The Blue House Fables

[Amos]

Look up at the passing clouds.
Among them a dark stork
Raises its head and rattles its beak
-Yuan Chi


Four hours of sunshine, followed by four hours of darkness, and sometimes moonlight. Less and less moonlight, as the fuel from the moon's core was sucked dry by the bat-creature. Frequently she would find it clinging like a cat to a ball of wool, slender fangs piercing the moon's silver flesh, shaking with effort and pleasure, dripping a viscous mixture of yellow saliva and sweat onto the hardwood floors. Then she would attack it with the broom, or the mop, or the butter knife - whatever was at hand - and after a few weak blows (always hindered by her unwillingness to inflict pain) it would disengage and scarper, leathery wings flapping, bald pate bouncing against the roof. Its body was roughly the size and shape of two apples, one balanced on the other, and apart from its head, was covered in a light brown fur. She called it Sinclair.

Patience was her name, and patience was her game. The malignant Sinclair, who had at one time destroyed all the plastic light fixtures in the house, as well as all the lamps and glass bulbs, could not ruffle the feathers of this imperturbable peacock, nightly sleeping in a bed of bones and faded tapestries as if in a nest. Somewhat thin and carelessly elegant, her bird-like features were so pronounced that in a dimly lit room you might mistake her for a giant owl, albeit an anorexic one. Her eyes had a sharpness to them, not round like marbles, but cut like diamonds into a fierce symmetry. Her long thin limbs dripped with grey rags that fluttered when she moved, soaring behind her on the few occasions that she had cause to run. At times she would burst into song, and her voice was as sweet and pure as that of any nightingale or lark, though a little empty, a little dispirited.

With the sun and the moon shifting from room to hall to attic every few minutes, the house was a monochrome kaleidoscope, a world of shifting forms and perspectives, where shadows encroached on shadows and enveloped each other like clouds, and bursts of light erupted from a crack or a rise on a windowpane. And in this forest of radiance and gloom, Patience went about her duties, ceasing only when, once every four hours, both the moon and the sun winked out and hovered in some corner like fat black spiders for the next four hours. Even Sinclair would sleep then, or so Patience guessed he must, though she had no idea where he went, and had no intention of ever following him. A faint glow, coming from the central room, could be perceived at these times, but that was all the light in the world. In fact it had been the source of all luminescence in the house for aeons immemorial: Alyson, the crystal horse of light.

One day Patience awoke from a characteristically short sleep, feeling a very profound sense of loneliness. It was hardly the first time. All her attempts at personifying anything in the house that showed the remotest signs of life, by giving them names, and in the absence of personalities assigning them moods and traits—all such efforts amounted only to a weak shield between her calm state of mind and the fact of her solitude. Though loneliness could not disrupt her calm, it permeated her every action with quiet sorrow, and time itself seemed to slow and almost stop, as she went about cleaning the floors, wiping the walls, and dusting the eternal dust, feeling like nothing more than a servant to the house and its need for immaculateness. The moon and the sun appeared less often and rolled sluggishly around in their off-kilter orbits, as if they were affected by her moods, which she supposed they very well might be. There was much in the house that seemed connected, having either a single source, such as the light that came from Alyson, or being tied to one another by visible hinges invisible strings. Gret the pale moon and Bert the tangled sun were bound to Sinclair, though he was their antithesis and their destroyer, by some mysterious force; perhaps fate. The same force or a close relation held the walls against the floor, the ceiling above the walls, and universe outside from the space inside.

She was washing the dishes, her fingers wrinkled into long claws, when she heard the ominous flapping of Sinclair's papery appendages. A stack of unclean, ceramic plates was on the bench to her right—where they came from she had no idea, and had nobody to ask for answers in any case—and a smaller, carefully placed pile was to her left, clean and white. The hot soapy water, another phenomenon without any readily apparent fountainhead, was steaming prodigiously, and she could not see out the window before her. Bowing her head into the midst of the steam, she listened to the muted sound of Sinclair's podgy body colliding with the moon, his clumsy hands scraping across its crumbling surface, and the chink as his fangs broke into it. Then there was no sound but a frenzied slurping. Patience withdrew her hands from the sink, and automatically headed for the broom closet, but stopped halfway. She realised that she had just made a potent and irrevocable decision in the recesses of her conscious mind, sublimated even before she had toyed with the idea. She had chosen not to stop Sinclair from killing the moon, and the fate of the house now raced before her eyes as clear as if it was already happening.

