Topic: forbidden fruit

Peaches · Date: 2014-06-01 04:59 EST

The mirror was dappled in blood. Small specks of it spread out so much that they could have been sanguine constellations. Behind them blurred her face. Both hands clutched, white knuckled, to the edges of the sink. Another cough gurgled up a frothy mixture to be spit up.

You're doing too much.

"I'm doing what needs to happen, yea'?", said the girl who found her voice after hacking up another congealed glob of blood. Her chest burned. The bones in her human shell aching. It was the pounding in her head that made her vision fuzzy when looking into her own eyes.

There are consequences to this, Princess. You will not be strong enough to hunt in the nights to come. If the Wall cracks, who will be there to stop it?

Fingers that had gone lax soon returned to a vice like hold to the sink. The voice was everywhere but no where; the echo of what laid in the unseen.

"Please, please -- don't call me that, yea'? I don't -- I'll be fine. I can still go. I can meet you there."

The voice seemed to have gone quiet but that was not to mean it did not linger. She could imagine a sneering muzzle. Long teeth as white as ivory and as sharp as sickles.

Her hand pushed forward to the mirror at an attempt to smear away the Pollock design of carmine dots. Ribbons of ruby streaked to her reflection like war paint.

We worry. We are meant to worry. We are meant as your wardens. Are all of these mortals worth it? Worth your sickness?

"Of course they are.", she murmured. The tone so sweet, so humid. So genuine. "They all are."

Peaches · Date: 2014-07-02 01:04 EST

Her kingdom was a treasure trove of simple trinkets. She had horded scraps of paper with love letters written sloppily across them. Kept a stack of Polaroid photos that gave a glimpse into her filthy habits and daredevil days. A shoe box full of antiques such as coins from Brixton, movie ticket stubs of flicks she couldn't always remember, tacky jewelry bought in twenty five cent machines. Her entire life up until the last few years was now scattered out around her, circling her as if she was summoning up the angels and demons from her past to face off with them for old times sake.

Past lovers, recent admirers. They were jumbled in the mess she had made right there on the floor. A silly rhyme that Jordan Bunker had scribbled out on the back of a homework assignment that had never been turned in. A key that unlocked more than just a motel room where she would find herself rolling in sheets that smelled of Thomas Brown. Delicate origami folded cranes that once rotated outside her bedroom in L.A. that had been crafted by the killer-crafted Judas Entreri.

It was the key, though, that she twirled between her fingers. That trip down memory lane was cluttered with road blocks and caution signs that she had been so blind to in the beginning. She went into the fire thinking there was no harm in feeling a little of the heat but the war wounds she surfaced with afterwards were more than pure shock and awe. Beneath her finger nails she could still feel the slippery annoyance of blood that didn't belong to her but she was forced to take.

The key was deposited back into the trunk with a special sort of care. If only she had been stronger back then. A little more brave rather than hiding behind the smoke and mirrors of her gaudy smiles, or finding solace in the small shadow of a pill bottle. Those were the hours of her mundane existence which she fought against all the monsters with. So weak, so selfish.

So ******* high.

More and more items were dumped back into the Pandora's box, where she shelved every novelty to those retired years. It was between shuffling together a few of her fathers old records (priceless, in her eyes) together that a slip of paper fell between the cracks. It fluttered down to sweep over the rest of the junk displayed and went face up to the ceiling.

"-- no ******* way." It was a whisper to her ears only as she was the only soul to inhabit the room.

The paper was picked up, caught delicately at the corner to drag it closer for a slow review. Embossed lettering had all but deflated over the years. It had once been white but had no aged into a filmy yellow to warrant the philosophy that it was a relic amid most of her things. The writing wasn't hand written but from the archaic technology of a standard printer that did nothing if not show, again, just how outdated it was.

The certificate of her childish achievement in that arcade during a rainy Friday provoked her into a series of expressions. A cinema of reliving that excitement that soon cringed into a poisoned dose of how she never did get to receive any adoration for it. How her father would have adjusted his mouth to a higher wattage since he was always found grinning, had he been around to see his little sun drop obtain such a silly title. Instead --

The silver lining was that it seemed to rival even the term serendipity.

She hung it on her wall, as someone had told her to do once upon a time.

Peaches · Date: 2014-07-03 03:09 EST

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The noise wasn't a subtle dripping faucet. It sent a tremble through the walls and into the atmosphere, enough to invade the quiet daze she had been in. A certain amount of perversion was there when she caught herself imagining the dirty deeds being performed by the other two occupants in the house.

Her mouth twitched. The half smile was a small show of her amusement over it all.

The only reason it hadn't blossomed completely was the fatigue she was falling victim to. It ate at her bones. Throttled at her sinew. The heavy gauze of her lashes drawn low over her eyes. It was the weight of her syndrome.

