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stravagatefaster · 2 years

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New Stravaganza covers

If you're like me, then you dislike the early 2010's design choice of slapping random people's faces on fantasy book covers and calling it a day.

Unfortunately Stravaganza got this treatment for its English covers, so once I had finished collecting all the books, I decided to make dust jackets for the books. I thought I'd share the files here in case someone ever wants to print out new covers for their own copies. And if you don't, well, think of this as just a fancy piece of fanart.

Links to the files and further instructions under the cut.

The first thing you need to do is download the file(s) you need. I have included both PNG and PDF, so chooce whichever based on how you are going to print these.

City of Masks PNG/PDF

City of Stars PNG/PDF

City of Flowers PNG/PDF

City of Secrets PNG/PDF

City of Ships PNG/PDF

City of Swords PNG/PDF

Note that all the files should already include 0,5cm empty space on each side of the dustjackets. (They ended up being dark due to the settings on my computer, you can change them to white if you want to save ink/make cutting easier) In order to get the covers to be the right size, you need to make sure that the height (shorter edge) of each file is exactly 20,7cm on the final product (the height of the actual cover (again, short edge on the file) is 19,7cm)). The rest of the measurements have been measured individually for each book and will be correct so long as you make sure that the height is right.

The actual printing depends on what you have access to. You could print these on a regular home printer, though the quality won't be good and you will need to print each cover in parts and cut and clue/tape it together since regular printing paper is not large enough for the dust jacket.

I printed my copies through a poster printing service, and I would recommend you do the same if you want good picture/paper quality. If you have options, I would say go for a matte finish. I combined all my covers into one file and printed that as a poster. This is also why I included both PDF and PNG, so that you can choose which program to use if you end up doing the same. The most important thing is to make sure that the porpotions of the covers stay correct and that they will be the correct size on the final poster. For this, you need to read the instructions and measurements of the printing service very carefully, and you might have to end up doing some math and fiddle with the files. I ended up paying a little over 15€ for all six covers (incl. shipping).

Whichever route you choose, make sure to include at the very least the 0,5cm margins I have on the files. To be safe, you should add even more space around the final file (my copies ended up being cut exactly on the edge of the image so I should have added more).

Once you have your print, cut out the cover. I used a cutting mat, a craft knife/box cutter and a ruler, but you could also use scissors and very steady hands.

When you have the cover cut out, mark the midpoint of the width on the back of the dust jacket. Then measure the middle of the spine of the actual book on the top and bottom. You can make small markings with a pencil. Then line up the spine of the book and the middle of the dust jacket and carefully fold it around the spine. Since these are paperbacks, you might need to pinch them to get a good crease, especially if your cover was printed on poster paper. When you are satisfied with the spine, lay the book down on a table and fold in the inner flap under the front cover. Make sure to keep the paper tight on the front. Then do the same for the back, and you are done!

Please note that these covers have been designed to fit over the UK paperbacks (with the newer covers, the first 3 books originally came out with different covers and I do not know if they are the same size), though I think other English paperbacks with these covers should be the same size as well. I do not own any hardcover copies, so I couldn't make new covers for those. Since these covers are only dust jackets, they won't cause any damage to the original books.

Feel free to print these out, but don't share these files to another website (you can link to this post) and don't claim the covers as your own. I have included a watermark on the files, but it is barely noticeable, so please don't remove it even while printing.

#stravaganza #mary hoffman #fantasy #ya fantasy #fanart #dust jacket #not a meme #I also made matching bookmarks but making this post already took me an hour #so I left them out #no-one is realistically going to print these but I wanted to share the instructions just in case

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imaginesbymk · 4 years

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PINK + WHITE.