First, the moon is drained completely, and crashes to the floor, smattering into a thousand dry pieces which will never be swept up. Then, little by little, the sun suffers the same, darkening more slowly perhaps, but no less inevitably. Perhaps Sinclair himself starts to glow then, and if not, he soon will, as he makes his move on Alyson, riding her neck like a bloated horsefly, a midget bat-winged vampire, drinking the bioluminescent fluid that is her blood. Then darkness, pure and complete. Sinclair, too fat to move, lying shivering on the floor and writhing in exquisite agony, begins to wither and shrink and then ceases to be. And Patience, waiting in her nest of bones, shaping them around her into a cage; Patience who is no longer herself, but watches from a mute perspective as the fragile, bird-like body of a girl goes about preparing herself for an everlasting sleep. But before she can finish, strange hands emerge from the darkness and intercede, dismantling her prison and lifting her up; and then the loneliness ends.

Indeed, it already seemed all but gone, and she could sense the vague essence of beings outside the house, waiting to enter by the gate that the darkness would open. Patience returned to the sink, deaf to the workings of Sinclair, and on an impulse wiped a hand across the steamy surface of the window. The world that she saw out there, its growing immediacy, and her belief that its alien denizens would soon be joining her, gave Patience the first real sensation of pleasure she had ever had.

[Eyreplenh]

Samson slowly arose from what was, in the broadest sense of the term imaginable, his bed. His small frail body gave off little or no sound a he made his way to the window. Something had woken him. He could feel a presence, no, in fact several presences, outside the House. He was somewhat unfortunate in that the fog was as unprenetable as usual today. Surprise surprise, he thought sourly to himself. Or was it night? Samson had trouble remembering when he went to bed, and the always present fog made it hard to make even a qualified guess. Doesn’t really matter now, Samson, does it? He muttered to himself. And in many ways it probably didn’t. Shrugging off his chronological insecurities, he turned his attention to what really mattered. The Project.

He had never been certain just what it was his project actually was about, but its feeling never left him. The Project had felt good lately. He felt, unbeknownst to himself why, that progress had been made. A growing sense of Something happening had been filling his mind and body, had him pacing restlessly the confines of his lofty abode.

He figured he lived on the uppermost floor of the big house, because even though he was able to observe whatever was happening in most of the rooms underneath him, he had never been able to see anything in the skyward direction. He knew there was a sky, the window had revealed as much.

He had no idea how long he had been staying in the house, only that it was about as long as the strange girl underneath. It was her the Project was about, or so Samson had figured, and most of his days were spent watching her. Days took on a routine feeling order, and Samson went about his business. He had his thoughts though, Samson did. Sometimes he wondered if he had been doing anything before he moved into the house, and what that something might then be. He also wondered, as he was watching the girl, if there in turn were someone watching him, but he doubted it. After all, the girl had rooms and furniture and things, whilst all Samson had was the attic. And the kitchen, of course, the kitchen. A smile comes to Samson’s face as he thinks of the kitchen.

His daydreaming is broken as he hears, or rather feels, a door being opened. Giddy with anticipation, he paces the floor for a bit, trying to gather his thoughts. What was all this about, more personaes entering the house! Maybe this is vital to the Project! It probably is, he reasons, otherwise why would this be happening. Maybe one of them will tell me the true purpose of the Project, he mused. Maybe one of them will be able to answer me when I try to speak to them… He had lost track of how many times he had tried to contact the girl underneath, jumping on the floor, shouting and banging things from the kitchen together. All to no avail. He had even spent days shouting and waving his arms to the ceiling, on the odd chance that there was someone watching him as well, but with no results. Also, it left him with a sore throat, and always with a stupid feeling. Shouting at the ceiling, heh.

Content for the moment with watching how things progressed underneath, Samson settled onto his bedlike piece of furniture. The greatest hope within him was that finally he’d be able to make contact, for even if the Project was a strong presence in his chest and thoughts, the strongest feeling he had was that of being lonely.

[dark fuschia]

She entered. Barely aware of her surroundings she fell to her knees, cold crept into her from the floor and she fell forward, exhausted by her journey, yet confused, for now that she thought on it, she remembered no journey. She lay on the ground, still, her cheek touching the cool floor, which was of a hard wood, and exceptionally clean. She closed her eyes, and almost at once fell into a sleep of dreams.

An observer would have noticed nothing unusual about her should they have run into her on the street. She wore a grey sweater and a neat black skirt. Flat sensible shoes and straight shoulder length hair finished off either end. Laying here on the floor of the hallway, she looked like nothing so much as a neglected doll. Unloved. She seemed neither old nor young, somewhere in the middle, and her left hand was clenched in a fist.

Her dreams I can not tell you of, no language is sufficient, but when she woke, she knew they were the first she had in a long while. She began to cry, perhaps the first tears for a while too, and it was only then that she opened her clenched fist. There she found a small stone, perfectly clear, cut into the shape of a heart.

