“City Gates” A Prequel to “Nameless” Part 3

Sorry for the delay, I have been busy the past few weeks, but here it is... the last part of the prequel. :)


“City Gates”

A Prequel to “Nameless”

by: Jeel Christine de Egurrola

Abandoned Building by Kenji Nakayama, 2005

PART 1: THE GREEN BROTHERS

PART 2: THE SIGNATURE


PART 3: THE RED HERRING

She slides her physique with the quiver in her hand through the crevice of the old building where the ground splits spatially from lower to higher position due to the movement of the ground platelets about twenty eight years ago during the nuclear revolution that partially ended the war. We are still in war, she thinks. She steps through the cement stones that are still strongly attached from the walls over the crack in the ground. Inside the abandoned building, she tiptoes through the dim room where only a partial light enters from a four-inched diameter hole that looks like some fist hit the wooden-barred window that created the hollow.

It seems like a safer place to hide than the outside. She was on her way to the train station to flea to Avalonia when Castor saw her and seized her back to his BMW, but as soon as she hit the other side of the door which happened to be unlocked, she escaped. What a foolish thing to do. Castor, as foolish as ever... she smiles to her self.

In the dimness she could see broken things—her favorite things. She looks at the hard metal scraps on her right. Railings, broken shutters, aluminum and copper scraps and even old condensers are almost everywhere. She's in heaven... She could create from all the junk. The place is the perfect studio for her arts as soon as it is renovated.

She finds herself tippytoeing through the dirty floor to the darkest area of the room where she couldn't be seen. Castor and Ani could still be looking for her. Her back on the wall, she pushes her self down. When she is already in her place, she moves her arms around her knees in a hug. Her head she drops down touching her knee and covering her face. She starts crying unbeknownst of the reason behind the tears.

She stays there for what seems like hours until she hears a tumble from the other side. The sound echoes through the vastness of the room. Her head jolts up in a protective spasms. It made her numb for a while. Then a silhouette across the darkness appears. A man—not as big as Castor's, nor is it a body of a woman or Ani's. She is now standing—her body ready to move and escape from an anticipated attack. But the figure just stands there as if waiting for her to move, or otherwise. She might not be visible at all from across because she makes sure she is in the darkest recesses of the room.

She could make a run for it, but if she will, the figure might notice her—that is if it hasn't discovered her existence yet. So she decides to freeze on her position. Then the figure moves obliquely through the barred window where the light enters the small hole. As soon as his face hits the light, she could see a part of his face—a familiar face.

He peeps through the hole in a rigid manner as if cautious in his movements. He seems afraid—but afraid of what exactly? She asks herself.

"I see you standing there." He begins talking in a low pitch, but still peeking at the hole. "I'm hiding like you are, so don't you worry about hurting you because I won't." And this time his eyes now directed toward her. "I lost my brother from the pursuit."

She remains quiet but still cautious.

But before he could move toward her, a sudden rap echoes through the room. The door bolts and the light shimmers through. Three goons enter the room and she charges through the crack of the wall where she entered a few hours ago. The boy, on the other hand, rushes through the junk to hide himself. But it was already too late for him. One goon catches his shoulders while the other hits his head with steel. He is now unconscious.

Before she could slip through the crack, she hears the boy's groan in unison with a loud thump and clatter. Shit! I have to help him. Stealthily she goes back to the darkness where she couldn't be seen. It is possible that none of the goons saw here earlier.

Indeed, none did.

The goon with an eye patch dragged the boy's body toward the open door where they came in, while the other two pace ahead of them.

"Search for the boy. The doctor would be furious to know we have lost one prisoner." says the blond man with tattoos all over his body.

As soon as they were out the room, the girl follows their track along the hallway of the abandoned building.

Two of the men goes straight out of the building to the outside world to search for the lost boy, whereas the one with the eye patch dragged the unconscious boy by the shoulders up to the stairs to the next floors.

"Fuckin' elevator!!" He cussed with annoyance to the malfunctioned elevator. The elevator could have saved him the time and effort of bringing the prisoner to its destination. The girl follows them silently and hides behind junks that scatter along the hallways. For that, she's happy with the scraps, old woodworks and metalworks.

They reach the fourth level of the building where dry sheets, blankets, clothes and underpants hang suspended on nylon ropes along the hallways. The thug knocks on a room located in the center of the hallway where another man opens the threshold from the inside. The threshold, among the rest of the doors in the whole building appears to be the widest of them all. It looks as if this particular room is a function room of sorts. The door, just like the wall paneling are of Walnut.

He continues to haul the boy inside the door. When they are already inside, the door closes.

Within the same hallway are broken consoles and cabinets. On the top of one of the consoles lay scabbards, and several knives and daggers of different sizes. She takes one of the knives and slides it on one of the scabbards. She tiptoes through the other room next to the room where the goon entered. It is a kitchen. Inside the kitchen are piles of dirty dishes, glasses and pots on the sink and on the table. Rotten food that looks as if they were thrown scatters through the floor.

From the other side of the wall she could hear the voices of men talks and boisterous laughs.

"Dude! You're a freakin' douche bag!" Squeals one man.

"A douche bag and a party pooper!" Says another in a an utter that sounds more like a groan than a voice. She could hear more gags. There must have been more than four hoodlums in the other side.

"Shut up!" The voice now irate... "If the doctor hears of your sloppiness, we're all doomed! Do you understand now huh, Burg!!" Then all the chuckling stops in an instant. "If Max and Bruss do not see the boy, you will have to take his place in the harvesting!"

"Then Project Bio be dammed!" Groans one of the thug—possibly the one named Burg. "My marrows are old and useless...and it'll be you who the doctor would kill because of your SLAH-PI-NESSSSS..." Burg hisses. His sarcastic tone aggravates the other thug that a sudden thud crackles through the wall where the girl is eavesdropping. The impact makes the girl drop on her back. Her limbs hit the piles of dirty dishes on the kitchen table, which clatter in an ensemble. Steams of blood ooze from her injuries in her upper limbs.

She's in danger. Her mind processes the information. She jerks herself to a stand, while sounds of running feet  reverberate through the immensity of the fourth floor. And so the chase begins, but it does not last long because the goons catch her immediately. She drops the floor. The strength of the men she could not contain—not now with her injuries suppressing her own strength.

"Looks like the we've got ourselves a replacement." The blonde grins.

"And look at what we have here..." The bald hoodlum points to her quiver, which she dropped on the ground. "....silver bow and arrows."

"I'll claim that." Says the blonde...

They take her inside the room where the prisoners are being held. She looks at the group, the boy now tied lying unconscious on the ground. Two adult women, one child, one old woman, an old man, and another adult male sit on the floor with their backs on the wall are also tied on all limbs, and mouths covered. And she to complete the group also being tied. She is to replace the other boy who escaped.

"You pretty face is perfect. I bet you've got pretty bones as well!" The bald thug cups her face with his hands, and she spits her saliva to his ugly face.

"Oh! feisty, this one!" He grins instead... "Don't yah worry girl, such thin-skinned ass like you is exactly the perfect candidate for the harvesting, and I'll make sure you'll be the first to be harvested. Our dear doctor loves feisty little things." And he laughs rollickingly.

Harvesting? What is this harvesting he is talking about? She wonders... and it scares her for the first time...

The bald reaches to cover her mouth. "And that is to keep you from spitting your filth on my face."

She sits on the coldness of the floor brooding. She shouldn't have followed to try to save the boy when she was already halfway her freedom. What a foolish choice. She chastises herself.

But it's not yet over, she can still save the boy, the others, and her self. All she needs is a red herring.

