, the people filled with fear below her fought against her, piercing her thick skin with their arrows but none could break her. So they named her the Queen of Hearts, the beheader of all men, and wait in the shadows until her king can put her out of all misery.

Cathy's Challenge

Cathy carefully stepped one slow step at a time forward, following the line of people. She had been there for what felt like hours, no, days. She was tiring quickly, but her life depended on getting to the end. Others waited with her in the line, some tiring quicker than her and falling to the peril of starvation and weakness. All were taller than her. They all seemed to be stronger and wiser than her. Surely they would make it to the end over Cathy. Surly she would fall weak. But with each passing hour another would fall away. Angry with themselves most likely, they would fall back into the jungle and lose on the blissful prize that lay at the end.

Her legs were getting tired and her eyes were getting heavy. She had travelled so far, like so many of the others, through monstrous lands full of strange creatures that yelled and barked, nipping at her toes and fingers and swooping low.

She looked back over her shoulder. Behind the chains were her family, held back from freedom. Her mother, her father, her brother and sister. Their lives depended on her getting to the end of line.

"You can do it Cathy!" Yelled her older brother. They were cheering for her, they believed in her! With determination, Cathy turned back to her challenge, but they weren't making it easy for her. Strange bird like creatures of all colours descended down from the grey skies with their large claws and shiny beaks, believing her to be the weakest. But they were wrong. She put on her scariest face and roared as loud as a lion, and the creatures scurried away back into the jungle.

She was almost at the front, so close to the prize. Then, out of the darkness of the trees came huge yellow eyes. They stared down at her, hypnotising her. They were so mysterious and mystical that they distracted her from her task. The line moved forward, it was almost her turn, but she couldn't stop staring! She shook her head and grabbed her camera, using the flash to stun the climbing beast.

As soon as it was out of the way she ran up to the front. It was her turn at last! Finally she would receive her prize. All her hard work would finally pay off. She looked up at the tall smiling woman, the keeper of her treasure.

"Hi sweetie, welcome to the zoo cafe. What can I get you?" she asked.

"One hot chips, please" asked Cathy.

Shifter for Hire

I didn’t know what to say. Those gorgeous eyes were staring so deeply at me, so filled with concern, that it almost made me sick to think that I was hurting him. I opened my mouth, hoping to force the words out, but the truth wouldn't come, it refused to be told.
“I can’t…” is all I ended up saying. “I can’t stop.”
“But why? It’s killing you. You’re killing yourself.” He pleaded. But I didn’t want to hear it.
“It’s my job! I was given this gift to help people!”
“You’re helping the rich get richer, and screwing their competitors. What your doing isn’t heroic. Don’t delude yourself into thinking so. You’re doing a job, like everyone else in this world, but if you keep pushing your powers you’re going to get yourself killed. Why can’t you understand that?!” He was beginning to shout his reasonable words, but he was just making me more aggravated.
“You don’t understand anything! Who the hell are you to tell me how to do my job? I have worked so hard to get here, and I’m not going to let you of all people distract me from finishing what I came here to do. Any day more spent here than I have to is a waste of time! So leave. Me. Alone!” As I shouted those last words, I could feel the sickness coming. I didn’t expect it, but I should have. It’s more likely to happen when I get angry. It’s not a good combination with my fiery personality.
The sickness starts first as a splitting headache. It’s horrible. It tears at your brain with the hooks of its hate and swims through every nerve in the body. Not a pleasant experience. That is the warning. It’s a heavy hammer of a knock to tell you to get the hell out of there. You want to be alone for phase two, or things might get tricky. He was about to start talking again but I couldn’t let him see me. I turned and stormed out of the living room, like it was all part of my bitchy tantrum. He didn’t know that I was hiding. I slammed the door behind me and locked it just in case he decided to drop his usual manners. I couldn’t take any chances now.
My run away was just in time because I could feel the change happening. I ran across the room to the hanging mirror and watched my body and face change drastically. He was knocking at the door now, testing out the handle to see if I’d locked it.
“Please let me in. I want to talk to you. You have to stop running away from me.” And the pleading continued, but I wasn’t listening. My only concern for him was that his worry would lead him to knocking down the door. I had no doubts he could.
I couldn’t take my eyes away from my image on the wall. I’d gotten used to the idea of my image changing, since I first discovered I was a shifter, only five years ago now. But I have only seen the change like this once before, but at the school, when a shifter lost control. They took him away and I haven’t seen him since. I was out of control too. That was part of the sickness. The face that stared back at me was constantly changing; another feature shifting each second, until my face was just a blur of different people. I didn’t know what to do, but I started panicking.
I started scratching at my face, but I couldn’t even feel it. All I could feel was the burn of my transition. It was horrible and terrifying, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I was almost tempted to open the door. But I didn’t let that idea take over. I sat of my bed and did everything I could think of to calm myself. It was hard to stay still in the pain, but sitting down helped a little bit with the headache. I thought calming thoughts, about my family and my future, I even prayed, but nothing would stop it. At one point, the pain got so intense that I finally lost it. I passed out on the floor, the refreshing relief of unconsciousness taking over.
I don’t know what happened between then and when I woke up again, but I had moved. I was in my bed and it was morning. Had any of that happened? Was it all just a nightmare?
I sat up in bed, a headache rolling over, crushing my body like a heavy stone, and looked around the room. Nope, definitely not a dream. The door was leaning against the wall, splinters sticking out at the hinges.