[Anita Blake]

In the northern corner of the attic room was a small bed with an ancient, rotting wooden frame. It was small, simple, sturdy, and the base for an only slightly-newer mattress, sagging and threadbare, covered by a blanket that might once have been blue, or red, or a gay green, but was currently a dying gray. The blanket in turn covered years of accumlulated stains of various origins. The bed, if given the power of speech, could have told thousands of stories, all of them interesting and none of them terribly unique or original, or it very well could have driven someone mad. There are good reasons for beds to stay inanimate. It's much better for all involved.

On top of this relic of a bed lay a girl who stared out the window on the eastern wall. Her cheek sunk into the flacid pillow, and her eyes were hollow as she contemplated the gray lace curtains that were rotting off the rusting curtain rod. Life, she mused, was strange, and often unreal.

After what seemed an eternity (and it just might have been) she sighed and rose with a grace that was entirely out of place with her demeanor, entirely out of place with that dingy cell, and glided morosely to the window.

She let her cheek rest on the rotting curtains, gently, gently, must take care not to make them fall! and gazed longingly Outside.

Every day, it seemed, food arrived for her, and she ate it without much vigor, and every day, the dirty dishes vanished. There might have been servants (she thought she remembered a time with servants...) or it might have been magic. For all her mind's contemplation and musing, this was not one of the things that crossed her mind. She lived, she thought, she dreamed, she was no more. In this attic prison she resided, in this attic prison, presumably, she would die.

The hinges on the door on the western wall had long since rusted away, while the door itself leaned askew against the wall, leaving the doorway a gaping hole opposite the window, only several feet from the bed. Be that as it may, the somber girl had not left the room in a span of time that could no longer be reckoned.

But outside the window, something was changing. The air looked different than she thought it had. And as she realized this, she remembered something. She was struck suddenly by the notion that all things have names, and that she had once been given a name as well. She remembered that she had been called Susan once upon a time. She heard this strange word echoing in her head, a thousand different inflections, a thousand different meanings. She supposed that it once might have been a joyous sound to hear, but it no longer held meaning for her.

She supposed that if she were to be called something now, it would be a sound like the mourning winds through a broken window, or perhaps the sound of an ancient bed creaking in the night from a single body shifting from a bad dream. She might have been called Susan once, but now, she would call herself Despair.

She left the window and lay back upon the sagging bed, not hearing it's creaking groans, and stared blankly out the window once more.

[Apoc]

“Only in a house where one has learnt to be lonely does one have this solicitude for things. One's relation to them, the daily seeing or touching, begins to become love, and to lay one open to pain.”
- Elizabeth Bowen


She stood, as a solitary goddess, by the open window. Her short arms, outstretched before her motioned like waves in a stormy sea, summoning in from the gloom outside, the spirits of the night.

Father had taught her this long ago, whilst these creatures, now of dreams , lived and were whole. Now they where but spirits, shades of their former selves, their songs lost to the earth centuries ago. Remaining now, simply as a distant memory to Sin.

She watched sadly as two wind sprites began to dance within the windows frame, and as the dark blue and black night sky behind joined their dance, the childlike goddess began to cry. For she now recalled from a distant memory, their lost songs.

As her tears fell more freely and her sobs withdrew from choking her voice, she quietly sang their past songs, but at the last it became too great a sadness for her and she crumpled to her knees, breaking the link with the sprites and releasing them back into the night.

In the shadows of her cold desolate shrine, she wept. Her body shivering and shaking, wracked with great sadness and sorrow, remembering her past memories of freedom and the memories of so much that was now lost.

Sin had been forgotten in these lands and her once glorious, golden shrine within the great blue house had now become a grey and shadowed prison.

She had never been as powerful as the others, not even close, birthed out of desire rather than love, her creation had been as her uncle had put it, a mistake. Unloved amongst the pantheon, except by her father. But after a time, even he had come to forget her.

Sin sighed amidst her quiet sobbing. He was happy with his true heirs now and she did not wish to remind him of her, the mistake he had made. And so, she had left.

She smiled at the memory of so many adventures she had taken upon leaving them and reminisced the first time she had been drawn to a House like the one she dwelt in now. Back then it had been so glorious. She had looked upon the beautiful shrine they had erected of her and had cried tears of happiness as so many children had knelt before it.

Sin had not known at that time, that her tale had been told to the mortals. That those unloved as she was, had now made her their patron, the goddess of forgotten children.

In those times, she had been loved and was warm, but as the cries of sadness and loneliness began to build, it became that with each passing second, Sin was hearing a thousand stories of grief, of curses toward those who had abandoned them, of hurt, pain and suffering. She wanted their pain to end, she had wanted the voices to stop.