Then a phone rings. The blonde hoodlum answers. "Hey doc, yeah? Okay. Got that."

"Doc says the bone marrow harvesting begins in twelve hours. Seems like his flight has been delayed."

WHAT!! She panics. Did he just say BONE MARROW HARVESTING? Fuck!

"Which means we can still play with the prisoners.... and I want the girl." Says the bald goon looking at the girl. Their eyes meet, and she sees great desire and rape in his eyes. She grimaces.

Bone marrow harvesting... her marrows be harvested. Will she and the rest die? Is this how her life's supposed to end? NO WAY! And she feels her motivation—much greater and stronger than ever!

Then, the boy's eyes flutter and his body jerks.

And she finds her self a red herring....she smiles.


-END of the Prequel-

Read Sequel here: NAMELESS

Read more...

“City Gates” A Prequel to “Nameless” Part 2

“City Gates”

A Prequel to “Nameless”

by: Jeel Christine de Egurrola

Trumpeting Angel Musical Serenade, Haiti

PART 1: THE GREEN BROTHERS

PART 2: THE SIGNATURE

I am invisible. When I move, I move fast like a flash of light. I am swift as lightning... like light, like nothingness, in quantum level I am invincible. I am space. I am time. I am the universe. In a tear of a time, I manifest. The physical world is my making and I choose it the way I want it. I am creator. I am destroyer. And I am in wishful thinking...

“I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.” I whisper. I pray my ho'oponopono mantra. I cleanse myself from the darkness inside me.

I run as hastily as I can through the mossiness and the rockiness of the ground, without leaving any tracks as possible. Otherwise, the huntsmen will find me. I cannot allow anyone to know I went exploring beyond the borders. My father would be in helluva ire. I step on the mosses, avoiding the dirt floor. I swing from one tree to another in great agility with my quiver hanging on my right shoulder, and my knives on my scabbard. Two more knives hidden separately on each ankle of my legs underneath my combat boots...

I course through the woods until I see the hedges that make up the labyrinth of the manor—my very own manor—my little kingdom of trivial happiness. Mine’s the smallest amongst my brothers’ and sisters who know nothing about my existence, nor does my father’s legal wife. The world knows nothing about me except Ani and Castor—my keepers and my guardians.

Unlike a property I am no one’s. My life is mine alone... and I’m alone... I have no family. I have no name to begin with. My father or my keepers aren’t my family. They co-exist only to my concealment from the rest of the world. Had the world known about me, my father’s political career would be in great jeopardy. He wouldn’t risk that if he is on the running for presidency in Pandemonia—our dystopian world.

I couldn’t say my father loved me because I know he didn’t. I love him, nonetheless. I am a mistake that is the reason why I don’t have his name, nor do I have my mother’s name. I do not even know her. I am not allowed to ask. My life is all restriction, but my life despite that is mine alone. 

I am deviant in some ways because I don’t behave the way normal people do or at least ‘normal’ in an influential person’s point of view. I act like a packrat they say, because when I was little, I am like a rat playing in the mud and collecting filthy and broken things. In fact, I have a vast collection of junk metals and materials for my ‘junk arts’ they call it.

I am an artist—a metal artist—in essence. It is only in my art that I have a name—a signature.

אָנ אַ נאָמען

These are traditional Yiddish characters that mean “Nameless.” It’s not exactly a name but it’s better a better signature than none. Heh!

I’ve got great fashion sense. Even though I am a packrat, I like to dress myself up and down. I love my curves, my voluptuous body , my short sexy legs (long legs are way overrated), my feet, my nails, my hands, my freckled face, my blonde hair and especially my blue eyes... my mom’s blue eyes, said my father.

My lifestyle has nothing to do with worldly appreciation and approval. I don’t need them. My lifestyle and my idealism are mine to appreciate.

I slip into a tiny hidey-hole that leads to a tear in the hedge where I slide in smoothly to the other side of the world, where my superficial and pretend life is.

Hurriedly, I run toward the house to my room in the attic. The safest place in all of Pandemonia, though I haven’t really been in other places outside Penndorion, the capital of Pandemonia.

The entire attic space is mine. One portion is my studio where I sculpt my metal arts and create my mixed-media arts. At the centre of the studio is my grandest masterpiece I call The Iron Fae aside from it being made from copper and iron, the Iron Fae is actually a faery with pointed eyes on the sides and Elvin ears and with the tolerance of Iron and blood and with golden-copper wings like that of an angel. Usually faeries and the folk die because of Iron. Iron are toxic to them.

One thing about faeries I like the most is that faeries are deceptive even when they cannot lie. They have this  amazing psychological ability to twist a lie to make it look like truth. Faeries are misunderstood as mischievous and selfish but they aren’t. They cling only to their natures and nothing more. Just as a man steals bread from someone else to fill in that need for food or when a good boy turns to killing a man who murders its father... our bodies operate exactly how it is made to operate and via our survival instincts and our very own organismic valuing.

And like an angel, holy and eternal, my Iron Fae is a spiritual creature that in my imagination experiences the amazing supernatural and human conditions.

In a child’s lenses, I am that faery.

Opposite my studio is my white divan bed that is pose at the center. Beside it is the lava lamp on my side table. Inside each drawers and niche of my bed are collections CDs and DVDs of several genres and of books that vary from the social sciences to literature and pure sciences. Though college education is an option for my father, it ain't for me. I can always learn on my own. My homeschooling experience make me realize that. 

Along the side of the wall on the left of my bed is my reading couch where I sit for a good read. Beside it is a  glass console with few of my metalworks in it. One is an broken iron-made birdhouse that I customized with cockworks, and a small pendulum that swings back and forth with every movements of the gears. Another on the second level niche is a bronze metal tree with base attached to granite. It has coiling snakelike branches that extend to leaves that aren't leaves at all but aluminum sculpted doll heads. On the next niche is a copper and iron made mini Stonehenge replica. Next the Stonehenge is my pure silver-made bow with Gods and Goddesses designs with three arrows. Other niches are still empty.

On my walls are my mixed media arts with acrylic and metals as my main mediums. One painting I call "Devotion" where two human bodies intertwine with circus-like flexibility. Both aluminum skulls are embossed like reliefs in canvas. Five more arts are attached on my white wallpapered walls.

Then, someone knocks at my bedroom door.

"Who is it?" I ask.

"It's Ani. Open the door." It isn't a request but a command. I am always commanded, but I am a maverick. Ani and Castor think of me as the most stubborn person in the world. "I said open up!"

I didn't answer for a moment. She starts banging and I only make a smirk.

"Your father called. Open up!" and so I do. She looks haggard and smells like sweat.

"Geez. You smell like filth." I tease.

"We need to leave now. Some paparazzo guy took a picture of you with your father. News say that you are your father's child. Some say you're the concubine..."

"That's shit!" I cut in.

and she continues "...the news has circulated throughout the media, and they're on their way." She panics. She pulls me from my room, and I jerk back.

"I need to get some things."

"No time for that." She is uncompromising. Even so I move back to my wardrobe to get my quiver.

We rush through the hallway, and Castor in his late thirties joins in. Outside is Castor's BMW 3 Series E30 vintage on the driveway.  We slide in, and Castor reeves the engine through the arched gates of the manor.

What are we running from anyway? Not that my father cares for me. He only cares of himself.

"Where are we going anyway?" I ask.

"To the City Gates."

"What? Are we leaving Penndorion?"

"Yes." Ani answer.

Well, isn't that shit! I say to my self. Now, I know exactly what to do. As soon as we reach the gates I shall carry on with my escape. We drive for almost less than an hour and we reach the City Gates.

"I need to pee."

