Plot bunnyzz

Copyrighted. All rights reserved.

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They say when Life breathed a little of its infinite self into us, it claimed our empty vessels as its own and wove a few rules into the fabric of our souls. As living things, our first rule is to treat one's gift of life as the most precious treasure one could ever be given. Adherence to this rule is not difficult, as all begin with the innate desire to live and continue living. We simply wish to live, even if we do not understand why. The only ones who can disobey this rule are the ones who tear themselves apart, dig into the depths of their very being and wrench that rule away from their soul, instantly crushing the fragile vial of life and ceasing to exist as a living thing. Ceasing to live inside, at the very least, though most are driven to suicide soon enough. The alternative option to the disobeying of rule number one is to have somebody else rip you apart, through sheer physical and emotional torture tear your flesh and mind into separate pieces and throw the remains into the darkness to burn. But most lack the courage to do this to another human being, due to the putting in place of rule number two. Rule number two is somewhat similar to its brother, yet not similar at all. It involves the treating of other lives as precious and the treating of life as a whole as a certain kind of tie, a bonding that goes beyond blood and artificial relationships. As living beings, as moving, thinking, vessels of such powerful and important a force of nature, it is unsurprising that this force cannot be fully split by Life simply breathing sections of itself into separate vessels. Life remains as an entity. It cannot ever be split and hence, we humans are bonded by the ties of life itself. We are family. And the second rule is to treat each other as family, as a loving family. We must care, we must protect, we must love. But adherence to this rule, in contrast to rule number one, is difficult. Very difficult. While Life was weaving the rules into our living souls, the very ones that Life had just put bits of itself into, a piece of Death's shadow detached itself and wrapped its body around the soul, just as rule number one had been successfully woven into it. Contrary to common belief, Darkness does not always have a dark exterior. It can be as transparent as glass or as invisible as air or as bright as the sun but ultimately, it is dark, darker than raven feathers and endless caves and starless midnight, dark beyond what one can imagine until you peer inside. Unseen, Life attached rule number two on top of it, letting this piece of shadow forever act as a thin barrier between a living soul's decisions and Life's rule of treating every piece of Life as precious and to be protected. Hence, it is only seldom that the screams of the second rule, binded tightly around the soul but simply not tightly enough, are adhered to, not when the piece of shadow spends every waking moment whispering tales of temptation and selfish pleasure, which ultimately do end up bringing many souls to its master.

But the most important thing? Is what will happen when you disobey these two rules. They say that the threads Life used were strong, strong and tough and unbreakable. And the rules that currently wrap themselves around your soul, would not hesitate to crush that insignificant little thing. If its owner was to push too far.

But this is just what they say.

--

It's just another step.

And just another fall.

Perhaps, it's nothing at all.

Plot bunnyz.

"Mom."


The withered old lady looks up and glares at the stranger, annoyed that her work had been interrupted. Brush, brush, brush. She only had so much time to complete the task.
"Who are you? Leave me alone. " The old lady mutters and then adds in a barely audible whisper, "The Guardians are close."


Ignoring this, the girl crouches down and picks up one of the many glass shards strewn over the floor in front of the old lady. She examines it and then puts it back.


"Mom."


"What?" The lady grumbles. Before the girl can answer, there is a gust of wind and the old lady immediately closes her eyes, clenching her wrinkly fingers into trembling fists. The shards turn into a pile of sand. She whispers, "What do you want? Quick."


"I...just wanted to use that word one last time." The girl sighs and stands up. "But I needed to say it to someone. Thought it'll help."


The old lady turns to face her, though her face carries a softer expression now. "Leaving, eh?" The girl nods. "Well, if you're looking for comfort in the usage of that word, you should search elsewhere, find something that hasn't already had its meaning wrenched away from every living tongue. " She practically spits out the last few words.


"Human beings are all family. Humans are connected by the ties of life. We will work together, benefit father, mother and child." The girl recites from memory. They both sigh.


"Which would you be using?" The old lady asks.


"The one closest. The Grae platform."


"Farewell then. You seem alright. Wish I knew you."


The girl bows and takes her leave from the house. "Bye, mom."


"Have...fun." The old lady mutters as the door closes. That girl wasn't the only one to have eventually chosen that path. Though she was the only one who seemed to want, at the slightest, a chance to turn back. Part of her wished she could have offered it.


Every female is a mother, every male a father, every youth a child. We are family, connected by the bonds of life. We will work together. We will benefit each other. We will love. And to choose otherwise is to desire for severed ties, in which the only option is death.

She shakes her head at this, ever so slightly. They carved these lines into the minds of every living person, though they never did care about how many lives had to be sacrificed to etch out their perfect little picture. After all, one cannot carve flesh without drawing blood. A whole ocean of blood, a crimson sea of people who have simply lost the will to live.

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Copyrighted. All rights reserved.

Illusions (for lack of a better and less cliched title)

Kind of disappointed in how this turned out. It's a bit stilted, rather cliched...rather lame, actually. Sigh.

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Are we really going to do it? She asks, her hands toying with the shovel’s handle, carving uneven circles onto the packed ground, letting dust fly and fall. She trusts the hissing wind would be strong enough to conceal any of their conversation from the hidden eavesdroppers, waiting out in the cold with wrinkled ears. She hated the Guardians.