“And so I killed them all.” she quietly whispered. Raising her head, she looked upon her prison with tear filled eyes, “and am forgotten again.”

[dark fuschia]

Ahh well, she was not sure what was going on, she was not sure who she was, where she was or even why she was… though she suspected this last was never known by anyone under the sun. She was filled with a great weariness, as if she had suffered a great ordeal, and she stared dazedly at the clear crystal heart in her hand.

“Heart.” She said. Well at least she knew this much, a word. She wondered what it meant, and at once she knew its meanings were many, clichéd, sacred and profane. She put the object in her pocket, deciding she would think upon it further at a later time, for now, she had a terrible thirst.

“Hello!?” She said tentatively, almost afraid someone would hear her. This house was a mystery indeed. “House.” She said, “Hello?”

“Why speak you here?” thrummed the walls, in a voice of mortar and stone.

“Know you not this is the hall of silence!?” said the floor of oak.

“No… I did not.” She whispered in penitence.

“We’ll let you off this time.” Said a purring and pretty lamp by the door, “But speak not in here again.”

The woman made as if to apologise, remembered herself, then nodded, thinking that for a hall of silence, there was a fair amount of noise. She walked to the end, passing a few doors either side and came to a great arch shrouded in dimness. Sighing she walked through, wondering if she might speak all her questions in the next room. The first one being where she might find water.

[Apoc]

Sighing she walked through, wondering if she might speak all her questions in the next room. The first one being where she might find water.

Sin had been lying curled up, in dark rags, within the shadows, when the visitor had entered.

"hello?" the visitor tentavily whispered to the darkness.

Sins tired eyes slowly opened, sitting up she looked upon the visitor, cocked her head to the side, and in a sleepy very very quiet voice replied, "lay...deee" She then returned to her dreams before her head hit the floor.

The visitor froze, she had heard something but it was so faint. Her eyes desperately searched the darkness before her, "hello?" she asked again, this time a bit louder, "is there someone th...?" She was cut off from finishing her question as a girly squeek of shock answered from the darkness, it gave the visitor a fright and she retreated a step as the scampering sound of small bare feet, moving at great speed toward her, approached.

Sin came running out of the dark and came to a brief halt before the visitor. Eyes wide, she stared at the visitor in disbelief, locking eyes, her hand then shot out, poked the visitor in the stomach and withdrew as if the touch had been electrified. A massive beaming smile then came to Sin and she made three laps of the bewildered visitor, waving her arms maniacally in the air, she giggled loudly, "yay, yay, your real, yay!"

The visitor brought Sin to a halt, taking the childlike goddess by the shoulders, "Stop!" she ordered desperately, the crazy little goddess looked up at the visitor with puppy eyes, the visitor took a calming breath "whats your name, little girl?"

"Sin." came the reply, dipped in honeyed happyness.

The visitor cocked an eyebrow, "okaaay..." she shook her head briefly, "well Sin, do you know where I may find some water?"

Sin nodded but said nothing.

A long moment of silence passed.

"Well?" enquired the visitor further, "where?"

"In the sea dummy." came the giggled innocent reply.

The visitor released Sins shoulders and stood up straight, she rolled her eyes as she rubbed her forehead, taking a deep breath she looked on Sin once more, "To drink, i need some water to drink...now. So do you know anywhere close where i can find some?"

Sin shook her head.

Another long moment of silence passed.

"You don't know where to drink and yet you look like you've lived here awhile...fine, ok then..." she held up her hands, "i'll go find some myself." She turned to leave but Sin pawed at her grey sweater, pinching it briefly, enough to catch the visitors attention and make her look back on the small goddess.

Sins smile was now gone, replaced by a quivering lip and the big bright happy eyes where now sad and close to tears. The visitor rolled her eyes again, "what?"

Sin pointed at a small rock by the doorway.

The visitor looked from the small rock to Sin and back to the small rock again, "what? the rock?"

Sin nodded.

"Urgh...there better be water under this rock." the visitor whispered to herself as she went over and knelt down to pick it up. She could not see behind her, that Sin had raised her little hands to her mouth, a look of hope blooming in her eyes.

The visitor picked up the rock, it was alot heavier than it appeared and required she use both her hands. As she stood back up and turned toward Sin, the rock began to glow, a brilliant golden light bleeding out from lots of little cracks. The visitor became fearfully transfixed as the light grew, looking up with worry toward Sin, her eyes widened even more.

For the young goddess, standing at the edge of the light, smiled a delighted, evil little smile and vanished into thin air in the blink of an eye.