Castor looks at me and he nods.

I get out from the car and to the crowd of people I slip in.

Ani follows my track but I move obliquely sideways to my left then to the right. In zigzag swagger I motion. I pace and push through the crowd to lose Ani and Castor. I hear Castor squeaks. "What the fuck! The girl's moving fast." And Ani calls "Girl! Come back!" I move a bit faster and when I lose them in the crowd. I push my self out and go inside a restaurant where I find my self in a midst of a fight between a big black guy and a white one.

The black guy hits the counter of the diner. To be in a place where people might be coming in to know about the commotion is not what I have in mind. I move to the restroom of the diner and from there I reeve through one of the awning windows. And out the back my feet reach the ground. And there  he is—a thief breaking a car window. Upon hearing my movements, the theif—a boy in his twenties now look at me with fear in his eyes and he flies to me in an attempt to hit me with the rod he's grasping. But I am faster. I catch the feebleness of his neck.

"Move and I will not hesitate to bring you to your death."

"Please." His voice is surprisingly apathetic. "...we're on a run. My brother and I. Our father's gonna kill us both if we don't flee farther."

With the tone of his voice I couldn't know if he is telling the truth or otherwise. But I let go instead. His infirm physique will not be a problem if he decides on aiming at me again. I am faster and stronger.

"Thanks. I need to run." He smiles, and he goes.

"Marcus" A guy in a blue shirt and a denim underpants looks at me.

"We have to move brother." Marcus replies and both men goes to their destination leaving the convertible with the broken window.

Must have been his brother... I make my way out the alley to another establishment. To a local motel I get me a room where I could rest for the night. It is almost sunset. In the morning I will be away farther from here. I will ride the train to Avalonia or to Cape Rune where freedom from restrictions awaits me.

I smile to my self.

*****

You may also read the last of the chapters...

PART 3: THE RED HERRING

Read more...

“City Gates” A Prequel to “Nameless” Part 1

“City Gates”

A Prequel to “Nameless”


by: Jeel Christine de Egurrola

Two Brothers by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1921

PART 1: THE GREEN BROTHERS

Kato Green

“Move faggot!” I could hear my step-father’s loud cry. My brother Marcus moves away. My stepfather smiles sarcastically at Marcus... and Marcus.... poor Marcus just stares.

“What are you staring at, huh, faggot!!?”

“Nothing.” Marcus replies unnerve...

“What do you mean nothing? You’re staring at me like you wanna throttle me like a mouse!”

“I do not stare at you like that.” He defends himself with the voice that is no one’s but Marcus’—low and apathetic.

I don't understand why Marcus just allow anyone to label him, cuss against him, and abuse him. Profanities are insult to one's soul, and the more I hear them, the furious I become. Curses and words that pull people down are much worse than physical pain.

There was one time when I was fourteen that I found Marcus sitting beside piles of garbage bruised and wounded. His lips were swollen. He could barely move. I was supposed to meet him after his work in a bookstore to borrow books from a retired professor in a city state school who happens to be Marcus' boss. When I didn't meet Marcus I was worried and searched for him for half an hour and find him in that desolate alley. I was angry at whoever did it to him. He didn't tell me who, but I knew he wouldn't. He didn't want me to worry and I was furious. Had I know who the perpetrators are, I could have done the unthinkable. Had I been here during the incident, the perpetrator would have already been in his deathbed.

As an existent oppressed being in a cosmic chance I have learned to protect my self from my oppressors. My protective instinct is one of the reasons why I and my brother are still alive. Though I do not excel in hand-to-hand-combat, I am good with knives, but my greatest advantage is my ability to predict my opponent's offenses beforehand. I am not as educated as the rich and the powerful, I know how to write and read. Our mother taught us how to... One of the reasons why I read about human physiology and behavior is for my own and my brother's survival and maintenance.

In a wrinkle of a time, the big grumpy man in his early forties reaches and kicks my brother like a soccer ball. My brother hits the ground and I, now irate, take a bronze-made fire poker rod that is posed near the fireplace mantel and hit it toward the back of the big guy with full man strength. Such an ugly scene and a very bad thing for a teenage boy to do... In our society, we are subjected by laws that oppress the weak and the poor, and justice is only for those who are strong and rich—even the most disorganized criminals get away from trouble.

My stepfather squeals agitated obscenities. “You fuckin’ asshole! Just like your fuckin’ mother. Come over here bitch!” I move hastily toward the backdoor of the house where my small eight month old Doberman Pinscher my brother gave me last week as a birthday present sits on the meadow of manila grass. The dog barks an otherworldly sound like a sound of fright upon the sight of my step-father grasping my shoulders with his claw-like nails digging through my tanned skin. I feel the pain but I fight. Fighting is the only way to survival. From my experience with Doug, I learn to fight to protect me and my brother. I would do anything to defend my brother for he is my best friend and my only family left.

He continues to utter profanities—words I dare not hear. He pulls me inside the house and back and forth he aims at me with his painful blows. I smack him with upper hand blows and he stumbles, he stands up and hastens his motion back to me and he hits my forehead with the fire poker rod I hit him previously. I run groggily into the disorderliness of the kitchen where my brother is lying unconscious—dead to the world—on the dirty kitchen floor. Before I could reach the collection of knives in the knife handle, the big guy hits the occipital of my head and everything goes black. To nothingness I escape...

Marcus Green

I see myself looking at a vast field of daises, with my little brother beside me. I look at him and his slivery-gray eyes sparkle like gems exposed to the sun. He smiles at me like he always does when we are together. Kato takes off to Black, the little Pinscher I bought him with my meagre earning from the restaurant where I work as a dishwasher. I have no education. People like us—those who belong to the lowest strata in caste society do not get an education—not in this dystopian world.

I look at a seven-year old Kato playing with the black pup. His smiles are extraordinary—my comfort since our mother’s death.

I still remember it was noon when my mother and I went to the city market to buy us spices, potatoes and beans for mom’s bean casserole. It was a special day—Kato’s 7th birthday. My mom wanted to surprise him with a special casserole—our special casserole (one special viand that we can afford). Rice, bread, and the ones that we gather—fruits, root crops and vegetables—are the only food that we are used to eating... Sometimes if mom gets an extra tip from her clients in a beauty salon where she worked, we get to eat meat. Meat is the best food in the world. When I was young, I wanted to be a meat man so I can slaughter meat and bring my family meat every day.

Despite our impoverish situation, poverty is never our enemy because we have outgrown it or more like we are already used to its anguishing slaps.

My mother died the same day when a group of hoodlums come crashing us with their muscular bodies. One hoodlum—Scarface, I call him because of the long ugly scar lines diagonally from his left eye to the nose and to his right cheek—slits my mother’s throat. I will never forget that face.

Our food and our money they took. I fought like it was the fight to death but with my slender torso and limbs and my non-athletic body did me no good. Another goon knocked me out to the ground.

The memory keeps coming back. Always grief-stricken, the life I live with my brother, although oppressive sometimes because of the drunkard and emotionally-unstable stepfather, is my only comfort—a pillow that enshrouds me still to my sanity that I am so afraid to lose.

I laugh at the sight of Pinscher trying to catch its tale in circular motion. Black does it for minutes until he goes tired and instead jumps to give little Kato a lick on the face. That is the sweetest act of affection an animal can give to its human best friend.

I go to sit beside my brother, and for hours we talk and talk about anything under the sun. And then I wake up... Just a dream...

It is almost sunset when I regain my consciousness. I see myself lying on the dampness of the kitchen floor. Confuse, I try the recover from whatever trauma I received. As I regain my senses, my brother’s dire face I see in my mind. My brother... Kato...

