A change of location

Recently, I have decided to discontinue the use of this blog indefinitely, and instead have changed the location that I post my works to This Link.  If you are interested, I will see you there!

Wind

"It sounds so lonely; maybe it needs a friend," Soro said, commenting on the sound of the wind howling up against a nook or cranny.

Lance turned around to see the shrine priest slowly walking towards him from the other side of the porch.  "I didn't know anyone thought I'd be here," he admitted.

"I know who to ask."  Soro shrugged, let out a slight grin on the right side of his face, and then nodded his head to where Lance was sitting, and Lance nodded back in approval.  Soro sat down next to the large man and looked out, over the path and into the rice field.

"Seems like prime real estate, and I'm sure the location's nothing compared to your rhetoric," Soro commented as Lance drank what was in his small glass.

"Oh?"  Lance looked at him with his head still tilted back from drinking.  "So you know?"

"Of course I know," Soro smiled at him, "you're pretty easy to read when you're so sentimental."  He looked back out over the field.  "What's the occasion?"

"I just thought it's time," Lance responded straight-faced.  "Plus I like it out here.  It's peaceful."

"That's for sure."  Soro looked up at Lance, and then around to the empty house behind them.  It's large front door was open, and the darkness it made where the moon's light could not reach made it seem abnormally eerie.  "I'm sure you'll need help moving in."

"Shouldn't you be with Jeremy?"  Lance looked back at him with concern.

"There's no need to worry.  There is a trip barrier on all the walls of the shrine, and Jay's still in the card room."  Soro looked up at the stars, which were partially covered by a few stringy clouds.  "He's only got three more days left before I can let him out."

Lance reached over to his left side and picked up a small glass and offered it to Soro, who refused it.

"Sorry, nothing but the good 'ol blue for me."  He huffed a laugh, "I'm a picky drinker."

"Hm, I never would've guessed," Lance said, putting the glass back down next to him. 

"Yeah," Soro sighed. 

A moment rolled by with the two looking out either into the field or at the sky.  A calm, lukewarm breeze softly brushed past them, and the lonely howling came from it again, along with a single wind chime off in the distance.

"Ahh, the things that happen in days," Soro said.

"Yeah," Lance agreed.  "Well, I'm not sure what help I can be anymore, but I'll do what I can."  He patted Soro on the shoulder.

"Hand on the back," Soro complained.
"Oh, sorry," Lance chuckled. 

Soro joined him a second later.  "Don't worry; I know how much you hate to sit sideline, so I'll find something for you to do." 

"You make it sound like I'm desperate," Lance said.

Soro chuckled a bit more and stood up, stretching as he did so.  "Anyway, I'll help you tomorrow."

"Can you come the day after tomorrow?"  Lance asked.  "I'm going to be busy preparing tomorrow."

"Sure thing."  Soro turned and walked off the porch and into the soft grass next to it, continuing to walk.  "See ya later," he said over his shoulder.

"Good Night," Lance called back.  He then poured himself another glass and looked out over the rice fields once more.

Simply Prelude

It was the largest conflict between the humans and the spirits that ever occurred.  It was much like total war.  There were fronts and there were capitals, though most of the spirits didn't care to do such a thing.  Kept to their wandering selves, they roamed wherever they pleased only to join with others once a front was established.  The priests headed the forces on the human's side, fighting as close to equal terms with the spirits as they could, and helping the other humans survive on the field of battle.  Simple yet deep hatreds turned to the mindless violence in all of the conflicts, and the mindless violence turned into slaughter, more often of humans than of spirits.

The fighting went on for many days, weeks even, with only an end covered with the blood of hundreds from both sides in sight.  Though even through this all, all of the blood and pain, killing and dying, day after day, there was one scene that stood out.  It was a terrible time for the conflict, and many of the shrine priests that started in the war had been defeated at this point; the spirits were taking their place on the winning side of the conflict, and the remainder of the humans from the conflict all converged to protect what was their final front.  In this intense and chaotic battle, the scene formed out of the calamity.

The last three priests took the humans straight to the fight, and the spirits met them with great opposition.  Divine power met the spirit's own energy and the human's weapons met the spirit's flesh, and likewise, in a beautiful mess of destruction and death that dissolved a part of the forest into a large opening of scorched and turned dirt stained with blood.  Two humans helped from just beyond the clearing to aid those injured and dying, but their efforts could not save more than those condemned, and the bodies were only increasing.  The insanity of the conflict seemed to only speed up the destruction of their side as they tried their best to eliminate the other.  And through this all, one scene preceded them in seeming importance:

A man, who before had never been in a battle between the two sides, throwing away his own importance and safety, and caressing a spirit who had been injured on the field.  They were on a slight incline, and in front of one of the last smoldering ruins of a tree; the man holding the spirit in his arms and crying painful and loud tears of anguish.  Many from both sides who saw this spectacle stopped and beheld them.  A human and a spirit, a man and a woman, both hurt and bleeding, holding each other in a passionate embrace: the man crying as the spirit, with a similar expression of anguish, tried to hold their soul within their body.  Never before had a scene like this come to pass, and no tears were ever shed for one side about the other until now. 