—CHAPTER SEVEN ; FINN, ALL GROWN UP.

summary: teresa’s permanent resignation from the peaky blinders leads her to a whole new chapter of working in an art museum. but little did she know her best life would be butchered some time later when her former lover tommy shelby gives her no choice but to return to the peaky blinders after they make new enemies, with the leader, of all people, being the man teresa fell in love with one night after a wedding reception back in post world war; luca changretta.

pairing: luca changretta x OC x tommy shelby

tags in this chapter: swearing, smoking

[ chapter index / meet my oc / wattpad link ]

"Just remember, never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line." - The Princess Bride (1987)

"PENARTH ART GALLERY." Tommy cleared his throat before speaking to the operator on the telephone. He pulled a long drag off his cigarette as he waited, even though he knew his call would lead to no avail. He hasn't heard back from her in hours. It wasn't even that difficult of an instruction: reach back to him with her mind made up once she finished her errand in Camden town. Either Teresa forgot, was abducted, killed, or she never kept true to her word when she agreed to phone him. Tommy needed a response so desperately. It had been a while since the vendetta began, and he doubt he would be spared a second to take a deep breath before the Changretta mob comes in to take them out by surprise. He needed an answer now.

No response. He slams the receiver shut, almost nearly breaking the telephone, and sighs. If Tommy had to pick up and reach the operator, the same response of no communication on the other end of the line would come up once more. No point.

Groaning in exhaustion, Tommy rubs his nose bridge as Polly walks in, noticing him leaning back in his chair.

"I told you," she says. "she won't come back."

Tommy grunts. "She will. Just give it a few hours."

"We gave her a day, Tommy. Now we're giving her a few hours?" Polly slams Tommy's diary containing weekly schedules & anything important jotted in black ink, each were separated with a blank box. She flipped to the bookmarked page that highlighted one day of the week, a star coloured in the margins. She jabs a finger on it. "The boxing match. We're losing time."

"Yes, Pol. I'm aware," Tommy says, annoyed. It's not like he wasn't giving Aberama Gold's son a dream of being a boxing champion and possible boxing career in exchange for extra hands to have blood on them in a vendetta. "And what other things I'm aware of that you have to tell me?"

"Are you also aware that Teresa Griffith is no walk in the park—"

"Neither of us are, Polly."

"Are you aware that Teresa Griffith is no walk in the park," Polly repeated her sentence, sternly this time, "and that begging for her help is no use? We've got what we already need, why do you still need her? You miss her?"

"Teresa will reach out to Luca Changretta."

"For what? A fuck while he isn't looking?"

"I've dug deeper, Pol. He's scavenging for things to claim in all of Britain. If he'll start with Alfie Solomon's business, that means he's not shy to come after Teresa's. The Penarth art gallery will be signed under the Changretta name so she will try to withdraw the unjust negotiation, which will give us more time to reach out to Michael's updates before Bonnie and Goliath will face each other in the ring." Tommy slammed his diary, brushing off his wonder on how Polly was able to gain access to it in the first place when it's usually Lizzie who technically is only allowed to touch it.

Polly stared at him with a hint of dread.

"What is it?"

Frustrating as it is, Polly really didn't have the answer to pinpoint. "I read her tea leaves before she walked out on us. It said she'll lose what she loves the most."

"What or who?"

"I couldn't tell. But I imagine it being her new chapter. But now it makes much more sense. She'll lose the gallery, perhaps."

Tommy leans forward to look up closer to Aunt Polly. "So like I said, give it a few hours. I know she will come back. I doubt she keeps a handgun in her glove compartment anymore. I'll ensure her safety and keep the gallery up under her name. She needs us just as much as we need her."

Polly let out a small sigh, collecting the heavy-weighted diary to carry out with her through the same way she came in. Let's hope...

Returning to Penarth was a relief. Teresa was far away from the next person who could get on her last nerve, unless one of the tour guides or management decides to point out a small circumstance to the owner, but the Welsh woman found comfort and bliss when she looks up at a painting made by an iconic artist that speaks through their canvas.

"We should really put up more exit signs, Miss," one of the tour guides said to Teresa as they walked down the halls together. "some of the guests have been getting lost with the new corridors. And they were wondering about the empty room upstairs?"

"I've spoken to people from Nice. They loved what we did with the exhibition and they want to place up more paintings, so I saved some extra room."

"On... the second floor?"

"Why not?" Teresa shrugs. "We've set up enough for the main floor, second floor should be okay as well." And she walked down the opposite direction, hoping the tour guide wasn't gonna follow her and object the display plans.

"Miss Griffith," an exhausted employee rushes over to her, clearly out of breath from searching around the entire building for one woman. "Your office is being blown up with phone calls from Birmingham."