I try to sit my banal torso just to see the lifeless body on the floor across me. Kato...

For a moment there I lose my self to despair. My vision now blurry from the lens of tears... My brother couldn’t be dead. Oh no! I reach for him and check his pulse but I sense none.

He’s alive. I try convincing myself.

“He’s dead.” Says a familiar voice—voice that once soothes, but no longer.

“Mom?” But no one answers. “Mom, is that you?” I look at my surrounding and I see no one, hear no one. I must be dreaming. Worse, I must be crazy. I sit there looking at something from a distance but actually seeing nothing for what seems like aeons, absorb in my own neurosis.

A sudden rap on the French window snaps me to my awareness. What the hell!

Dog paws stretch up through the window—Black is rapping the glass window as if knocking to be taken inside. I reach up to open one window and the poor creature leaps in the kitchen. Black moves toward the lifeless body of my brother. Kato’s face now pale, eyes closed, a cut projects from his right eyebrow and extends to his right temple, purple bruises from blows spread through his cheeks. A chill shudders through me as my brother’s lashes flutter.

He’s alive. Thank God. I whisper.

“Kato” I shake my brother’s shoulder as gentle as possible. His eyes flutter again and finally I see those silvery gray eyes. I give him my sincerest smile. “Kato, Oh my God, Kato. Are you okay?”

And Kato smiles back. “Marrrrckk-k-k-ccuss” he stutters.

“Hello brother. Can you sit?”

“I guess.” I pull him up and his body responds. Thankfully... “Where’s Doug?”

“I don’t know. He must have been asleep by now. The last thing I remember is that it was noon when the asshole attack me...us...”

I help set my brother on the couch in the living room and start cleaning with water and dressing his wounds with clean gauze from Doug’s first aid kit he hides under his bed—the same kit he stole from the city hospital where he worked as a custodian for over two months. A year ago, he lost the job because of his irritable disposition. From then on he never looked for another job. So, I answer his needs. I couldn’t say no. I have to repay what my dear mother owes him. He took us in when we were on the edge of surrendering from survival.

He never loved my mother, nor did he love us. He took us in because she was beautiful. My mom was an object to satisfy his desires and sexual needs. When mother died, he started abusing us physically and especially me because I am gay. Sometimes when he comes home drunk, he would hit me for no particular reason other than me being gay—a disgrace to his home is all, he said. He makes us do things we would never consent like stealing. But who are we to question? We are nothing but a weakling in a struggling and oppressive home.

Kato Green

We stay in the house for a while but we take off after an hour. Doug is still in his room dreaming. We have nowhere to go. We have no food. I have a few coins I saved from my work as a newspaper boy in the morning and an errand boy in a bakery during the night, and Marcus has his own savings too, but our money will not suffice for longer if we are too flea from this place and away from our stepfather. But we have no other options left. We know no one we can possibly trust in our hypocrite community.

We travel by foot for hours until we reach the train station where we buy our tickets to Penndorion, another city state where metalwork is its major industry.

We sit side by side with my brother. An old woman sits across me, and beside her a little lady, age twelve perhaps. She sings a song loud enough for us to hear. Her voice like siren's voice enthralling me to my death. The song she sings I am not familiar but it soothes me.

♪♫♫ Deep in the meadow, under the willow
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow
Lay down your head, and close your eyes
And when they open, the sun will rise

Here it’s safe, and here it’s warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm
Here your dreams are sweet–
–and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you.

Deep in the meadow, hidden far away
A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray
Forget your woes and let your troubles lay
And when again it’s morning, they’ll wash away

Here it’s safe, and here it’s warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm
Here your dreams are sweet–
– and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you.

Here is the place where I love you. ♫♪♫

(Words/lyrics borrowed from The Hunger Games by Suzzane Collins, and melody from Yiruma's Kiss the Rain >>> listen to the song here sung by Kimmy West of Mockingjay.net) 

As soon as we arrive at the Penndorion railway station, groups of uniformed and armed security men checks the luggage of the arriving guest, especially those with big baggages. We have no big luggage unlike the others. What I have is an old faded blue backpack with few of my clean clothing and my little dog hidden inside.

I have always wanted a dog since I was little, but I wasn't allowed. Doug said that dogs aren't for kids, and that they are filthy beasts who poos anywhere. I know I'm eighteen but it doesn't matter, this dog is mine. Sometimes it feels good to be childlike once in a while.

Marcus brings his black leather tanner bag satchel–his most expensive and priced possession–hangs on his right shoulder. 

We join in the crowd of people, and we lose ourselves among the sea of faces...

*********

You may also read PART 2 of this prequel.

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"Nameless" (A Short Story)

by: Jeel Christine de Egurrola

I plan on writing a prequel for this particular short story for the readers to be able to understand the personalities of the two main characters, and to know how their lives became entangled in a crisis.

Anyway, thanks to sir Jayson for an opportunity of a lifetime. :)

******

"They say that nameless things change constantly--that names fix them in place like pins. But without a name, a thing isn't quite real either. Maybe you're not a real thing."- Holly Black, Ironside

a shadow in a shadow

She could see that the boy is trying to cut the binds on his hands through his pocket knife. His isn’t as tight as hers, she notices. As soon as his binds loosen from where he squats, she shouts at the big muscular goon with the goatee that intertwines in locks, his bayonet on his scabbard on the right, and a bow and a quiver with arrows attached to his belt on his left. “Alright, fuck me!”

The goon spreads his lips in a mocking grin and moves to grasp her. The other two hoodlums—one bald, and the other blond—cheer in glee. He unties the knot on her bonds that deprive her from any form of movements and struggles.

Before he could ravish her, she smacks a punch to the big guy’s face and kicks his crotch. The guy screams in pain. She takes the bayonet from his scabbard and presses it down to his back and he stumbles unconscious. The other two riders advance her with their knives. The long-haired blond guy was able to cut her shoulders, opening up a leak where thick blood oozes. It stings her enough to loosen her grip on the bayonet. “Shit!” she screams and she ducks toward empty boxes on her right. The man catches her. He punches her back and forth until bruises appear on her freckled face. She could feel the pain in her cheeks. And before he could swing at her again, the boy whose binds were cut reaches down to the big man’s shoulders. He makes an attack that leaves the boy stumbling down on his back.

She reaches for the bayonet on the floor and presses it with force down to and fro the goon’s back. The boy gets the other knife, which stretches on the floor near the bald goon’s dead body—the one he hit unconscious with a steel rod. He stabs the blond hoodlum’s heart and he dies.

“That was fun.” He sighs in relief.

She reaches and takes the bow and the quiver where the arrows are stored out from the blond’s buckle, while he takes the rest of the bayonets with him.

They hurry to untie the binds of other prisoners and run for their escape before the other punks come back from their short trip elsewhere. The three men weren’t their only jailer, seven more are out there somewhere.

They both know that it isn’t safe to be out of the building in this time of the night. It is possible that more hoodlums are out for a lookout scattered in the building. What they need for now is a hideout where they can plan for their escape. They hide themselves in another room—a stock room of sorts—near the media center. It is the safest room they find in the midst of the darkness.

The room is dark. The only light that comes in is from the holes possibly created by bullets that passed the doors and the walls of the room. The inside is as dusty as the abandoned building itself. Various footbags of different colors are gathered in a pile on a shopping cart on one of the edge of the darkened room. Mops, vacuum cleaners are placed on the other edge, while bottles of detergents, sprays, and other liquids in bottles that must have been expired are arranged on a steel shelves attached to one side, and placed on the left side side are steel tables and cabinets that looks almost old as the building itself.