The visitor stared in shock at where once Sin had stood, her fear of the rock she held was forgotten. As its light faded, it became ash in the girls hands and the room once more returned to darkness. She shivered and shook off her fright, 'that was not funny!" she declared to the gloom...but no answer came. Taking a deep breath she withdrew from the cold, desolate shrine in search of water again, "damn kid" she cursed to herself as she left.

~

"Freedom weeeeee!" she cried as she ran clean into the front door with a hefty whack. Landing a good six paces back, Sin rubbed her forehead. Her eyes burned with hatred as she looked upon the rock, sitting at the doors corner, "another one?!? nahhhhh...stoopid ward stones urgh!"

She stood up once more and looked at her surroundings, "exploration of blue house then!" she declared, finger thrusted at the ceiling. She stood pondering this for a moment, mayhaps she should go find the mortal and they'd adventure for water she thought...noooooo she then changed her mind..."if Sin finds water first, and gives to the mortal lady, then maybe the lady would remove this ward stone also! yay! Adventure for water!" she declared thrusting her finger further in the air, she then set off at a scamperring run into the house.

[Eyreplenh]

Sitting down on the bed in what he figured was his room, Morgenstern let out a contended sigh. He enjoyed mysteries, Morgenstern did. As how he had gotten to this house-feeling construction; (he wasn't so sure yet that it actually was a house), and how, upon arrival, his feet had guided him to this room, despite Morgenstern’s yearnings to talk to some of the other people arriving simultaneously. He hadn't put up much of a struggle though; there was some real fancy kind of pattern in the roof that had caught his eye. He hadn't deducted their meaning yet, but as they say, all in due time.

He felt unsure as to his purpose here in this mysterious place, but it didn't bother him much. Things would become clear as he went along, he was confident. Mysteries had a great deal of fear of Morgenstern, and with good reason. Probably the only reason some of them remained was that Morgenstern was just as easily distracted as he was intrigued. Like the one time he had almost deciphered the code of love by closely observing a couple falling in love for three months, a beautiful girl passed by, and Morgenstern became so confused he forgot what he was doing.

Not all mysteries had gotten off as easily though. One time Morgenstern decided to find out if trees really cry when they die. For weeks he sat in the forest, sometimes watching a lumberjack chopping down a tree, other times holding on with his bare arms to the ground as furious storms tore trees from the soil and tossed them around. He was watching some termites attacking an old cedar tree, when it struck him. Trees are obviously shy towards humans. They would never utter a sound while he was there. This struck him with such clarity he at once abandoned the tree which were slowly losing the battle against the termites. Seeking softer soil, Morgenstern wandered longer into the forest, looking for an appropriate location. After walking for the better part of a day, he came upon a clearing, like many others he had journeyed through; the difference with this one was that it's master, its leading tree, were dying. Or were soon going to anyway. Morgenstern could tell this from having observed trees around the forest. Happy, he curled up on the ground and fell asleep.

The next morning, he set upon his task. With his bare hands, and toes when the hands got tired, then exhausted, then bloody; he dug. Singularity of mind was something that seldom happened to Morgenstern, but when it did, beware. As the sun was settling, his task was done. Tired to the bone, he climbed into the hole, filled the free room with the soil he had dug up, and fell into an exhausted sleep. Naked as the day he was born and with his legs buried in the rich humid soil, Morgenstern slept for the better part of two days.

He had some troubles adjusting in the beginning; pinned in the earth like he was, he soon became thirsty and hungry. Roots, he thought, I need roots. He gently started wriggling his toes deeper into the ground, stretching for something he couldn’t quite grasp. On the fourth day his feet had yet to become able to absorb any nutrition whatsoever, and Morgenstern actually had a panic attack of sorts. He thought about abandoning the project, but in the end decided against it. Mostly because there was no strength left in him to dislodge himself from the ground. After some time, he calmed down again, settling to wait for the reapers touch. Dying was something Morgenstern sometimes wanted, and never feared; after all, what bigger mystery than death?

In the afternoon he almost fell asleep, and as the storytellers will tell you, it would probably have been for the last time. As he was drifting in that wonderful place between worlds, something gave him a mental prod, and he awoke again. At once his eyes were drawn to the dying giant at the centre of the clearing. Realizing its intent, Morgenstern tried to deny it, but had no idea how to voice it. With a last seeming shudder, the majestic tree inwardly sagged, and somehow Morgenstern felt a bit revitalized. It was not much energy left, but the strength of such a sending went beyond his imagination.

In that all-encompassing language we’re all a part of, Morgenstern understood the gesture clear enough. An old life for his, a young one. A fair exchange. As the sun descended once more, tears started flowing down Morgensterns cheeks, just as the heavens itself cried. Opening his eyes to the sky he wailed, in grief, in pain, but most of all it was that deepest instinct off all, survival. Swaying in the wind, basking in the rain, Morgenstern was a tree. He learned a great deal about himself that night. And he also learned that dying trees do not cry. It is the mourners that do.