Teresa frowns. Did Mr. Shelby not take the hint already?

"Shall I leave a message?"

"Just ignore it. Probably someone looking to pest. We've no time for that," Teresa let out a sigh, continuing down the way she meant to go through, passing a couple of guests who read each art piece like a picture book. She had to frown again. The least she could do was answer one phone call from the man, say the word and he'd leave her be. Ignoring him would push him towards her even more.

Teresa rested her walking by standing in front of the painting. The painting, to emphasize—the one Luca pointed out to her when they first met. She hadn't looked at it in so long. Every time she passed that wall, she just had to avoid making eye contact. How ridiculous it is to look away from art, which is the opposite of the common reaction. But it was a painting only Teresa felt like a curse. Teresa doubted Luca even cared about what the painting was, since his excuse to reel her attention was to poke fun about what she loved. If only she could gain that much luck of approval to remove the piece off of that wall with her bare hands. Disrespectful and unprofessional, yes. But if she had the chance to, she would do it.

Now his voice spoke just as loud as the form of the oil painting. You were just another woman.

Teresa shook her head. It was indeed an awkward encounter, and if she had to describe it; maybe it was a heartbreak about another.

It doesn't matter anymore. Luca is here on business, to kill the man whose phone calls you're ignoring, but that is okay. You're not a Peaky Blinder. It's time to turn around and move on...

She did turn around actually, just to be greeted with another familiar face.

"Finn?"

SHE had to chuckle in disbelief. Seeing Finn holding a cigarette in his hand so casually just proves that he was no stranger to the addicting habit. He was the youngest of the family and Teresa used to chase him around the streets in a game of tag. He was much shorter than she was, voice higher, and after watching them, he mimicked the little things his older brothers did, even though it was dangerous for a young boy like him to fully understand.

"Do they know that you're here?" Teresa took a puff out of hers.

"Arthur sent me," Finn replied.

Teresa rolls her eyes. "Right," she mutters under her breath. She kicked a few rocks on the large paved steps that laid out as the entrance of her gallery. "Don't tell me. You're here to scold me for ignoring Tommy. It's not like I don't get migraines from my telephone ringing so fucking much."

"Why are you avoiding him, Teresa? Even when you were at the Garrison, agreeing to let Tommy fill you in on what needs to be done. He would of thought you got shot, otherwise."

"I went to Camden and then came back here."

"Without giving him a final decision?"

"He should get the hint by now. Is that bastard so desperate for a decoy? I doubt the Italians would fall for another trap." That was another thing she was informed about. Polly and Tommy's plan was a semi-success, however Luca Changretta is still alive, and his blood must be boiling because of how much time he had wasted sparing Michael's life when he had the chance to shoot him in cold blood.

"Luca Changretta will come after Alfie Solomons' business, as he will yours," Finn says. "He will come here and make you hand it over to his family or he will kill you. Whether he does that before or after killing us all, it will happen sooner or later."

Typical Luca. If he really thought she was just another woman, he would definitely threaten her over her business. "Did Tommy tell you to say all of that?" she chuckled.

Finn shrugs. "Maybe. But it's good that you know now. So, that gives you a valid reason to help?"

Teresa grinned. "The last time I saw you, you wore tiny suspenders, even your shoes were tiny. I could of lifted you like a doll from a toy store. Look at yourself, Finn."

"I can't, that's physically impossible."

"Finn, all grown up!" Teresa teases, using her hand to pinch together his rosy cheeks.

Finn groans in annoyance, rubbing his cheek to sooth the stinging pain after shoving her hand off him. "Fuck's sake, Teresa! We need you! You were big help when you were last with us, and you can still be the big help. Seriously, you're all our last bet."

"Tell Tommy I need more time to think about it."

"Teresa, there isn't any more time. We're out of it. We need a solid answer now."

"You guys did fine without me. Am I still being used a distraction? What if Tommy wants me as a mole?"

"He won't. That's not something we do often, most of the time it doesn't end up working out."

"Finn..." Teresa shook her head, taking him seriously this time. "I can't help kill Luca Changretta. I thought about it but I promised to never get involved with the Peaky Blinders, or anything that would paint me as a criminal. If things didn't happen the way it did, I would of said yes without a second thought."