“For a moment there I though you want to fuck those goons.” He starts looking back and forth at her and the other prisoners who squeezed together in compact in the right side.

“Who in their right mind would ever want to be screwed by those homicidal punks who smell like shit? And what, fuck in front of everybody in an orgy? That’s so nasty!” She scowls.

“Uhm, exhibitionists, paraphilias, caudulists and the likes of them...” He replies.

“Right! Like they are in their right minds...”

“Yeah.” “You know what, I like you.” He smiles at her. His hair black as coal, eyes silvery gray, lips red not from lipstick—but natural red, a dimple appears on his right cheek making him younger than the first time she looked at him. He is probably eighteen or nineteen. She guesses.

“How come?”

“You’re cool, dangerous and you have wits none of them possess.” He points at the rest of the group. One girl sits with her knees that touch her breasts, hugs herself in what seems like fear in her eyes. A six year old kid snuggles under his granny’s protection. A woman in a green buttoned close cardigan and black jeans cautiously peeks at the outside through a little hole on the door. An old man whose hands don’t stop trembling sits beside a slender bloke in his early twenties who wobbles his lips in a silent prayer.

“You’d be surprise to know that that praying guy has a sense of humour.” He looks at him, and shakes his head.

“I don’t like guys. I’m not gay. My brother is.... I like women. That means you...”

“Oh! You’ll pretty much dislike me sooner or later. I’m not who you think I am. I am a serious lady and I have no time for games. And I love my solitude. So, please leave me.” She explains, trying to discourage the silvery gray eyed.

“Too bad I’m liking you even more.” He grins.

“Wait! Are you hitting on me?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you are.”

“Maybe I am. “ He teases her. Her wavy blond hair fits perfectly with her soporific blue eyes with curvy eyelashes that flutter like wings when she blinks. She wears a blue thin camisole, a designer’s jeans, and a black Chuck Taylor boots.

“I don’t like flirty guys and girls much. I might punch you now.” Her face now angry and annoyed...

“Then why don’t you?” He encourages.

“You know what? Fuck out!” She swings her fist toward his face, but before she could hit him, he dodges down and catches her by the waist. She jerks backward in an attempt to make a second hit, but he steps back in a defense position.

“Hey, easy there girl... I mean you no harm. I just wanna talk, you know. No one here talks with sense like you do. They’re all boring... all trapped in their fears.” He explains. His face no longer frivolous but serious and earnest...

“I’m a bore. So you better find another person to bug.”

“You don’t bore me.”

“Okay! So here’s the deal. I don’t want anything to do with you. Not now. Not ever. As soon as we get out of this hellhole, we will all be moving our own separate ways. We will not see each other again. We will forget that this shit ever happened. If destiny is so cruel that it’ll allow us to stumble with each other again, let’s pretend we don’t know each other. Alight!”

“I’m fine with that.”

“That’s a wise decision.”

“So, are we cool now?”

“Yeah, for now if you don’t do anything stupid.”

“I...” He hesitates. “...will try not to...” and smiles his cocky smile. “So, you’re a killer?” He asks.

“What?” She is confused.

“Well, you’re so good with the knives. Where did you train?”

“First, even if I use my knives well, it doesn’t mean I am killer. Second, I haven’t trained ever. Third, this is the first time I held a knife in offense of another. Lastly, I didn’t kill anyone. I stabbed the guy unconscious, not killed. You killed the blond.” She points her finger at him.

“...to save your ass!”

“I didn’t need saving. I can take care of myself. I could have taken him down on my own.”

“Okay, I believe that. But you are really good with the bayonet.”

“Fluke, possibly...“ For a moment there she only stares at him and hesitates but she continues. “It’s called adrenaline rush. See, our sympathetic nervous system mobilizes our body’s resources when we are under stress. Clearly because of the adrenaline, it must have induced a type of fight-flight response in my body. That explains why I was good with the knives. In fact I felt good then.”

“Oh, not only dangerous but also a nerd...”

“I am not a nerd. I am jut well-informed!” She exclaims.

“Huh!” with sarcasm in his tone of voice...

For that she moves away from him toward the woman who stands demobilize near the door. The woman looks at her and asks. “So what’s the plan?”

“So far, they haven’t moved yet, which means not of the men we took down have awakened yet. I am not sure how many goons are out there. They haven’t started looking for us, which means they haven’t known of our inexistence yet. I am gonna scout out till I decide how we will get off this hellhole.”

“Is that safe?” She asks.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll go with you.” The silvery gray eyed boy offers his help. She would have said no, but she nods instead.

She with a knife on her side, and the bow and quiver tucked on her shoulders; and he with knives of his scabbard; together they exit the storage room through the corner of the fourth floor to the stairs. They stealthily peek through and see two men talking silently below. One guy has a patch at his right eye. He wears blue chequered collared long sleeves. His jeans are tattered on the both knees. His oxford footwear looks old and worn. The other guy has a smaller build than the former. His cotton sleeveless has brown smears that look like dried blood. He wore a knee length men shorts, and a pair of combat boots. Both of them have holsters with guns on them. Gosh! Two total fashion misfits... she thinks.

They move to the other side of the building where another staircase is located. It would have been convenient if they use the elevator, but that would only attract the hoodlums, and the elevators in this old building don’t even work. She knows it because she heard two of the men talking about the malfunctioned elevator.

The stairs down is surprisingly empty of people, so as the upper stairs. She asks the boy if he thinks it is safer for them to climb down the stairs. The boy agrees to do as she thinks. So, they both steps down. When they reach the second floor, they see one sleeping lookout with a 20-inch barrelled, non-chrome lined stainless steel M16 riffle. So far in their peripheral view, they see no one else down, but they cannot be so sure. Who knows how many hoodlums are in the building. They enter the halfway and found no one.

“We have to go back.” says the boy “We have to get the others fast.”

“You crazy?”

“No. If we are gonna get out from here, we have to get out fast. This area seems safe. We have to get them all down here.” Then, she agrees.

They hasten back to the top until they reached the storeroom where the rest awaits them, and all of them hurry back to the second floor in an empty room where a mantel is found. Its firebox is empty of firewood. Its pilasters and plinths are cracked open, and the smells of termite-eaten-woods fill the space of the room. They stay there for half an hour after the two left.

Near the stairs, she could see that the sleeping lookout is still dreaming of who-knows-where-Faerieland. Without hesitation, she prepares her bow and arrow for four perfect bullseyes. She knows she wouldn’t miss. Archery is her skill. She intends to hit him on all limbs to deprive him from walking or moving his arms and hands. The boy is almost halfway the stairs to strangle the dreaming goon when another goon with dreadlocked hair unbeknownst them both shows up behind her. He reaches her arms heavily, and she stumbles on her back. The goon starts shouting.

The sleeping goon awakens but is unable to resist the boy’s steel rod that hits the side of his head. Groggily, the goon hits the ground. The silvery-eyed boy gives him another heavy blow and he falls back to dreamland unbeknownst the fact that he would no longer be waking ever from the deepest of the deepest slumber.

Another man with built like that of a body builder shows up and shots a gun toward the boy. It hit past him. He ducked crawled back up the stairs where the dreadlocked hoodlum is still fighting the girl. But the girl, who is now yards away from the running goon, shots her arrow through his heart. And he falls the ground.

The boy continues running toward the girl. “Move! They’re behind me.”

The blond girl shots his next arrow straight to the left eye of the punk with the gun who is chasing the boy. Though he yells in agony, he is still able to shoot the boy. Bullet hits a portion of his right shoulder. It isn’t a deadly wound, but an injury all the same. Two more hoodlums are now shooting. “Shit!” He cusses. They hurry up the stairs where they meet the raged-driven bald—the one the boy hit earlier.