The Art of Failing Gloriously

I looked out over the crowd that was mercifully shrouded by the darkness, while I felt stark naked and vulnerable in the harsh brightness of the stage lights. My voice had left me and I stood still with my mouth open, my audience waiting for the words that I was desperate to express. But they had disappeared from sight, and I was left helpless to the scrutiny of the eyes of my peers. I could feel the words forming behind my eyes, but my lips made no attempt to process them. I was stuck in a trance and sinking into a sick place that I had no desire to visit. That same sickness was building up within my throat, threatening to beat my words to my mouth.

"I bet I could change your life." I could see the ghost of my mind travelling before me, clear cut and perfect, saying and doing exactly what I should be doing. And all I could do is watch.

"I bet one word could change you life. You might not even notice it when it happens, but trust me, it'll happen one day."

I had to push myself, force the words out of me, but I couldn't. And as I watched myself move with such grace and speak with such determination, all my audience could see was my failure.

"When I think about Annabelle, I don't think of all the things she did, like her stellar grades or her good sense of fashion or even all the friends she had on facebook. All I can think about is how she changed my life, and now because of the people in this audience she'll never know."

I was a failure. This whole time all I wanted to do was to glorify Annabelle for who she really was in life, not for what people thought about her or what they saw on the surface, because all that was a lie, and only I knew the truth. If only she was here now, maybe I could do it.

"Get off the stage retard!" yelled someone from the crowds. I realised that they were speaking to me, and they broke me out of my fixation with this ghost of myself.

"I-I-" I looked around the stage, at the people, at the darkness in front of me. I couldn't do it and before I knew it I was back stage, away from the uncomfortable stares of the audience, on the floor sobbing. My heart had finally caught up with me and was thrashing against my chest. I was gasping for air and desperately trying to find my inhaler. I ripped off my jacket, searching though all the pockets, but I couldn't find it. My breaths were short and rapid, and I gave up my frantic search to focus on my breath. Maybe I could settle myself it I just could concentrate. But all I could think about were the people down there, confused and judgemental. Annabelle would be disappointed.

Black spots were forming in front of my eyes and I didn't even have the energy to cry out for help this time.

The gifted one

Every night I see bone, my bone, flesh coloured. They say I'm gifted, I'm special, that I'm their saviour. But I don't want that. I'd rather starve like the rest of them that live the life I'm forced to live.

These days food is scarce, and the nights when we can't find a scrap of food my people turn to me. Their pleading eyes, how am I supposed to refuse them. They're kind to me, to say the least. They don't force me to give in, unlike the stories I've heard about the people like me.

Every night I die a more gruesome death than the night before, and every morning I wake up with the bruises, deep and black, haunting marks of my so called "gift".

I am a feast, a meal to some. The flesh is stripped from my body by a man with hungry eyes and drooling lips, eager to satisfy the roar in his belly. I usually black out about the time my limbs are completely bare of anything but bone. I've gained strength...stamina since the beginning, when they discovered my "gift". I used to black out at the first sight of blood - my own blood - spilling to the ground by the litre.