Finn furrowed his brow. "What are you talking about?"

She let out a soft sigh, hoping the pain would burn out like the end of her cigarette. "Because I knew Luca. He and I were once lovers."

+ basically,,,,, teresa wants to help but at the same time she doesn't want to help lmfaoo.

#pink+white #tommy shelby #luca changretta #luca changretta x oc #luca changretta fanfiction #luca changretta fanfic #tommy shelby x oc #tommy shelby fanfic #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders x oc #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders #oc

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takaraphoenix · 4 years

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(This is a relatively long post, so here’s what it is: It’s a love letter to Haikyuu!!, the TL;DR is literally: I love Haikyuu!!)

I love this story a whole lot. I never expected to love it as much as I do now. It’s tied for my favorite all-time anime with my two other favorites (there is no picking the ultimate because these three stories and genres are too different to find a definite one that outdoes the other; all three fill certain needs I have in an anime).

But this one was... unexpected. You see, my other two favorite anime are One Piece and Sailor Moon, both anime that have been with me since the 90s, anime that I grew up with.

Haikyuu!! is different, because I got into it during season 1. Back in 2014. It’s... It’s a baby anime - in that it is still so young, compared to the other two. The same can be said about the genres; both magical girl and adventure/fantasy were basically the two types of anime I’ve been enjoying since the 90s.

2014 was the year I first got into the sports anime genre. In fact, Haikyuu!! was the second ever sports anime I watched (my first being Kuroko no Basuke). I never really took that genre seriously or cared to even check it out, because well... sports. Sports aren’t my thing, so what could possibly be the appeal of watching an anime about them...? But a friend of mine was very deep into KnB and after one convention where she cosplayed Kuroko, I figured I’d give it a shot and I really ended up loving it. And yes, I admit, the main thing that made me pick HQ!! next was Hinata’s hair; the bright orange really jumped out at me when helplessly browsing for a successor.

I watched the whole thing - well, there wasn’t much of it at the time, only the first season - and I literally immediately watched the whole thing again. I started my rewatch the same day that I finished my first watch. I’ve never done that before.

And after I finished the first rewatch, I started reading the manga. I don’t... do that. I do own two shelves filled with manga, so yes I read them, some of them are in fact corresponding to anime I enjoy, but usually when I watch an anime I don’t feel the need to also read the manga. (I don’t like reading much.)

In this case, I just needed to know. I needed to know how it continued, I needed more. The only anime that ever happened with is One Piece. And, much like with One Piece, I am horribly bad at actually keeping up. After a couple of weeks of being caught up and waiting for weekly releases, I drop the manga again so it can... gather more chapters for me to read. And usually I forget about picking it up again, tbh.

I rewatched the first season once more when the second season hit. And rewatched both seasons before the third, shortly after the second season had ended. And, after the third one ended, another obligatory rewatch of it all.

We’re in 2016 now, at which point I was pretty deep into sports anime and had started watching multiple ones with multiple sports and was so busy discovering new news that, admittedly, in the following years there was no rewatch. I was falling down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of new anime and the appeal of the shiny new beat out watching something for what would be the sixth time.

Only when 2020 hit with that fourth season did it happen again. At first, I only really wanted to watch that last episode of season 3, because well the release had hit me a bit out of left field and actually I’m kind of busy and there are so many things I’m already watching and supposed to do I can’t possibly watch 75 episodes of something I already know by heart. But mh, that final episode, how can I leave it at that? At the very least that final match, right? That third season. It’s only 10 episodes. I’ll just... skim through it, skip around it and watch the highlights - and oops, I forgot to skip anything. Well, now that only made me want more. I could maybe just--

Yeah, I watched the whole 75 episodes in a week. Which, admittedly doesn’t sound like much considering they’re only 20 minute episodes, I mean come on that’s ony 25 hours of TV. However it’s subtitles so it’s something that requires my whole entire attention and that’s not how I consume other media; I always write while watching TV. Anime is special, because no dubs for me. So it requires more time, in a way. And I usally only carve out time for maybe an episode or two a day when I watch an anime. With HQ!! it was that I accidentally kind of binged season 3 in a day like I didn’t mean to watch 10 episodes in a row but how do you stop? And it continued much the same (logically, if you look at 75 episodes over 7 days. That’s literally just math).