The man buried his face in the shoulder of the spirit and continued to cry, even as the battle began to halt due to his wails.  His crying did not stop until the conflict had entirely stopped; every human and spirit standing still to watch.  Through the new silence that had just come, and the anger and evil that had just passed, one phrase could be heard through it all, and seemed to echo through the soul of everyone who was there:  "I love you."

Even With All This Technology...

The note pad suddenly being slapped down on top of the desk showed his frustration as well as any word would have.  The other writer in the room, who was also a mutual friend of his, sighed at this gesture.

"Still at a dead end?" he asked.

"It's complete horse shit, I swear.  Every time I end up with a 'lead' it doesn't lead me anywhere.  I'm about to just say 'screw it'."  He took the pencil out from behind his ear and dropped it next to the note pad that he had just slammed on the desk.

"C'mon man, ya hav'ta try." He spoke more deliberately.  "It's the story of the century, no joke, and you have the specific right to overseeing it for the paper.  If anything, you should be all over those witnesses."

The frustrated writer gave a deep sigh as he drove his hand down his face.  "I can't; most of 'em pled the fifth or are being kept away from reporters for some reason."  He plopped himself down sideways in the chair diagonally across the table from the other writer.  "Sure it's the 'story of the century', but I can't write shit if I can't get anything.  All those national assholes are taking the story and turning it into some sort of Sci-Fi horror bullshit, connecting it to that ambassador story.  Not like I can get around that with how they're puttin' it, and I don't do debunkers. Just what the hell happened is anyone’s guess."

"That's why they need a local reporter to get the story right and present the facts, no one asked you to debunk anything," the other man argued.  He finally looked at the notepad, which was full of scribbled sentences and had something stuck in it.  "What about that?"  He motioned towards the notepad.

"This?"  He picked up the notepad he had thrown down.  "Last interview I can legally get at this point.  If there's one good thing to come out of all this it's that we got the quiet girl to talk."

"I'm expecting gold," the other man smirked.  "The quiet ones always have the best material."

The writer shared in the smirk, "And this one's no different.  Now if only I can get what the hell she's sayin' I might finally have something to work on."

"Don't burn yourself out thinkin' about it," the other man advised, losing his smirk.

"Hell, like I don't learn the first time," he said, losing the smirk immediately.

"So, I assume you have a recording?"  He motioned towards the small TV and multiple-format player it is set on top of across the room.

The writer stalled for a minute with discontent on his face as he looked between the notepad and TV, then he flipped the top pages up to reveal a tape.  "What the hell, not like I can do anythin' else at this point.  Gimme a minute."  He walked towards the door and reached his hand into his pocket.  "Pizza good with you?"

"Four nights and counting."

"Chinese then."  He quickened his pace out of the door back to his office to get the order-out menu.

"Some things you must see to believe."

Lyric of 200+

Save me, little girl, save you.
Lay round over ground non-blue.
Sea of see to girl's sense.
May not leave mother's hence.

Mother not of mother true.
Older two no knows who.
Bridge may of ice or rice.
Stepped on rainbow in trice.

~[Page Ripped Onwards]~

Patience for the Inevitable?

How could I get used to it like that?  It just kept happening over and over again.  The first few times I cried, and struggled desperately, but my fate wouldn't give way no matter what I decided to do.  Whether it was to talk to this guy and say this thing, or do this only at this time, I was always met with the same ending, if not given a slight change just before. 

After that, I stopped trying.  It was my first loop, or cycle, and of course I had no clue what I needed to do or what I needed to say.  I felt like I wasn't good enough for whatever was keeping me here.  Reminds me, I did a few things I could even now call insane back then.  When I knew the ending was coming, I would do something funny to me or odd to everyone else on the last day, just as a sick joke.  I remember one time I kept all of the passes to go to the bathroom and all of the money I was given for food, and on the last day I used them all up and laughed to myself as I bought a pocket watch. 

Why a pocket watch?  Who knows?  I will admit there was a mental break down, or "falling out", after I woke up a few weeks earlier.  I stopped doing those things, but sort of drifted since then to just go with the flow and end up where I was going to end up.  That was, of course, until I got tired of dying again and again and decided to do something.  It took me quite a while to break free, but I did; only to find that I only tumbled the first wall, but it was progress none-the-less.

After all that, I didn't know what to do, really.  I just decided from that point on to solve all of my problems over and over, helping other people out with their problems time and time again.  It became tedious at some points, but what's really two hours to an entire year or two?  And through it all I found a way to set aside an hour, go to a shop, and buy a pocket watch.  Every cycle had one, and one that looked very similar to the last.  I found that both comfortable and frightening, but it has become the symbol of my journey:  A small, but strong circle of time, where the beginning and the ending are always the same point.

Of the Four; Two

I won't have anyone die on my watch.  Not after then, of course; because it's too late for them, and, well, you.  It was foolish to everyone there to make a pledge like that, and now I have an empty space around me.  Well, you didn't really agree either.  You know I'm not one to sulk, but...

There isn't much time for me yet, since I turned it down back then. I went to your funeral; I would feel cheated if you didn't come to mine.  We'd be even then.  So, are you willing to pay back one last dept?