Thump. Thump. Crash.

A strain to hear brought up the babbling of moaning laughter that soon drowned beneath gasping names. She found her finger had started to tap out a rhythm that matched the sensual samba being practiced in another room. There was no reason to not laugh, either, when another catastrophe of noise came in the form of an "Ayo, baby girl, not there!"

At some point she felt too much the eavesdropper and decided to emerge from her room to play hop-scotch with the shadows that lingered in the halls. Dark enough to make her slow in movement while fingers dragged across the walls to help guide her through the much larger abode than she was used to.

Outside was humid. Sticky with the prowling monsoons on the horizon. It seemed like the best choice to find solitude even with a million stars watching over her. They winked their admiration of the creature spun from the strings of dawn.

And they had an odd comfort behind them, as if the space above was keeping a close eye on her when she became a lazy siren against the heaving mass of Cujo.

Sleep brought the dreamers disease. And the dream was all about the stars.

Peaches · Date: 2014-07-04 02:41 EST

Dear Ms. Elizabeth Darling Haggarty,

It is with our deepest condolences that we are writing you today. As of 4:15 A.M. on April 16th, your mother, Carol Anne Haggarty, passed away.

She had been struggling with substance abuse and came to Saint Agatha's in hopes of finding a new beginning in January of 2013. Despite our efforts to help your mother through such a difficult time, she was unable to contend with the demons that seemed to haunt her.

We are so very sorry for your loss. Please feel free to call us in regards to the details of her passing and to set up a time to pick up her belongings.

Our sincerest apologies for your loss,

The Staff at Saint Agatha's Church of the Lost
Rehabilitation Center

It had been almost a year since she actually received the letter. Her name was such a mysterious puzzle piece that she was not interested in handing out. Her moniker had been Peaches since washing up on the shores of California when she was eighteen. How it had even managed to go out with her name printed on the front astonished her.

She was sure that her name was nothing more than a curse when her mother spoke it aloud.

Over and over; she had read the thing at least once a week since getting her hands on it. The number had never been called. Not once. She wasn't interested in the details of how that woman had gone. There was little to no reason to be curious about the belongings, either, knowing it was probably nothing more than an empty handle of scotch. Each words on the letter oddly contradicted the status written when she read it in her head. While most others would feel loss, remorse, utter agony at a loved one succumbing to a reaper -- she did not.

She pulled the cigarette from the corner of her lips, sipping down one last mouthful and expelling twin rows of smoke from her nostrils. The ember darkened with no suction, but it still burned bright in the haze of low light in her room. It worked well enough to burn small holes that grew larger with the heat eating away at the paper, burning off the essence of the typed out apology.

Sorry for your loss.

They had no idea how wrong that saying was to her. They should have been rejoicing, singing praise that a hellish creature was given a just reward for all her vile moments.

So she celebrated for them, finally; the paper kept smoldering when tossed at the bottom of a small trash bin. The smoke raising up like ghostly yawns of grey.

It was incredibly cathartic for the sunspun siren who smiled behind it all.

Peaches · Date: 2014-07-05 02:05 EST

August 19th, 2011

Hospitals had never been a place of sanctuary for a girl who had visited their florescence humming halls more often than naught. Just tasting the sterilized air made her feel contaminated; flavor of the sick, the dying, the tragedy lurking in the corners of every room. Reapers were among them, just hidden from view but hovering like spirits biding their time, counting down the minutes until another life would be guided above or below.

Peaches couldn?t see them, but she knew they were here.

The ICU was a quiet place when the hours had settled to some ungodly time. Her presence was nothing more than a whimsical silhouette in the door way which housed a quilted Doppelganger; this was not Roxy. It was stitches and gauze, EKG machines that beeped in time with the reapers watches. I can hear you. Her once beautiful dark-horse was a botched copy of her former self. She was half-machine with the tubes and IV?s, painted in the beautiful peacock colors of bruises which freckled like leopard spots on her ghost-pale skin.

Peaches couldn?t hear them, but she knew they were here.

"Hey, Rox?.", the first words of a lonely soul were uttered so quietly yet it still echoed in the dim lit room. Stepping forward, finding some kind of courage to face off with a broken shell, a porcelain doll who had been dropped too many times. Regardless of the ugliness that crippled her second-half, Peaches looked at her with warm eyes. Blotted and hazed with the obvious statement that the news had forced her into survival mode, packing her gut full of illegal substances that would help navigate her to this place.

Peaches couldn?t smell them, but she knew they were here.