I had finished the rewatch and was left with the weekly wait and it is slowly killing me. My fingers are itching to just rewatch the whole thing again but I now have this girlfriend and like she’s super adorable and also loves anime and she made this whole list of recommendations so I’m kinda working through that and come on you can’t just watch one thing on a loop that’s ridiculous.

So I picked up the manga again, two weeks ago. I had left it off and bookmarked it on chapter 161. I’m currently on 311. That’s... 150 chapters in two weeks. That’s a lot for me.

That’s all a very long way of trying to express just how much I love Haikyuu!!, because I just... genuinely can’t stop? I’m so thoroughly enjoying this whole thing that I just wanna consume it again as soon as I’m done because it’s so good.

I love the character, I adore the characters. Hinata Shouyou is in my top five favorite male characters of all time. I love him so much. But not just him. Not even just his team, aka the main characters? This one just completely makes me love even the other teams - yes, naturally the main rivals the most because that is by design, but usually sports anime fall short on making me invest in anyone beyond the actual main team, it is very rare that the main rivals get some baseline investment from me. Usually I’m just in it for the main characters, why should I care about those... stepping stones? The teams they defeat on the way.

Haikyuu!! has me squeal and point stupidly when my big dumb owl shows his face (Bokuto ily). It has me excited for them all. Invested to a certain degree (naturally, I don’t want the other teams to win when fighting Karasuno, because duh).

I even love the female characters in it! I very rarely can even stand female anime characters because like... 90s American stereotype female characters be cringey but anime stereotype female characters are the bane of my existence. Here, I love them, I find them wholesome. They’re not being exploited like in certain other male-centric franchises where they need the biggest tits possible and the thinnest waists imaginable and only exist for the male gaze and for the male characters to be perverts about them.

Hinata isn’t some super gifted chosen one but he has to work hard, really hard. They all do. And they all get their growth and just the pure excitement whenever they do learn something new, whenever they do improve? Not to mention his character design, that short ball of sunshine and fluff. His hair kills me. Seriously, that orange fluffiness. He’s so smol but so energetic and so bright in that contageous anime protagonist way - meaning that he just makes everyone around him like him and cheer for him and smile with him (well, not everyone *side-eyes Tsukki*).

Tsukishima has such a great arch. He starts out as such a stereotypical bully who is just put into the way of the protagonist to create some tension, but then he actually gets fleshed out fully, gets his own arch and growth and I genuinely never expected to care about the damn bastard??

The humor in this one also kills me. So much dry-witted sarcasm and snark, so much of the humor lays in the facial expressions of the characters too! It’s a joy to watch and to read.

The pacing just works. There are some sports anime that rush too much through games and some that drag them out too long - but in boring ways. This anime turned one volleyball game into a 10 episode season and manages to convey so much tension and excitement that even after I had already seen it twice and absolutely knew the outcome, I still couldn’t even pause and had to watch the whole thing because I needed to see how it continues.

They manage to convey all this excitement and also the joy - the joy of the characters whenever a play works out - and the surprise when something new happens in ways that have me excited all over again, even when I really shouldn’t be because I already know exactly what happens.

And then there’s the animal theme. I love a good animal theme. The fact that basically all the teams have an animal associated with them. There are such great visuals given with the animal themes too.

Naturally, there is also always the component of shipping for me. Such great ships that I love so dearly and... honestly, nothing has ever made me ship an OT6 before because I’m over here, juggling all these overlapping ships and loving and cherishing them all.

I don’t know, on the greater scale of things and the vast, endless landscape of anime, this may just be one of many, but to me personally...? It is... It’s like this one was just perfectly tailored to me, specifically, in a manner I experience very rarely. TV shows are always about compromises. Sure, I like plotlines A and C and D but man do I hate B and yeah I love the main character but urgh X member of the main cast I just loathe and then there’s the unnecessarily forced canon romance that’s making me cringe - these kind of things.

With Haikyuu!! I just... enjoy everything. Every aspect of it. Every character of it. Every interaction between characters. The writing, the art-style, the animation, the pacing, the characters, the plotline, the execusion. I just love the whole damn thing.