As always when remembering the night he was a tree, remembering the sorrow among them when they lost on of their own, some tears had again found their way down his cheeks. None the less, it was one of his fondest memories. Lying down on his back, he again turned his mind over to the mysteries at hand. It could all wait until he had his hours of sleep, but when he woke up, he intended to find out a couple of things. Like why the roof in his room was transparent, and what the two people up there where doing. And why didn’t they seem to know about eachother. Oh well, all in due time.

In his sleep he again travelled into a forest, an eternal witness to the bittersweet emotion of loss. And with the trees, he wept.

[Eyreplenh]

Samson watched curiously as the figure underneath him slowly made his way
into the unconscious. There was something peculiar, no, special, about the underlaying rooms new inhabitant. Of build he looked like a big child, or more accurate; like a frail youth. His eyes though, his eyes were anything but young. But not like eyes like that is usually old. Sighing loudly, Samson cursed and questioned his memory. Searching it was like trying to klimb a sheer, buttered wall. Yet knowledge hid there none the less. How did he know what eyes were old, and the way they usually looked like. Resigned, Samson turned his eyes to the outer world once more, and regarded the boy. No, his eyes simply looked... old. Ancient, even.

Distracted for a moment by thoughts of age and antiquity and it's relevance here, where time seemed immeasurable, Samson did not at once detect the change in the room he was just watching. Rather, he sensed a change in his room, that made his hairs stand on edge. A tingling, electric kind of feeling had entered the room, and bewildered Samson took a look around.
Finding his surroundings the same old dull attic it'd always been. Shrugging, he turned his attention back to the boy.

At once, his senses were caught in a maelstrom of emotion, his mind pulled into a torrent of chaos. If such a thing is possible, he felt at the same time agony and exstacy, pleasure and pain, enchantment and repulsion.
He felt as though being pulled in a thousand different directions, but at the same time had only one focus; the eyes of the boy underneath him. Eyes that had now gone completely black. Swirling ever so slowly closer to those eyes, Samson tried to gather his thoughts, to find sanity once again, but failed, again and again. He was like a child in the middle of a fierce river; nothing he could do would be a difference.

Then, as Samson neared a position directly above the boy, the emotions and chaos slowly trickled away, allowing Samsons conscious mind to climb out from under the rock where it wisely had taken cover. Panicking for a moment at hanging suspended in the air, Samson quite clumsily flailed with his hands and feet a bit. As a reward, maybe, he was lowered into a sitting position
next to the boy, who also had sat up in the bed. His eyes, Samson noticed, were now closed. That did nothing to diminish the feeling of being stared at though. He could feel those eyes, as if the lids weren't there at all.

Then, suddenly marvelling at being out of the attic, Samson in a spurt of energy gathered his courage and asked; -Who are you?
The boy slightly cocked his head to the right, but did not otherwise move. Feeling the tension in the room tighten, Samson wondered if he had made a mistake in asking. Then, without warning, the boy opened his eyes wide,
staring Samson directly in his own. To have called them black, Samson saw, had been a mistake. They far surpassed black in darkness, for one thing. Second, in the darkness there were points of light, slowly floating around, in seemingly random patterns.

Unable to look away, Samson felt drawn to one particular point, which then began to move towards him, growing and becoming ever bigger, and brighter, until it became painful to watch. Spectral light filled his entire vision, the pain becoming excrutiating, yet the idea of looking away was far from his mind. Then, with a sudden explosion of light, Samson travveled through the object of light. The star, he realized with clarity. Through the star and down towards another planet, moving faster and faster. Until he was at the ground,
atop a mountain, where he lifted his eyes and regarded the pitch black night sky. Then, slowly, points of light appeared, swirling randomly about. One was different from the other, Samson thought, and as the thought left his mind, that star started pulling closer. Brighter and brighter, until it felt as if his eyes and mind would burn into ashes, then through. And down, faster and faster,
until he again neared ground. Different place this time, a beautiful, lush forest, with insects bussing around and undoubtedly fantastic species of butterflies filling the air. As soon as he touched ground, however, Samsons gaze were pulled to the sky. Where tiny points of light started to materialize. Then, with extreme pain and brutality, Samson were pulled back into his body, leaving him with an empty, but extremely relieved feeling.

-And they say I have no compassion or mercy, a voice resounded in Samsons head.

Blinking in confusion, Samson managed to get another glimpse of the boy, whose eyes were now closed, but sat otherwise unchanged. Then, with another painful lurch of his body Samson found himself lying on his back in the all too familiar attic.