What do you think? He replies, turning to face her and letting his shovel drop onto the ground with a barely audible thud. His eyes are studying her face, the piercing gaze searching for secret emotions and motives. She cringes. It wasn’t that she had anything to hide from him but it was difficult, trying to look at those eyes when she didn’t consider them as eyes at all. They were always blank and emotionless, the colour of dulled moonlight. They remind her of the lakes she’d been visiting, the still, mysterious waters that lured passers-by in, unknown hooking onto unguarded minds…come closer, peek…And they’ll all fall in with silent screams. But it wasn’t just his eyes that haunted her, it was what laid hidden beneath those glassy ovals. If eyes were truly the windows to one’s soul, his were frosted ones, cold enough to burn the finger that attempted to tap it open. Even worse was the thing behind the window though, the horrid creature that you’ve never actually seen but knew to run away from because of the deformed hand that, once in a while, decided to press itself on the glass from the other side to make you scream. Only the foolish would stay.

Don’t you trust me? He smirks, pointedly looking at her tight grip around the shovel and chuckling at the clichéd line, his version of a joke. The laughter doesn’t reach the eyes. It never does.

Nodding quickly, she turns away and continues to dig. She can feel his gaze piercing through her back, burning through cloth and flesh and the layers of her soul, searching and searching for signs of betrayal. She shakes her head. The crimson soil reminds her that the guardians are close and that speaking to him, was simply against the rules.

-

The father hears his girl shuffling up the stairs and he catches a glimpse of the distraught look on her face from his slumped position on the couch. But he cannot get up and the alcohol is splashing through his system, rendering him incapacitated. There is darkness.

-

How was it today? He asks, hanging upside down from the metal bars that determined boundaries, swinging back and forth. The smirk on his face told her that he already knew school had been horrible. He was always happy when that happened.

The shovel is in her hand and she marches past him to the field, ignoring him as she continues to dig. The tears in her eyes protest against it but she weakly shakes her head, even as the urge to push on starts to die. It had already been withering since the start of the year and that unforgettable event. Part of her was hoping it wouldn’t last much longer.

You’re never going to get anywhere, he remarks, looking at her attempts to dig the soil with distaste.

You think I don’t know that? She screams. He rolls his eyes and she flings her shovel furiously at him before falling down into a ball, curled up on the soil with tears escaping from their cage only to splash onto the hard soil in what you could consider an act of suicide. He sits by her side and pats her head.

I spend all my time digging because I feel like I have to, even when its shit and Angeline and Kristian and all of them keep mocking at me for trying. They keep saying I’m weird and I’ll never get anywhere and that I’m pathetic and they keep doing all sorts of things to…reiterate that. They keep saying that my trying is pointless, like they’ve gotten somewhere. When they haven’t.

He shrugs. Their hallucinations keep them happy, they believe they actually have.

I-I don’t want to live in a hallucination. Mom told me it was horrible to do something that was pointless and that all of this is. And I believe that, I believe her. I want to stop digging. I really can’t stand it anymore, she wails.

Silently, he points to the shovel, disintegrating in the distance, abandoned at the position he had last been standing when she had thrown it at him in frustration. She had indeed given up. Finally. It seems like a happy thing.

-

It’s noon and he’s still lying on the couch, barely awake. The year had been horrible. He’d lost his wife and it’d taken all of his willpower to make sure he was relatively sober every Friday night, so that he could talk to his daughter and remind himself that she was still with him. She herself had changed after her mum’s death, become more quiet, more reserved. Not that he had really talked to her about it. She still smiled when he asked her how her day was, though the smile was becoming less and less real. Somehow she’d managed to maintain her grades, though he wasn’t sure at what expense she was doing this at. Her eyebags were prominent and he frequently heard her crying upstairs. She liked to draw, he remembered. But the last time he’d looked through her sketchbook, everything had been scratched out in pencil and one of the most frequently seen pictures was a guy who didn’t have eyes or whose eyes she refused to draw. He wasn’t sure what his wife’s last words were before she took her life but he knew his daughter had been there. He just hadn’t been able to get her to say it yet.

He looked at the calendar on the table. It was Thursday. He headed for the beer in the fridge.

-

I told you we’ll do it eventually, he says and rubs her back as she leans on him in the barren field.

I just didn’t know if I would be able to, she whimpers. Mom was brave and strong. I’m not.

He laughs. You are, actually. Most people would have gone ahead with the digging. They’ll dig for their whole life and at their deathbed, they might actually think it worth it. Some, as you know, start to hallucinate achievements. But they’re never real, never important. This whole world, in general, is a pointless illusion. I’m glad you wish to escape.

But you haven’t told me how yet…She mutters, I know the digging would never actually bring me anywhere and I’ve stopped now. But how do I get out of here? To a new place?

Well, you firstly have to take the risk of not knowing where you’ll end up. Like your mom. And you have to believe me, believe me when I say that I’ll help you.

She raises her eyebrows. But I already have.

He smiles but for once, his eyes are not blank. They are burning with a greedy passion, as if her words had slid open part of the window that she was supposed to steer clear away from. She gasps but when he leans closer, she finds herself still drawn to him. She had gone this far and she realizes that it isn’t possible to pull herself back now. As he places his cold lips on hers and she finds herself wrenched away from her life, her memories, her father, her world, everything…She hears him mutter something before the darkness swallows her up. The guardians were right, he said. You weren’t supposed to listen to me.

-

It is Friday night and he manages to keep himself sober. He knocks on her daughter’s door and opens it. She is sprawled out on the floor in a pool of blood, a crimson note in her left hand. He feels very cold.

I want to end up somewhere better, daddy. And I’ve fallen for Death. I trust him. Just like mom.

He drags his feet downstairs and his fingers linger over the telephone before he heads to the fridge again. There’s half a pack left and he carries it out into the living room. It takes a matter of seconds to gulp everything down and for the alcohol to begin its effects. There is pain. But then there is darkness. Part of him considers looking for his wife and child here, trapped in the shadows by trickery, lost in a self-created illusion.