#Haikyuu!!#I dunno #I felt like gushing about it #Phoe's Random Show Rants

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asroarke · 6 years

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One Year

It has been one year since I started writing again after a decade of abstaining from it. I’m going to post a work later that serves as my celebration of this fact, but I also just kind of wanted to get this personal story out there too.

When I was twelve, I entered a poetry contest and ended up getting one of my poems published. It really wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I was thirteen, depressed without the understanding of mental illness to explain it to me, and had no friends so this was literally everything to me at this point in time. It took my dad all of five minutes to ask if I really thought I could make a living off writing. I don’t blame my dad for this. He grew up poor and worked a job he hated for 25 years to give my family a better life than what he had. Any skill he valued had to have a monetary value. That’s just how he saw the world.

But this communicated to me that writing was a waste of my time. We don’t really do hobbies in my family. I played soccer to get a scholarship to get to college to get a job. And when I pushed too hard and had too many concussions to keep going, I did speech to get a scholarship to get to college to get a job. Writing was just something I did as a kid when I started to have panic attacks and needed to distract myself quickly.

For ten years, I didn’t write poetry or fiction... in large part because of how my dad talked about writing.

Ten years later, I found myself completely alone. I was done with speech after being burned out from pushing myself too hard. My best friend at the time, who was the only person around to notice if anything was wrong with me and typically picked up on it when I stopped taking my meds or started to exhibit suicidal behavior, sexually assaulted a girl I know, so obviously, I cut off all ties with him. There was literally no one left to notice that I stopped going to class or hadn’t left my apartment in weeks.

In February, there was a two week span of time where no one spoke to me. My parents were distracted with another family emergency, my roommate didn’t notice that I hardly left my room, my professors didn’t check in when I didn’t come to class, and my close friend who had moved away didn’t text me back because she was too busy.

I often think about the poem “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith when I think about this period of my life. I was screaming for help in my own way, but no one was around to hear it. When I realized that I went two weeks without anyone noticing what happened to me, it scared she shit out of me. So, I packed up everything, dropped out of school, and ran home to my parents because I knew that if I was living under the same roof as them, they would notice if something was wrong.

And I made the right call. Slowly but surely, I was getting a bit better. Then, May 10th happened and I, like a lot of you, watched Jasper Jordan kill himself on The 100. I know I’ve talked about how this triggered me a little bit... so bare with me as I repeat myself. I’ve seen suicides on television before. That wasn’t what triggered me. It was the fact that I watched an entire season of Jasper Jordan struggling so obviously and no one was able to help him. I saw how easily people like me can just slip through the cracks. I wasn’t watching Jasper Jordan’s struggle. I was watching mine and seeing what could have happened to me just months beforehand.

I watched this episode at 2 in the morning because that’s the time that the CW uploads and I am known for having an abnormal sleep schedule. I didn’t sleep after that episode. I instead had panic attack after panic attack, unable to think about anything else. I was too freaked out to reach out to my mom for help, and I didn’t want her to worry about me. I knew that it would scare her to see me this unraveled and I didn’t want to do that to her. She had her own hell to deal with, and she didn’t need mine.

After a few hours of panic attacks and sobbing, I remembered that I needed to distract myself or else I was just going to keep going in this vicious cycle. Tried watching something on Netflix, didn’t work. Tried playing games, also didn’t work. Everything I tried was too passive. It was too easy to let my mind wander back.

So, what did I end up doing? I started writing for the first time in ten years.

I had been reading fanfiction and had secretly wanted to take a crack at it but figured no one would ever read anything I write because I probably wasn’t good at it. After all, I hadn’t written anything since that mediocre poem when I was twelve. I had a weird idea for a fic, and I was too exhausted and rattled to even bother arguing with it.

I planned out Matched quickly. I had been mentally planning it in my head for weeks, so that was easy enough. I opened a word document and just started writing. When I got the first chapter done, I threw it onto ao3 without thinking twice about it... knowing that if I let myself think too much that I would talk myself out of it. But I still wasn’t completely calm after that. So, I wrote another one and uploaded it just hours later. And I kept writing until I was able to calm down enough to sleep.