"I brought you something." Handful of blonde hair was palmed away from her face, unashamed to show the comatose Roxy the building of glass in her eyes. The slow drop of diamond tears that were wiped away with a smooth brush of her fingers. "I figured I could play nurse, yea?? These silly ***** here probably don?t know ****." Tone waxed and waned between forced silliness and traumatized disbelief. A small box was taken from the belly of her purse; Hello Kitty printed across it and the famous logo of band-aids spouted in red. It was placed on the small table near the bed so when she would wake up (and she would, she had to) they would be there.

Peaches couldn?t touch them, but she knew they were here.

"An? people wonder why I don?t drive. Perfect proof, right here. End up worse than you, yea?? Like that time you tried to teach me how to skateboard? I took one step on that bloody thing an? fell flat on my face. Right there, in the street." Fingers reached, unable to keep herself from preening at the black hair that was draped across Roxy?s brow. Sutures or not, her face was too pristine to hide behind anything. "Had a good laugh at that, yea??"

"Probably couldn?t hear it, but everyone was here. Earlier. I would have been here, too, but I had some business. You know how it is." A slight pause, her lips pursing. She was tip-toeing between reality and a dreamscape. Too surreal, to be present near the side of her yin-yang who wasn?t breathing on her own. Incubated, left to wither away beneath the twitching night lights. A deep breath was taken in and a repeat performance given when she wiped some tears away. "But I?m here now, right? An? I?m not going anywhere, okay?"

She was slow to notice a small scrape across Roxy?s knuckles, something that hadn?t been smothered in the mummification of bandages wrapped around her limbs. Peaches spoke in the light-hearted murmur she was known for, the pretty indication of her being in denial over the situation, but she was positive Roxy would hear her. ?You know, you can?t leave me, yea?? Tommy is gone.? The box of band aids was opened and a single one was taken out. ?Judas left me.? Carrying on a one-sided conversation while carefully ripping open the single band-aid. It was crafted across Roxy?s knuckle, gently easing it over the minor flesh wound. ?So, if you leave ?? Trailing off.

She thought of their times together. Times apart. Times spent in this very hospital with a select few of the same faces that had shown up today. She laughed, inwardly, at their constant dramatics. At their girlish behaviors buried beneath all the tough-as-nails persona they fed the world. How they had once been the lifeline to the underground, and now they had grown into their skin. Finally. Yet some things never changed, and she was grateful that she at least had a constant in the roller coaster of her life. In a circus that you had to perform in every day, it was a breath of fresh air to come home and resume how you were before the make-up and costumes.

A chair was pulled up closer to the bed. A new throne for the fairy princess to curl up in, wilting her limbs to settle in what could be considered a comfortable position. ?Lucky I didn?t come earlier, since Baxter was here. When are you going to tell that bastard to sod off, eh? And Tomas was here, too. I knew you didn?t take him off your emergency contacts, you lying ****.? Lulling a smothered laugh that was stifled by her finger tips. It was hard to pretend at this moment, yet she persevered. Queen of playing make-believe. ?You know, I like Johnny. I think he?s good for you. I don?t think I?ve ever really liked anyone as much as him. Tomas was good, yea?? For a bit ? but I think things between you and Johnny could really work. And, no, you can?t just go off and get a ******* certificate of marriage. You have to have a wedding, and I must be your maid of honor.? Already planning for a future, one that had been so close to being taken from the tenuous wraith now anchored in this hospital.

Peaches allowed some silence to pass. A moment where she tried to collect some sober thoughts in a ****** up mind.

"Don?t leave me, Roxy. Please.?

She remained there; a fae-blooded warden that took up arms to help keep the reapers at bay.

Peaches · Date: 2014-07-05 19:57 EST

Remember ? you can remember, can?t you?

It was so dark that it seemed to devour the voice. An unknown tone that kept repeating itself while she felt a million fingers brushing like feathers across her body. Nude, she could tell by how they breezed over her nipples, dipped between her thighs. It felt unlike anything else.

You remember ? You can?t forget, can you?

Even if she wanted to respond to the nonsense, she felt her breath being milked from her lungs as the greedy touch in the dark began to be more demanding. The softness, the tender affection, gone now and replaced by grabbing. Handfuls of her body were pulled at and she felt her skin stretch like moist clay. Felt them tear her, bit by bit.

I know you want me, Peaches. You can't pretend. Just ask me --

The darkness was being sprinkled with bright dots of light. Bulbs of burning white that didn?t twinkle like stars yet seemed far away enough to be them. She responded, I don?t know how to ask, but the voice didn?t come back. The fingers were gone, the hands were still tearing at what was left of her, until the world began to flip ? her face was at the surface of water, her body floating beneath the utterly still shelf of liquid.

I don't need you. No one needs you.