But the boy’s knife fly through the bald’s heart killing him dead on the floor.

“And now look who’s so good with knives!” She utters. He smiles in his victory.

They continue running through the other staircase where they wait for the two goons. She let fly two arrows simultaneously toward one of them, who wobbles down to his knees. Blood leaks from his wounds and sobbed like a baby. The other one—the one with eye patch—keeps shooting with his revolver. They climb down the stairs to the first floor then to the dirty kitchen where they hide at the back of the scullery.

The goon enters. “Come out, come out wherever you are!” Angry, he jams through the tables, making utensils and pots tumbling down the tiled floor. He couldn’t shoot anymore. His is the last of his bullets, and he has to only shoot it bullseye on either one of them, and possibly strangle the other one or kill it with a knife. He smiles at his perfect plan.

But the two have their own perfect plan as well, which overcome the punk’s. The boy comes flying toward the back of the hoodlum. A bait that he is now, while the girl with the sniper eye aims at the big guy’s heart.

The room suddenly become silent. She hears no more the shouts of the two champions, nor does she hear her own heart beating. The perfect catch—she says at the back of her mind. She pulls the string and the arrow goes flying to the goon’s heart. Hurriedly, she pulls the next arrow through the goon’s left knee. The boy stumbled away from the dying goon. The last arrow in her quiver she shoots toward his skull.

Pools of blood flow from where her arrows hit.

I am a murderer. She shuts her eyes and forces her tears away. The sting in her throat she fights.

The boy shakes her shoulders and she finds herself mystify for a while before regaining her awareness. “You okay?” He asks, but before she could reply, he kisses her on the lips. She kisses him back. Their tongues now in perfect harmony... She has never felt anything like it. It was euphoria and peace at the same time. After what seems like an eternity, her head falls on the crook of his neck.

They hurry back to the room in the second floor where the other prisoners are hidden.

Silently they all pace to their exit...

“It’s Kato. My name’s Kato Green.” He smiles, but she didn’t smile back—her face in forlorn.

“I...” She hesitates. “I don’t have a name. If I tell you any name, it’ll be a lie.”

“What do you mean? You can’t not have a name...” He is perplexed.

“What I’m telling you now is truth. I don’t have a name. No one calls me any name. I am only known as a girl, nothing more.” I am nothing more but a shadow in a shadow.

But he believes her. How can he not? He trusts her with his life. She trusts him as well. He wishes that they could be together longer even just for one night, but the deal they had he has to respect. Pretend like they don’t know each other...

“So, it’s goodbye then” She nods, and they both part just like that. Just like that.

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"Victorian Upir" Chapter 5: The Secrets of Castle Black

by: Jeel Christine de Egurrola

gothic house matte painting 

Chapter 5: The Secrets of Castle Black

Young lad Jack now with the young princess, his eyes no longer white but beautiful sapphire-blue looks at her green eyes, filled with desire and longing—to kiss her red lips.

She, stares and sees for the first time not an errand boy but a boyish face—a young handsome face with a cocky grin.

He moves to her, closing the distance. Her lips touch his. A jolt of electricity flows through her and she jerks back. Without hesitation, she flees like a confused innocent teen and not the hag that she once was few days ago.

She finds herself outside the manor house, confused about the new feeling she has for the slave boy. In a few days, she will be reunited with her Xander, and she couldn’t afford any distraction. Not now, not ever. There is work to be done and be done with it fast!

She follows the path toward one of the seven gates of Silent Hill, The Gate of Phad. For a moment, one might think that the Gate of Phad is a replica of the Gate of Merak that leads to the Chapel or Peter the Rock. In an illusion, they are twins, but in truth one slight difference is at all obvious. Why didn’t she notice it before? She asks herself.

A dweller she is of the manor for seventeen years. It is a shame for a princess to miss such vague detail of her own home—the very land where she played hide and seek alongside her cousins. The very land where she scoots around as a child...

Perhaps, because she wasn’t allowed near this particular gate...

The Gate of Phad, like Merak, is made from wrought iron, horizontal posts attached to piers are painted white. Same sized imposts sit below both voussoir, which are connected to a keystone on the center of the slightly pointed arch. While Merak’s arch is Roman, Phad’s is of Gothic architectural pattern.

A huge lock seems to shimmer even under the dark and in the dimness of the night. Even so, with her advanced senses, she doesn’t need any lighting device for her to be able to see in the darkest of the darkness.

As if in servitude to her, the blockage seems to unbolt on its self.

She opens the gate not so wide, but enough for her body to slip through. She slides inside to a white painted, ten yard long Gothic vaulted walkway intersecting two separate open hallway on each side, opposite each other where a rib connects on the vault. A stink fills up the abandoned path.

After about what seems like five feet walk from the initial rib on the vault, another set of rib extends another two hallways opposite each other, same goes about the next five feet walk and so goes for the next six more ribbed vaults.

She admits that she hadn’t been in this part of the manor because the area had been restricted then on. None even the royalties and commoners enter this gate. Once it had been locked, but her blood—Aides very own—has magical properties that unlocks what is locked.

Where all twelve walkways lead, she has no knowledge of. Perhaps in her new life, she may explore each one of them, and be known of what lies there, and what dangers were her family is keeping her and the manor house from.

She continues to where the hallway leads her and she skids to a halt.

A movement... There is as swift movement of an orb of sort crosses from her vision just few inches from the hallway where she stands. Whatever that is, it is freakish, but she isn’t afraid. She has crossed the underworld for like centuries—had met hideous creatures in the dark realm. She isn’t afraid. She gives her cold damp hands reassuring squeezes. She moves from the stink of abandonment to a vast abandoned courtyard, with few gazebos on the sides lining near the plant bosomed walls.

In the night she could see Grape Ivy on the walls, Honeysuckle vines and Butterfly Bushes surrounding each gazebo, some oversized flowering plants she isn’t familiar of fill almost half of the courtyard. In the centre of the courtyard poses a large irregularly textured circular pillar stone monument with carvings of what look like pagans symbols surrounded by several shrubs and bushes. Large trunks of climbing plants coil around it. Butterflies of various colors and other insects are busy flying around and extracting the sweet juices from the flowers that extend throughout the area.

It is amazing. What danger could this place bring? She wonders.

The place is beautiful. More beautiful than the Silent Hill forest...

But what of the orb she saw about earlier she has no explanation.

She hurries back to the manor house to the library in the hopes of finding history books of the manor. Perhaps some of literature may answer the many questions she has in mind—questions no person can possibly answer her as of the moment. Maybe she could ask Thomas or the errand boy or those she is yet to summon from the dead.

The library in the second floor is two doors away to the right from where the staircase is located. Its French doors of fine grained, reddish brown colored Mahogany is patterned with similar Gargoyle-like designs embossed on almost all of the doors in the house.

Inside the library is a Walnut wall panelling instead of wallpapers. Attached to them are bookshelves that extend from the platforms up and to the ceiling with huge Lacquered wood mouldings touch the top of the uppermost compartments of the wooden shelves. A collection of almost of the same size hardbounds are placed on one side of the wall. On the other side are several volumes and collections of encyclopaedias and other reference books. On some shelves are paperbacks. To where the history section is located, she doesn’t know.

She reaches a cabinet of catalogued cards and starts looking for ‘Castle Black Manor’ in the titles section. Dust motes make her sneeze spasmodically the irritants in her nostrils.
She finds two cards with the titles “Castle Black Manor House: History and Construction” and “Castle Black Edifice.” She copies the each Dewey decimal classification numbers on an old paper parchment she finds on piles in one of the drawers of the library’s counter table.