When I woke up, I was shaky and exhausted. I decided to go reread what I posted before falling asleep, already wincing in anticipating because I was pretty sure I was going to hate what I wrote.

But I didn’t. And it turns out, you guys didn’t either. I got so many lovely comments that first day, comments that I still go back to on my harder days. I couldn’t believe that anyone bothered to read something I wrote, nor could I believe that people told me that they were enjoying it.

Those of you who were reading that fic as I was writing it know that I was slamming out two or three updates a day. I couldn’t write fast enough. My personal life was absolutely in shambles and I was scared to talk to anyone in my life about what was going on with me, but there were people I didn’t even know who were reading what I wrote and saying that it made their day brighter so I just couldn’t stop.

I think I wrote the whole fic in two weeks. After the first two days of working on it, I finally worked up the courage to talk to my mom about what happened to me. After a week of working on it, I finally worked up the courage to go back to my therapist. After two weeks of working on it, the panic attacks stopped.

Since May 11th of 2017, I have written 32 different works and 1,167,758 words. I relearned how to use writing to handle my anxiety. I learned how to like myself again. I learned how to cope with isolation. I re-enrolled in school. I was able to say that I love myself for the first time in years last fall. And now, for the first time since I can remember, I can honestly say that I am happy.

Writing didn’t fix me or anything. I fixed me. I am still fixing me. But that first little update gave me something that I didn’t have: hope. Those first comments I got told me that what I was doing had value... which is so incredibly important when you feel worthless. So to me, May 11th, 2017 marks the first day that I started fighting my way back to myself.

Thank you to everyone who has read anything I’ve written. Thank you for every comment, every kudos, every bookmark, every reblog, and every like. Thank you to the Bellarke fandom for being a voice of validation when I couldn’t be that for myself. Thank you all for giving me a space where I could figure out who I was again. And a happy writing birthday to me!

#personal #tw: suicide #tw: panic attack #my journey back to writing #it's a long one folks #but i've never been known for being concise #and again thank you to all of you for just existing

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cassidydanvers · 6 years

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Coffee and Contemplation || Solo

She never really knew how to deal with anniversaries. Not like birthdays or weddings; not the fun stuff. The harder stuff. There were two of them now. April first marked one full year since she got here. Since the merge from Ashford to Ashkent. How exactly were you supposed to mark something like that? Involuntary relocation, whatever you were supposed to call it. Ignoring it was an option, but that felt weirder somehow. Hey, maybe this kind of thing called for a stack of pancakes, a cake, maybe bring out the sparklers. Make a day of it. Interdimensional travel should really come with a how-to manual she mused wryly with a sip of her coffee.

Out of those options she was camped out at Flopped like she started out with her back to the last booth at the back with full view of the room. Just a regular day. Or as close as she could get to it researching ghosts. After the mess at the hospital it became all the more apparent that she really needed to get her act together before some other catastrophe got there first. There was also the small matter of That was a whole other issue she’d have to deal with a little later, but with that in mind she pulled out her notes from the books back at Scribe Headquarters and got to work with her highlighter and a small notepad to list down anything she was going to need on a practical level apart from salt and scribbled down a quick list with a sheet from her notepad:

Basil

Sage

Angelica

Lasagna That vegetable pasta stuff - switch out sauce for pesto?

Garlic

Bay Leaves

Chalk/Chalk pen

Salt

Something Iron Something borrowed something blue

Graveyard dirt find alternative.

Looking at those last ones again this was stacking up to being the weirdest grocery list in a while.

Cassie pushed the plate to one side and pulled out and opened her laptop and took out a solitary post it note with some hurriedly scrawled writing from inside her bag:

Mydiumspace

?????

Helpful, Cass, real helpful. She unstuck it from the back of the piece of paper it was attached to and smoothed the strip across the top left hand side of her laptop and typed the name into the searchbar, looking for something that wasn’t a link to some computer game or obscure tv show when she found it on the second page of results. Hoping for something along the lines of ‘Welcome to intro to ghosts 101: tools tech and tutorials’, or something along those lines she filled out her details, creating a throwaway email account and logged on. A welcome message flashed up on screen and she clicked on the first most recent post to see what she was dealing with exactly.

