My stories

The Parents of War

Let me tell you the tale of a man. A man who's blade bended the whim of the war. Who donned medals with a weight so grand only steel may hold it. A man who has made Gods beg for his forgiveness and that they may serve him as master. With a heart that bled pure; no wound shall open him, no body may contain him. His eyes with more infamy than the sun. No mere mortal shall hold gaze with them, other than to perish and scorch. That the land lays bare and fruitless where he treads; and storms be an elemental warning of his capability. That men born with silver spoons in their mouths shall choke and be consumed by hunger as he feasts on the cities of capitals. A man who starves hunger away, kills to feel alive, and has died to remain immortal. This man strides across oceans, and strips rock from coasts, carves the paths in mountains, and tempers his blade with bone. I may not speak his name, for he has none. He is a man to be born of battle; and this battle is no war of man. It is a war of his mind.

From Within

Shadowed in front of me in the frame; unrecognisable as the human it once was, stood a frail bone-like structure that creaked as it swayed. It's arms hung down by its side loosely in an effortless pendulum motion. Each crevice of rib, inch of bone - devoid of muscle, appeared visible as the moonlight cast upon it. Shallow black sockets masquerading as eyes stared back at me. I could make out the mouth of the monster. Edges curled in a sickly smile, jagged teeth seeping out, imperfections of staining yellowing them. I remained strong and held the ground I stood, allowing me time to wonder just why it was smiling at me. A worrying thought with answers I didn't want to know.
         There began a shuffling emanating from its feet. As I glanced down its legs, I noticed the knees were trembling. As if cold and weak. Judging by its frail anatomy - it was likely both.
         I suddenly began feeling nauseous, as if an illness had ravaged my body. The kind of sick that leaves you bedridden. I didn't feel normal. 'Was it the creature?', I asked myself. Could it be the reason why I feel this way; or the reason this house is sick. There must have been some correlation. This feeling I had was strangely familiar. Like the feeling I get when peering into a toilet, or looking at intense gore. Disturbed sickness. Sickened sickness.
         It had been a few moments now that we had been face to face, yet it felt like a century. I almost began to wonder if it was doing this intentionally as a form of torture. Making me stare at it. Witness it. Behold it in all the skeletal glory it had to offer. But now, of all times, seemed strangest. Only just making its appearance now after plaguing me for months. I knew it had played games and toyed with me all this time, it was a joker. And suddenly the smile made sense. It had read me like a book. It was no longer a thought in my head that I was evaluating it - instead, to my immediate horror, it was just the opposite. If it wasn't for the dark pits burrowed into its skull I might have been able to see the eyes panning me up and down. Judging me.
         Slowly, I began inching backwards. It did the same. I knew it would, and it knew I would. I had forgotten what was behind me so I swept my foot across the floor as I stepped, hoping to feel any obstacles that may trip me. As my feet traced the floor, they found a patch of icy cold liquid. The chill shot up my leg and into my stomach. I placed my weight firmly on my toes, took a large breath in, and cast myself into uncertainty. I stepped, and to my relief, did not slip. By this point I had completely lost the creature in front of me to the darkness. Immediately, I began to shake the sickened feeling and the nausea left my head. As I looked down, the liquid appeared to be a small pool of water sat precariously below me. It was then that my memory was jolted. 'What room was I in?'
         My heel hit the solid structure of a wall behind me. I could go no further backwards. I felt a familiar fabric brush against the back of my legs - soft cotton with the fibres strangely matted. Spinning around, I held out my hand to feel for the light switch. With my back turned to the last known location of the monster, it was more of a frantic frisk of the wall. Jamming my fingers bluntly, tapping and drumming on the wall's hollow surface I eventually managed to find it.
         As the room became illuminated with an immense strength, the puddle below my feet caught my eye. A shimmering reflection was being shown of something looking strangely odd - but oddly like... no. This was not me. That was not my eyes looking back at me, only shallow pits. Nor were they my legs below me, the trembling knees. I attempted to scream but the skin across my ribs ached in agony as I inhaled. Looking up now, I saw a sight I feared more than anything. The creature peering back at me yet again; now completely illuminated - I could see its eyes. I could see dead, bloodshot eyes. These were... my eyes. Staring back at me from within the frame of the mirror.

The Game

He said he would stop drinking when he didn't want to punch me anymore; so a massive wave of relief washes over me as he orders another tall larger. I felt cheated on. At least I was preoccupied by counting the rising total of the tab I wasn't sure who would be picking up at the end of this evening. By the sounds of it, he would be paying for the bill, I would be paying for something else entirely.
          The night we spent in that bar seemed dragged out as if the sun would never rise again and this generic "hole-in-the-wall-floor-and ceiling" dive that we had planned on meeting in would be our purgatory. But the irony was there was no other side for us. Both of our sins like cinderblock shoes and the cesspool we were swimming in was bottomless. It seems he had taken to drowning his demons before he himself suffocated. A race against time. Perhaps that was the reason our table became so quickly cluttered with Vermouth and triple sec. Admittedly, I had contributed to the pile with a pint of Stout and half a larger. The half larger was ordered through pity. I didn't want him to think I wasn't taking this situation as seriously as he was, nor that I felt disenfranchised.
"Did it make you feel better in the end?", the slight lilt in his voice when he said the word 'better' almost forced the contents of my stomach out through my nose. Why did he have to put it like that? What did he gain from plunging knives in my back so soon after my breakup. He knows what condition I'm in, he knows how hard its been for both of us, he was just being his usual careless; selfish self.
          And as a matter of fact, yes. "It" did make me feel better. "It" was the best I ever had, in fact, "It" was the exact reason I've been promised a punch in the face from my best friend in the grimiest bar in East London. "It" is omnipotent. Seemingly the catalyst for every single event that has taken place in my life since last summer. Fuck, I couldn't tell if my lack of answer to his question was enough of an answer for him. I replied sharply by raising my room temperature half-a-half-pint to my mouth, taking a small sip on the warm liquid; savouring the time it was lending me, and putting the glass down. Followed by a shake of the head, eyes to the floor, "nah mate, of course not", and a glance across the room to nothing in particular. I'm sure he could tell. I was lying through my bastard teeth.