Every night I cry and scream in pain, but not for the doers to stop, but for them to go too far, for them to be that little bit too greedy. I want them to do it, hoping that I don't wake up in the morning. Praying that my eyes stay forever shut, and that my body is finally laid to rest, deep down in the earth where I can finally decay for good.

They're skilled though. They know exactly when to stop, exactly how far I can go. They've had generations to practice, on my mother, on my grandmother, all of them were exactly like me. It's a family thing, something in my genes. They say it comes from the before time, when food was still plentiful. The people of the before time could see that their food was thinning, plants were dying, animals were disappearing. So they made me - well they made a distant relative, decades ago, to feed the people that could no longer feed themselves. I am their saviour, or so they say so. I don't know if I believe them. Every day, in the hours that I live, I pray for a real saviour, the real gifted one that is supposed to save my people. And every night, as my torture comes to suffocate me in a cycle, to repeat itself over and over, I pray for my death - my final death.

Death's Rule Book (2)

"So are you Death or are you Michael?" she asked me.
"...I'm both." I answered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, which it was.
"But that doesn't make sense."
"Well you don't ask 'Are you Doctor or are you Steve?' You just know that he is Dr Steve." She still looked at me with blank eyes. "A doctor named Steve."
"Yeah I get that. But what name is Michael for Death?"
"Well I don't know! My mother didn't look at me when I was born and say 'Oh he looks like a Death. We should name him Death.' What kind of sick mother would name their son Death?!" I was bitter and frustrated and I knew she didn't deserve that, but I was in a bad mood. What am I talking about? I'm always in a bad mood, but she wasn't making it any easier for me.
"Sorry, I was just asking. I'm Shelly." She extended her hand out to me, which I plainly ignored, continuing on my travels.
"Shelly the Shadow. Well that sounds about right." I sighed. As I had noted earlier, she was a supernatural being, unfortunately paired with the personality of a very annoying human. She was a shadow creature. I didn't come by them very often in my travels as they are pretty hard to spot. But then again once you did get attached to one they were very hard to shake off. They were creatures that were made of primarily gases and light, and they attached themselves to the shadow of a living, moving being, feeding off their life. They detached themselves of that being when that being was dead. They usually go on through life completely undetected by the humans. But since I was not human, she had more of a problem than just being able to be seen.
"Whatever, I think it's a pretty name. I reminds me of the beach. I was attached to this really cute diver before you. That's where I came up with the name, because he used to collect shells." Her very long, personal but pointless story was beginning to ebb away at my patience.
"So how long does it usually take for your kind to die off when they don't have a life source?" Blunt, rude, well that was how I liked it. To the point. I didn't particularly care for her. She was getting on my nerves. Both of us knew quite well she wasn't going to live being attached to me; me being a lifeless creature, and we both knew that she was stuck with me until one of us died. I could see on her face that this had shocked her as much as I had hoped.
"Uh...about a month." she said in a small voice. I kind of felt bad at how simply she had answered me, just giving me another fact about her life that I didn't really care about. A pang of guilt rang inside my chest. But I held it back, ignoring her sudden quietness. 31 days. That was too long away. 31 long days having to work with this thing attached to my back. Like a leech. A dying leech. But still, I didn't like my work being interrupted.

There was a cottage ahead of us, down at the end of the meadow. As I got closer I realised that it wasn't much of a cottage, but really a farm shed, filled with hay and cow stalls for milking. There was work equipment and a tractor and the door was battered and large enough to fit anything through it. Above the stalls was another room, which you could get to by a ladder near the entrance. It looked like the living quarters of the man hanging in the corner of the work room. I took in all that was in the room - the rotting hay bundle that a calf was chewing away at, the picture in its frame of a woman and child sitting on the writing desk, the dirty working clothes thrown away on the floor.
Shelly on the other hand couldn't take her eyes off the man hanging from the noose.
"For someone who feeds off people's life, you don't seem to be taking death to easily."
"I've never seen anyone kill themselves before." she said to me, a little nervous.
The dead man looked at us with cold eyes wide open, skin pale and sickly. His mouth was ajar and facing downwards in a bored expression.
"A little help here?" the dead man asked us. I smiled to myself at seeing Shelly jump so obviously. She was so shocked, I could see that she was ready to jump out of her skin...if she had any skin to jump out of.
"He...he just spoke to us! Isn't he dead?" She clung to my sleeve, digging into my arm. I shrugged her off, my amusement suddenly gone.
"The dead aren't dead until I take their soul away. Everyone except me can't see that their soul is still in their body. But now it seems that you can also see that by default." Shelly still looked confused and scared, but I couldn't delay the process any longer.
"Hello Mr Evans." I said, addressing the man. Shelly giggled suddenly, but I didn't see any humour in the matter.
"How's it hanging." She said between bouts of laughter. The man stayed expressionless but gave her the finger. She stopped laughing and frowned at the man, obviously taken aback by his gesture. "What's got you so grumpy."
"Are you Death?" asked the man, ignoring Shelly.
"Yes." I didn't like when they asked questions, but it was better than when they were begging me for mercy or something like that. I couldn't take their souls easily unless they accepted the situation.
"You don't look like Death." he said, looking me up and down.
"That's what I said!" said Shelly, excitedly.
"Shut up." I whispered to her.