She arrives at a collection of hardbounds, and finds the two books on the same shelf. She sits on one of the wooden bar chairs. She scans the first book—a not so thick book. Read through some parts. She does the same with the next book. For a while she learns some information about her family, their properties, the construction of the manor house, the woodworks and features of the house and so on... for what seems like two hours, she tires herself from the reading, half-satisfied for the knowledge she just received, half disappointed for not having find any information on that courtyard where the Gate of Phad and its hallways lead to. None of the two books take mention of what’s behind all the seven gates of the Silent Hill.

She takes off from the library to hunt. It is almost midnight and she is hungry. In the next day, she decides to rummage through the library ones again. She is not about to give up on finding what secrets lie behind the manor where she is born. She is positive that somewhere in the vast collection of books she will find her answers.


--to be continued---http://twitter.com/jeelchristine

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"Victorian Upir" Chapter 4: The Summoning

by: Jeel Christine de Egurrola

Lilith by John Maler Collier 

Chapter 4: The Summoning

Lamia in myths is a goddess who devours children for their pureness and the youth of their skin so she wouldn’t get old. The Lamian ritual is what will give the lady back her youth.

She was only sixteen when she died from the deadly airborne bacteria that spread Europe during her time. The Great Plague of 1738—similar to that of the Black Death in the 12th century—it was called, a bubonic plague that killed thousands of people in Europe during the 17th century.

Word has it that the Egyptian goddess Bast plunged the plague as a consequence for the Inquisition. According to history, cats and other witch familiars were burned alive, some beheaded. The goddess fury hit the people regardless of their race, age, sex, religion, like fiery arrows sending their souls afloat from their flesh.

The lady remembers the very night when enormous number of wild and house rodents distributed in her area, and in Europe. Lumps in her skin and bubo discharges she remembers in displeasure and disgust. Sickness was their only food.

Her queen died, followed shortly by the king, then her prince and herself and everyone in Castle Black.

Meresse, together with the two servants and the seven black cats hurry toward the Gate of Alioth, a wide white painted gate made of wrought iron, horizontal tendrils attached to opposite piers. The voussoir, which is strengthening by the rounded arch’s keystone, sits on two imposts opposite each other. The gate further leads them to Castle Black’s very own Catholic Chapel, the Chapel of Peter the Rock, built right after the Medieval Inquisition in the 16th century.

During the 11th century, the area surrounding the chapel was considered a sacrosanct ground by the pagans who worship many gods and goddesses. There in the same area animal sacrifices took place.

Beside the small chapel is a wide barren lot where no weeds, grasses and other plants grow. This was believed to be an area of great power, where the pagans do their rites.

While the lady kneels on the ground in a silent prayer to the goddess Lamia, Thomas and Brown gathers small round rocks in piles to be used in the ritual.

The small stones where spread in a circle, whose diameter reaches about five feet, enough to lay their human sacrifice.

Inside the circle, the lady sprinkles rock salts on the center where a single pile of rocks is placed similar to the ones piled by the witches in the woods of Blair.

She continues to disperse the salt in an outline of a large inverted star. The inverted pentagram... The pentacle—a very powerful circle symbolizing great power. She places each point of the stars candles lade bare on the dry ground.

Inside the same circle lays all seven silently sleeping new born babies in an inner circle a feet away from the candles.

All the felines position themselves inches away from the original circle, while the lady sits inches away from the south point, Thomas stands inches away beside her. Brown, on the other hand, with a match on hand waits nearest the circle for the rite to commence.

So it begins.

An athame on hand, the lady creates a small cut on her wrist—enough to let black blood flow from the leak to a monarch’s chalice, and she utters a chant in a language none of them understands.

The goddess Nyx gifted the lady with the tongue of gods and goddesses so she must speak their language, but lacks the gift of comprehension to the sacred tongue only the deities understand.

Utters from the lady’s part lips a familiar word, “Aero,” the errand boy lights the first candle on the west point of the inverted star. A gust of strong wind envelopes the sky, leaving withered flowers flying on air in flux with the wind current. As the air loosens, several vortexes arise from the ground, and the rest of the dirt and leaves follow in radial motion with it. The sounds of the wind like jazz in her ears. For a moment, it stops and every sound turns low, very low.

The chanting continues. At the mention of the word “Flamma,” Brown lights the second candle situated northwest upper point of the pentacle. The fires on both candle flames turn heavier and bluish in color as if it intends to burn with maximum strength. The smell of burnt coal occupies the air.  In less than five minutes, the bluish heat color turns back to the yellow-orange-red flame.

At the mention of the word “Terra,” Brown fires up the third candle northeast upper point of the inverted pentagram. The fragrance of mosses and tree barks and leaves fills the atmosphere. Sounds of wild animals fill the air—reptiles hiss, apes grunt, bats screech, bears growl, eagles scream, ravens croak, wolves howl, cicadae sing, raccoons chitter, rats squeak, cats meow, and others cry.  It takes almost ten minutes till the sounds deteriorate.

The errand boy lights up the fourth candle on the east—the fourth point, “Aqua” it is... the eye of the storm appears above the circle. A blanket of light illuminates the earth, follows shortly by the roar of Zeus’ thunder. A heavy amount of precipitates from the atmosphere drops to the ground but not wetting the circle or anyone around the circle. The storm continues for about ten minutes and ended immediately. The cyclone disappears in a tear of time. Then the smell of the iodine and sodium chloride from the ocean fill their nostrils. It used to be a nasty smell when she was alive, but now, the smell is like daisies in her nose.

She summons the last element, “Spiritus.” Brown lights the last candle in the pentagram. In no time, all candle fires up in heavy flames. A tingling sensation evaporates from her insides. A feel of spirit coming out from her body... She rise up from the ground, a translucent white chord connects from her belly to someone else’s belly. An astral projection that she is now, floating above ground—in the astral plains—looking down at body lying dead in the ground... The woman’s auburn hair scatters around, limbs on her sides. Her emotionless and wrinkled face like that of a hag’s with cracked lips.  

Two men reach out to her. One of them shakes the woman’s shoulder, calling a name the astral couldn’t hear.

The astral projection would have floated away. The feeling of freedom like a bird she now relishes in Utopia.

Someone is calling.

“M’lady!”

“M’lady Maressee!!”

In a sudden shudder, the lady wakes up. In shock of the latest event. For a moment she forgets herself. She looks up and sees two sapphire blue eyes looking down at her... A pretty boyish face. She closes her and flutters in open. Disappointed to see only two emotionless white eyes…

And she regains her awareness. She feels good inside. She kneels back on her earlier spot. She continues the incantation. This time like a true necromancer, she summons Lamia.

In otherworldly language, she speaks “Hear these words, hear my cry. Spirit of Goddess Lamia from the other side. Come to me, I summon thee. Cross now the great divide. Beloved spirit, Goddess Lamia, We seek your aid, Commune with us and move amongst us.”

She repeats the words until the ground shakes and the salt from the pile of rocks in the center of the pentagram begins moving up in unearthly motion along a vortex of dust from the ground, and appears an unrecognizable shape. An opaque silhouette of a figure appears.

“Speak” it squeaks in the otherworldly language.

“Seven first born for thee, for a beauty incessantly evermore for me and my court!” She speaks.

“Very well, daughter of Nyx! Thine is the beauty evermore.” And the figure disappears.

The ground shakes as it’s mouth guttles each sleeping infant one by one. And nothing is left but blood on the ground where the babies use to lay, unlit candles on the same pointed angles, cats posed on the same spot, both servants stands in stupor from what they saw.