Clutching himself tight, Samson shivered in the pain and exhaustion that filled his very bones. After a little while, he felt the the same tension as before again, and braced himself. Coming from everywhere at once, the voice then spoke in Samsons head.

-I am Nachtsonne. And I am looking for someone.

[Anita Blake]

She had been a bride once. She remembered it like it was yesterday. She always did. She sometimes felt a little like poor Prometheus that way - give a man fire, and you'll suffer for it daily. Prometheus had his liver torn out by eagles every day - Despair nee Susan relived her wedding daily.

It came in flashes, bursts of startling colour and light. White dress blinding her mind's eye, the magenta petals of her bouquet, the concentrated green of the leaves. Lustrous brown pews strewn with garlands of such riotous colour as to be completely fantastical. And his face, coming closer, closer, smiling as she felt her own face beaming in return.

The remembered joy was overwhelming, pleasure that had become pain beyond bearing.


Not today.

She had made a decision, that fact in itself enough to differentiate this day from the countless others she had endured in this tiny room.

She was going to kill herself.

She'd throw herself from the window. She'd had, she'd decided, quite enough of this house, of this existence, of life. She envisioned the outside, a return to those vibrant colours she had denied herself all this time. She imagined falling to the green grass, the blades opening themselves up to swallow her alive, her blood oozing from some mortal wound to become a glowing ruby river with banks of emeralds. Yes.

She crossed the dingy gray room for the last time, graceful as always, but also now determined, with a goal, something to look forward to. Death.

The window was jammed.

Try as she might, she could not open the cursed thing. The wood had rotted and warped in the frame, ancient nails rusted into a kind of cement.

She was determined. She had a goal. She'd smash the window with her fists, until it cut her and she bled and then she would throw herself from the window, with a greater chance of success in her goal!

Of course, an endless period of time sighing, dreaming, weeping, and barely eating the food that mysteriously turned up had weakened her more than she could rationally understand.

She hit the window with her tiny, clenched fist.

Her mouth opened, and a croaking sound emerged, the first time her vocal chords had been used since time immemorial.

"Ow!"

Instead of the glas breaking, and her hand being cleansed with the purity of her own gushing blood, a dull pain in her delicate knuckles spasmed through her frail body, and she recoiled from the shock of it. Thoughts of suicide vanished, so to speak, out the very closed, very intact, window.

Her hand felt like it was on fire. She just wanted ice water to cool it off. She turned around, and, unthinking, left her room for the first time since she had entered it an eternity ago.

The walls of the blue house groaned and shuddered, the door to her cell creaked shut behind her, and she thought she heard the window-glass shatter.

Alone, lost, and awake for the first time since she came her for sanctuary, Susan went in search of - colour.

[Apoc]

Sin ground to a halt. "Water water everywhere, but not here, No!" she proclaimed to the cold corridor she stood in. "The sea has lots and lots, not you!" she shook her fist at the blackness before her. "Sin knows your cruelty, Sin doesn't like it." she whispered to herself. "The pretty lady will need it, I demand you provide it." Silence. "Damn stupid, and here I was all happy to be free from my prison only to be bound by a larger one. The pretty lady will never move the ward stone on the door if i can't even find some water for her. That was to be my excuse see, so she'd forgive me and do my bidding again." she conversed with the quiet dark. "I tricked her, I feel bad for doing it but you know..." she continued her idle chat to the empty corridor with not an ear to hear it...or so she thought.

After some time of chatting to the darkness, Sin crumpled to the floor in a huff, crossarmed and scowling she cursed the silence. Her wonderous mind then drifted, as it had become accustomed to do, and a smile crept through the scowl and within no time she was dreaming again, having forgotten why she had been angry.

Suddenly she outstretched her hand and two small pebbles came to her from down the corridor. She placed the smaller of the two directly in front of her and cast the second larger one a few feet away. She stared at them, this was her favourite mindmuck. She had known the answer long ago but only remembered the question now and that gnawed at her.

Sin narrowed her eyes and concentrated on the small pebble before her. Slowly she crafter it in her mind and the pebble began to levitate before her and then a little explosion occurred, twelve smaller, perfectly round shaped fragments, circled the largest remaining part of the pebble, she made that one glow, a small speck of golden within the twelve. She smiled at the creation of her mini solar system. An idle thought crept in her mind, was she now a creator like her great great grandfather had been? She shrugged it off with a giggle and moved her attention to the larger pebble she had cast a few feet away. She made that one levitate aswell and brought it level with her mini solar system, "hmmm?" she strained to remember.