Death's Rule Book

Rule number one. Death is unavoidable. Everyone knows this. Even the youngest and the most naive of people will know that they won't live forever, and yet it seems that the human race is most content on changing that. That just makes my life harder; they beg me and they try to bribe me, but honestly what can they give the only person that truly has an eternal life.

Rule number two. Things will always stay dead. Well that goes for humans and animals - the rest is a longer story. There is no such thing as resurrection in humans, you're just not capable of such things. All this talk of CPR is rubbish. I come across the poor souls that are still partially attached to their body when they have some useless person beating away at their chest. "Get off me!" They yell, because they don't know that they're dead yet. But they kneel over the dead, tears spilling over their cheeks, desperately clinging to the deceased.

Rule number three. Death, unlike life, is forgettable. No one celebrates their own death each year it comes round again - for obvious reasons. But the people you leave behind are only going to grieve you for so long before you are forgotten . Eventually you will no longer be important enough to be spoken of again; to have your memory emerge and be spoken as words. After that you will no longer be important enough to have you memory accumulate in someones mind, and you will have truly died your final death. Depressing - I know.

These are the rules I live by. These are the rules that dictate life of the humans. I don't make the rules. Trust me I didn't. I only follow thme - it is my job. I am Death, the Grim Reaper, the Fourth Horseman, and it goes on. But you can call me Michael.

Shutting Down

Shutting down, closing down.

Everything is stopping, slowing. I can feel it happen before they can see it. My vision is clouded with images, outer worldly and my hearing stalls. Stomach acids are moving and filling the places they shouldn’t, sending waves across my body. Every muscle contracts uncontrollably. Oxygen is passed through every vein, every capillary, but I’m filling with the poison of the outside. My skin burns, itches and irritates until it bleeds.

Shutting down, turning off.

My body seems to be delaying the sweetness of unconsciousness, the utter bitterness of the cold blackness. It wants to hold me here in a painful embrace, holding me to grasp onto the life I no longer care about.

Shutting down, power cut.

Souls, trapped in the bodies of idiots stand, lifelessly trying to help the lifeless. They could do so much more, but they don’t, and I applaud them. Paper rain, and roses in the shapes of hearts showers me from the heartless loved ones. Maybe the heart shaped roses could replace mine? Maybe I would wake and see the world differently. Maybe, maybe. But maybe not.

Shutting down, zoning out.

Tick, tick, tick. But no tock. No clock makes a sound so sinister. The sound beats away in the darkness, beats away in the brighter days, beats away when all else has fallen to the floor. My whole body shudders with this sound. I lay, seemingly motionless, and watch as the sinister clock, counting down the seconds of life, trembles within my chest, like a monster, beating at the ribs to get out. Playing its musical number.

Shutting down, blacking out.

My throat tightens, cutting off golden breath and taste. Ice cold. Touches of something horrifying and sharp. Needles and pins prick the skin red. Drops of rubies, so precious, gone; mixed with the dust of the floor of the attic. Dust fogs up my lungs. I have been stored. Put away. Forgotten forever, like windows of the past we only ever take out once in a decade. I’m stuffed in a cardboard box, rotting away, decaying.

Shutting down, shutting down.

Gone.