The lady stands, she swaggers like a princess that she is. Her unfreckled face now smooth and soft... Her lips pouty and red... Eyes no longer ashen white but a perfect hazelnut... Her auburn hair now shines like silk. She dances. She twirls her swirly red dress. She laughs—not a hag’s laugh but a teen’s silly gag. A young lady in her sixteen. Beautiful.

Jack Brown is spellbound. 

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"Victorian Upir" Chapter 3: The Subjects

by: Jeel Christine de Egurrola

The Vampire, Philip Burne-Jones, 1897

Chapter 3: The Subjects

On the third day of Lady Meresse’s resurrection from the dead, the house became less ghoulish than it was when she entered it for the first time. The furnitures in the hall are no longer bound with shrouds. Castle Black looks more inhabited now.  Atop the tables with flower carvings and swirly leg bases are lit candles with varied colors and designs on wide-ranging handle socket shapes. More candlesticks can be seen on tables, consoles, and cabinets.

Three antique couches with Gargoyle designs projects from each edges and extremities, and carved on its legs and arms. The larger couch that can accommodate four people poses on the center adjacent like designed sofas that can accommodate two people each faces each other. A center table etched with the same design half closes the space between them. On the east side of the parlor stands another sofa that can accommodate one person set in an L direction from a narrow and short shelf with a few collection and volumes of books any member of the household or guest can sit for a good read. More books and tomes can be found in the Saptarshi library in a separate room on the second floor of the house.

Like the parlor, the Lady’s room is free from shrouds, now available for her own comfort anytime after sunset and before sunrise, that is. Where she sleeps is the cellar, a mattress from one of the house’s guest rooms is positioned. The cellar, indeed, is the safest place for the likes of her to slumber, where no sunlight enters. The cellar is now her lair for the time being until she finds a better and a more comfortable den for herself and for her kind as soon she wakes them all together from the realm of the dead, which she is reminded to do about now.

To bring at least one or two people from her court back to living she must do today. Aides gifted her and her felids with the tongue of summoning and incantations for the awakening.

In the cemetery, she identifies two dead from her court, a house butler and an errand boy. The seven favoured now in their rightly locations, with the lady who sits at the center of the circle utter the incantation. A dead black raven lies on the ground where it will be devoured by the ground—a sacrifice for the Aides. A life for a dead—a payment of a debt...

The raven no more in sight... Aides answers. Nyx blesses.

The ground shakes like earthquake, then it bursts just shortly. Crawls out from the grave is old man with Ashen emotionless face, and pale crumpled skin. Like the Lady in her awakening, the old man’s wounds are with bloodthick saps like that of plants dripping down. His eyes are white and empty of pupils and irises. He wears a collared loose fitting brown garment which extends to his hips, and a black Victorian undergarment. His feet are bare like the lady’s during her return.

“Merry meet, Thomas!” The lady exclaimed.

“Meeerrrr-yyymeeettt m’laddieee...” Thomas uttered in an awful inhuman sound.

The lady gives the butler her hideous yellow-teeth-smirk. “Come along now. There’s one more we have to wake.”

She and the feral cats move to the next tombstone where lay under the ground is the errand boy—her personal errand boy, who was barely seventeen when the bacterium hit him dead. The same errand boy whose sapphire blue eyes and heart belong only to the lady Meresse...

The same incantation is uttered, the same ritual commences. Cowering on the ground is the boy she calls Brown. Jack Brown. Half American and half English... With white eyes, the boy’s passionless face projects a devilish grin.

Thomas and Brown devoured the dead rabbits and squirrels the lady prepared for them both. They weren’t at all satisfying but enough to give them human voices and human gaits and better awareness to harness their new gifts from the goddess herself. Till then they can begin their own hunt.

Meanwhile, the lady, who sits in the dirty kitchen plays Mad Scientist. With her ingredients all scattered on the kitchen table, and a grimoire—unfolds to a page on making sleep potions. She found the tome a day ago after her hunt on the restricted area of the library—more like a museum of sorts, where démodé and antique goodies are sheltered on glass consoles.

Her cauldron now fully heated, she slides the soupspoon and pours on each two small glass bottle. After each is filled, she closes them with lids that have droppers attached on them. “Perfect!” she smiles.

The next day is hunt day for the three Upir, and the seven favoured who haunt mostly of small creatures like rodents, chicks, roaches, spiders and lizards.

Later that night, the Lady Meresse commands her two servants for a great hunt—with a far greater cause than their personal blood hunts. The Lamian hunt, whereby they would hunt seven new born babies for the lady. She gives both servants each a glass bottle, where filled inside is the sleeping potion.

And so the hunt begins.

Thomas and Brown step through the Gate of Merak, located northwest of Castle black. The wrought iron gate, like all other gates are connected on stone piers that are taller than that of the Gate of Mezar, as tall but not as wide as the Gate of Alkaid. The same Grave Ivys loop in swirls like snakes on the gate posts and spread on pier walls. Yards far from the gate is long winding road that heads to a small village, which used to be subjected under the Saptarshi court, and now is a subject of no one, but is still part of the Castle Black manor. On the other opposite direction is the road that leads away from Silent Hill to Buckinghamshire.

To the village, both servants move in a flash. Swift like the wind... Like spirits they are unseen in the human eye.

Repose from any form of noise other than that of breathes of sleeping villagers and animals, the village’s calm and hush atmosphere give the hunters a great advantage to claim their quarry easily. Small one to two storey houses align along the village narrow rocky dirt path. Some of the houses are brick made while few of them are of terra cotta, and terra cotta roofs.

Brown finds an empty horse wagon unhooked from its horse. It is a perfect storage to transport their quarry. His face turns to a grin. Brown loves to smile even when he was still alive. Everybody in the Castle Black, may it be royalties, elites or lowlies have a fondness to this young man for his light-hearted nature—a perfect subject to offer ‘de-stressing.’

With the use of their advanced senses, both can smell through the walls to know which house lodges toddlers, and infants. They begin moving. Thomas to the second house from the entrance of the village... Brown, on the other hand motions toward a two storey house where a new born rests on the second level. On what means to enter the houses is no one’s concern. Small square windows are usually covered only either by wood, or wool. Wool covered windows are easiest to get into.

Thomas stealthily enters the window with wool shrouding it. Inside are three two heads in deep slumber, between them is a little pale creature with tiny fingers and tiny toes—the victim. He drops the sleeping potion on the baby’s small mouth until the liquid sips inside the mouth. Now the little one is in deep spell so it won’t cry. And out the house he goes toward the no longer empty horse wagon—another little creature sleeps inside. It is Brown’s. Then he moves on to the next victim.

Brown is now inside a one storey house where his second victim slumbers in a wooden cradle. He drops the liquid inside the baby’s mouth and in black magick, the baby’s dead to the world. And he takes off.

It takes them about an hour to recover all their victims—all sleeping, possibly dreaming—their souls now wondering in another realm—dark and void.

Horseless, they move the wagon with their Upir strength by their hands and speed. They run in a wrinkle of time.

As they reach the Gate of Merak, stand on four gloves on its center is Azazel, the Darkling, as if expecting their arrival. The black feline hisses, and moves toward the house in a swift.

The Darkling enters the parlor first, and the lady smiled at the sight of her pet. She knows that her subjects have arrived.

She sits comfortably in the largest couch. On her right sits Morningstar and Malefic, Samael on her left. On the other couch on her right is the sleeping Beelzebub. On her left lie Azrael, while Midnight rests atop the center table. And Azazel reaches the couch where the Chief Spirit of Evil lays.

As the door opens, all felines turn to its direction.

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