She opened her eyes to stare in a familiar face. He looked down at her; sympathetic, tired, ashamed. Why?, she asked, but her lips never moved. Her voice hovered just beneath the water and echoed into the deep black beneath her. She wanted to cry, could feel tears in her eyes, but they only drowned her vision into a blur. Why? Tell me why!, she heard her voice say again, but his face seemed petrified. There was no emotion, so void in the eyes that it made her body twitch in the liquid. Caused a ripple of chaos in the cool bed of water.

Show me how to be like you --

Hands burst from either side of her, hundreds of them, latching like the dead to her body and causing a frenzy in the water. She heard herself scream before being dragged beneath, deeper and deeper into an abyss that was as black as coal. Her scream was following her, light at first and getting louder, and louder, and louder --

She awoke to her own screaming and a cold sweat breaking out over her skin. Body lurched up from the mattress, her edges a damp silhouette in the sheets. Her hands clutched frantically across her arms, her chest, her face, feeling herself out for any bruises or cold fingers.

Peaches · Date: 2014-07-08 01:13 EST

The blood curdling cry echoed within the abandoned home. A wreckage of boarded up windows with a sagging roof, gnarled pieces of dead vines slithering much like brittle fingers around the splintered banisters. Within sounded another wail, the shrieking as haunting as the unknown. Flickering bits of light illuminated some of the windows which were distorted and cracked, moth eaten curtains slanted awkwardly from years of no maintenance. The silhouette of a body moved back and forth, ghostly in it's willowy shape.

She had been pacing back and forth for what seemed like hours. The candles she had lit earlier all but dying out as they melted down to nubs, the wax spreading out in a milky array a top a ruined table. Left over pieces of furniture littered the dirty floor boards beneath her bare feet, kicked out of the way when any bothered to be in the way of her back and forth waltz. Her hands seemed unable to still, jittery and fidgeting with a glossy like paint that oiled her fingers and soiled her palms.

The woman was a boney array of edges and milk white skin. A pale wraith with maddening red hair that spilled like victims blood over her shoulders and around the oval shape of her face. Nude of any material, a naked specter who was on the move and hissing out a variety of words that had not inhabited books or minds in tens of thousands of years.

She was suddenly going very still once a touch of a breeze (to cold even for the beginning of the fall season) seemed to whisper a long her flesh, dancing in tiny pin pricks to pimple her with goosebumps. Her head cocked as if listening to the sudden swell of silence as her earlier cries diluted within the halls of the empty home. Light from the candles shuddered with the passing of something. The vessel which she inhabited looked so childish, then, and out of place inside the belly of that house. Turning her back to the window to gravely drag her eyes over the dripping designs against a large, horizontal mirror..

Sigils that were made from slimey hands had been painted against it, drooling with an over use of the thick blood she had taken from an unsuspecting teenager, the slump of what was left of her heaped in the corner. It was still warm, still fresh. The markings smeared a long the reflective mirror were read by her, over and over, the words so whispered that they barely escaped at the end of her sighing sounds. The wet look of her fingers lifted to trace back and forth a long one particular glyph, almost as if she was correcting it. Making it flawless.

"-- oh. Oh." She hissed. "My master -- how you amaze me."

The grim line of her madwoman mouth suddenly twisted into an eerie smile, filled with white teeth and a serpents tongue.

Peaches · Date: 2014-07-17 17:09 EST

And she screamed.

Her pain was flushed out from her mouth with a terrible screeching. The howling of a wounded animal that dissolved into the heavy sobs of a girl. Any attempt at muffling was clumsily done; her hands trembled with the aftermath of her choices, with the thick spikes of breathing that rattled her lungs with blood and spit and yells. Pillow smashed against her face while she couldn't stay still, couldn't control the spasms of her human shell that was a demolished heap of torn asunder flesh.

She flailed in the sheets once bleached bone white, now being part of a murder scene. A massacre of herself. Blood tasted like copper, flavored with the salt of her tears. Her coughing bubbled spit and ichor, more to add to the obscene amount that she was struggling in.

This wasn't her home.

This was an unknown place that smelled of ****, of used up dreams and the fallen souls that found peace in the corners. This was a place where the lost went to be far from the shore of the aware. Sirens sped through the streets. The cracks in the walls were in need of repair but the tissue of the room was forgotten. A dim light flickered like the fluttering of butterfly wings to give the bare minimum of illumination to the situation.

Each tear, each rip; she was a shredded victim to a battle of betrayal. Stolen were half of the injuries. Some were hers, earned and well fought for. The others had been taken in, stressed through the papermache of her own limbs.

And she was screaming.

Palms crushed with confused weight to her face, careless of the fracture that had split her skull. Fingers couldn't pull the wool down over her eyes. Not again. She could see the wrongful enlightenment of it all.

It would take days to repair. Days to purge. Her imperfections becoming a mauling from such an emotional settlement between her and what she thought she knew.

It was all broken.

She was broken.

And she screamed.