If Only

The fierce, antagonising anger burned under my skin, so close to the surface, it was a wonder I didn't rip the hair from her head right then and there. It was another lecture-public bitch fest to my face I was forced to endure with a smile on my lips. Each word etched itself into my brain, digging its venomous self deeper and deeper. I wanted to scream so badly. I wanted to swear and to yell back, to show the world that I wasn't just going to sit here and let myself be degraded by someone who knew nothing of what she was talking about. it was infuriating! How could anyone be so selfish?

But I didn't say a word. I never do. I kept on a clam face, making it look like the dark, venomous words would drip off my skin like water on a ducks feathers, not peeling at my flesh and boiling my blood like it really was. Maybe that's why she never gave up on taunting me. Maybe she really believes that my front is as deep as it goes; that she hasn't broken me. She persists and digs deeper, hoping that one day all her hard work will finally pay off.

but I won't let that happen. The invisible tears run down my cheeks, drenching my collar, but I won't let them see it. i won't let them judge me with their piercing eyes and tongues as sharp as devils' horns.

"Your stupid if you think you can get away with this forever." The words were barely whispered from my tongue, but I let them sink in, a torment of the mind. I left her there, speechless, her stupid blue eyes, reeling back on what had happened. What had happened? I wasn't sure myself, but the blood of my enemy left under my nails told a different story. Bones crack like dry twigs and crumble to dust. How was I to know?

it was never held against me what I had done. the one who had never done anything to correct the wrongs in her life before has finally cracked; one big explosion in the brain that set of thousands of sparks and reactions until it was all one big nuclear war within the mind.

but I wish i could take it all back. I wish I could reverse the time. I wish I could control it all, but it's all out of our power isn't in? If only....

Two Weeks in Hell - pt 6

She ran at him with all the energy she had left, desperately hoping to throw him down. It was far too late to save him now, she realised. He was long gone from understanding what she did and why. She had to kill him too, like the others. She would regret doing it for only a little while, but then she would stop grieving and get on with her life, like she knew she had to. As for Molly, well, if she didn’t get to a hospital soon, she’d be dead. And no one would be home for another few hours. Problem solved. Travis was the only thing standing between her and escape.
Travis misjudged how strong she was and fell back to the floor from the impact, hitting his head on the glass table, shattering the top and knocking it over. He could barely see straight and his view of Demi above him was hazy. Demi didn’t know what she was doing, just going off what she could imagine Anastasia doing. An ongoing battle pulled within her, compelling her to strangle him and screaming at her to get off of him. She went for his neck, cutting off his airway. Travis battled to get away from her, but his head was dragging him down, disabling him from making any coordinated movement or use his strength. He couldn’t do much other than struggle and paw at her strong arms around his throat. He weakened and at one point he realised that he was going to die. When he had no energy to hold his arms up in an attempt of protest, they fell to his sides, landing on the shards of glass from the table, not that he noticed the shards piercing his skin. However, he did notice the tip of the knife. Against his hopelessness, he tried to grasp it. Maybe is would show her how close to death she came, he thought. She watched him struggle, watched him grasp for one last breath and watched him give in.
And it was so easy.
Of course it wasn’t easy leading up to that one moment, but just killing him – Travis, her love – was easy. Easier than expected. Too easy perhaps? remorse and guilt flooded her whole being. What had she done? What was she doing? She felt sick and instantly let go of Travis. Was it too late to save him? He wasn’t breathing and he didn’t move.
The voices had left her head. The horrible voice of Anastasia who had prompted her to murder Travis’ family; to murder an innocent child; to kill the man she loved. What had she become? Everything she had done and everything she had thought had happened all came rushing back to her, and she was drowning in her despair. The hollow look on his face made her weep.
“Travis?” she cried, pleading that he would breathe. And then she saw it. His chest rose ever so slightly, and his eyes moved in their sockets as he assessed the situation. A sudden joy welled up in her; but it was only momentary, because the next moment Travis had plunged the knife into her chest. She rolled off him, panicking and gasping in pain. She had never felt anything so painful in her life. Even the injuries she experienced in the past few days combined were dulled with the adrenaline and murderous thoughts and didn’t even compare. Her vision was fading fast, and she knew she had no hope. She would be gone in a matter of seconds. As the life fled from her body, her last sight was of Travis, kneeling above her, looking down with his eternal grief.