She looked on her solar system, "So, if this is us." she lectured the darkness, "and that" she gestured toward the other levitating pebble a few feet away, "is the edge of the universe." A long pause followed that was suddenly broken with an annoyed scream, "then what is all this!" she flailed her arms about fitfully, "darkness?! but whats beyond that, there must be something! and if there is, whats beyond that! Could we be within the cradle of a demented child gods hands like my mini universe is now within mine and beyond me is the house and beyond that the world and beyond that another solar system and beyond that another vast universe thats probably again within another speck of dust within the pebble fragments i've just made ahhhhhhhhh!" she screamed and before she knew it, she had crushed her mini solar system within her tiny hand. She sat for sometime then, staring, wide eyed at her closed fist, "i'm...i'm sorry." she sadly whispered, her creation, destroyed.

[Apoc]

A childs, crazed, maniacal laugh broke the eery silent gloom filled hall.

It lasted awhile.

Sin raised her head, eyes bloodshot and ablaze with madness as her cakle shattered the darkness and reverberated down the narrow hallway, lighting it with sparks and fiery sprites as it danced all around the place.

A tremor grew that stirred the dust and made the floorboards creak.

The laughter ended with a squeeky "meep", as the child like goddess imploded and formed into a tiny single drop of rain.

It fell and upon landing on the wooden floorboards, was absorbed into the house, to never squeek again.

[Eyreplenh]

In his sleep he again travelled into a forest, an eternal witness to the bittersweet emotion of loss. And with the trees, he wept.

Morgenstern awoke, in his mind a memory of a feeling. An unfamiliar feeling at that. This morning, not remembering why, Morgenstern awoke in fear. And even though the feeling was quick to fade, like dew in the sun, or indeed like the memory of a dream, it gave him a pause when he lifted his head to get the first feel of the day. He was an avid dreamer in his waking hours as well as in the nights, but his dreams had never caused him to arrive at wakefullness in fear before. What was it then that caused this feeling? Shrugging it off, he got out of bed, pulled on his clothes and went out into the house.

He’d heard singing before, whilst walking the hallways and rooms of the house, but never encountered its source. His mind had been occupied elsewhere. But as he for the momnet couldn’t remember what that other had been, he decided to find this singer. Something that proved more easily said than done, as the house was very silent at the moment.

Stopping at every doorway, Morgenstern heard, saw and felt the presence of people in nearly all the rooms. He wondered for a moment if they had any clue why they were here, because it was apparent by the many numb and shocked faces that they all were recently arrived. Though some broke out of they’re respective trances to shout after him, he didn’t stop to talk or comfort anyone. Not yet. First, he must find the singer.

Morgenstern could not believe how lucky he’d been to have come here. Continously things stimulated his curiosity. Like how, for instance, he had no clear memory of wlaking these halls before, even though he knew he had to, as he remembered walking on his own two feet from the entrance hall to the bedroom last night. And the night before that. He was fairly certain it had been the same bedroom.

Guided only by his feet and their memory or instincts, Morgenstern wondered aimlessly for quite some time, always looking in wonder at the rooms he encountered, the artwork on the walls and marvelled at how some of the rooms were simple, spartan even, while others were filled with lush luxury. Following som muted clonking sounds, he eventually found his way into what must be, judging by the interior, a kitchen. He stopped then, and ransacked his mind, looking for the answer; had he eaten since he arrived at the house? Eating had never had any central part of Morgensterns life, in this respect (and countless others, of course) he was quite a special one. He was never hungry or thirsty, but ate and drank every now and then, for various reasons. Soon enough, that meaning instantly, his mind drifted from the question at hand, and he looked at the kitchen again. It really didn’t matter if he remembered any food or not, some of the people in the rooms around the house were bound to eat, even if he didn’t. This he was confident of.

It was a small kitchen, kind of dull, with colours ranging from grey and brown to, well, grey and brown, in all the shades imaginable. It was rectangular, with a big fireplace in the center, and shelves all around the room, all of them empty. From behind the fireplace he heard the clonking sounds, not so muted now, and continued muttering. Smiling, he made his way around the big fireplace and saw, behind a gigantic pile of dirty plates, forearms covered in foam and foodthings, a creature furiosly scrubbing away on a big, ceramic plate. A girl, or woman, frail but fierce, who muttered constantly, furiously intent on her work. From what he could make out, most of it were about bats and possibly horses, curses about cutlery and glasses and plates, and, curiously, someone named Sinclair.

Gently clearing his throat, Morgenstern announced his presence, whereupon the girl threw herself around, covering him and the surroundings in thick foam, smelling slightly of lavender. She didn’t look afraid, more curious, and there were few moments when the same didn’t apply to Morgenstern, and so there passed quite some time they spent just looking at eachother. Who knows how long these minutes last, but eventually the girl opened her mouth. “Er…Hi?” Morgenstern smiled. Ah, he thought, my singer.