New User has joined the forum – Welcome New User: Cassper

General Chat> Encounters>Positive Encounters>”Stories welcome”

Ramblinman: I just got back from taking a case out by the subdivision. I just saw a former tenant stop a client’s child from taking a fall down some stairs. Moving the guy on didn’t feel right so I just left it. At least for now. I told the owners he wouldn’t be bothering them and left it at that. Has anyone else had anything similar happen?

DarkandStormyNight: For me there for every hostile one I’ve had there have been three to tip the scale back. Some of them do just want to be heard. To be helped.

Allcatsaregrey: It’s the other way around here. There’s been maybe one or two that haven’t lashed out. As soon as they get wind of me for most of them I get hit with projectiles and freezeouts.

Icydeadpeople: Yeah and I bet if you are extra nice to them they don’t go ape shit when whoever they’re after snuffed it twenty years ago or Great Aunt Sally moved to Argentina. They tend to get friendly with the kitchen utensils around then. Don’t let them fool you.

NELSONAR345TY:If I have to I just call in one of the cleaners. They are my go-to to get rid of anybody violent, but those people give me the creeps. Stone cold some of them. I saw one of them waste some poor SOB. Brutal stuff.

DarkandStormyNight: The closest I get to anything like that is the occasional banishment. Only as a last resort.

Banishment? She was already in over her head. At that moment it felt something akin to those nightmares she had once or twice about being given a test she didn’t study for a class she didn’t even know you were even taking. Some kind of improv class or interpretive dance usually, when her mind really wanted to torture her. Cassie bookmarked the page for later including a few posts about book recommendations and came out of that page and moved onto her next project. She had a name and a location, should be enough for something useful to come up. Sure enough a quick search on google returned a few newspaper articles. Cassie opened up the first link.

Black Ice causes Fatal Bridge Accident

A fatal road accident on the Landon Road bridge yesterday claimed the lives of two local residents. It is understood that the pair were returning from Ashkent General Hospital in the early hours of Sunday morning of March 29th when they hit a patch of black ice on the road leading the car they were travelling in to verge from the road onto another oncoming vehicle. Scott Landon, thirty two, had been driving the vehicle when it lost control was pronounced dead at the scene. His sister, Maya Landon, thirty five was treated at the hospital but later died of her injuries. The family declined interview but made a statement wishing for privacy but thanking everyone involved in their aid.

Moving away from the page to a quick cursory glance over a Facebook account she came up with a profile that matched Maya’s brother on the search engine. A hesitant click took her to a photo pinned to his page of him crouching beside a pleased looking golden retriever, a carefree smile across his face. He had that look of someone who was the heartthrob next door in just about every teen drama growing up. Sandy Blond hair, Henley and a plaid shirt. Just a regular guy. It suddenly didn’t feel right snooping. Exiting out of the site she sat back in her seat and watched for a moment as a small group of people passed by to take one of the booths a little further forward from her. Now at least she knew who to look out for. Narrowed it down a little. Another coffee refill later she packed up her stuff, started up the car and made her way back across the river to Callahan Cathedral, or what was left of it, as promised.

The cathedral was perhaps not the smartest location to have picked for a meetup, especially not a long abandoned one. Hindsight was twenty-twenty, but considering the events that even led her to being there in the first place she’d have said she did okay all things considered. Hard to be rational when you were being chased down by a half dozen or so pissed off ghosts. Which on the subject were also a topic of conversation for some sort of churchyard tour going on a few yards away from where she waited.

“…and here is where Obadiah Smith has been reported as being sighted right next to this marker,” the speaker stopped by a toppled grave marker, his hands clasped in an attempt to look solem.“Several psychics we’ve had out here tell us that the disrepair of the graves and the surrounding grounds have made these formerly peaceful souls angry. We set up a donation page and ten percent of our book sales and a small percent of our ticket fees go towards our funs to restore the site and we appreciate every penny you can give, now if you’d like to follow me to…”

Cassie watched them go and turned her attention ahead again and closed her jacket over as the wind cut through her clothing and stuffed her hands into her pockets as she waited.

I wasn’t long before she felt what was quickly becoming a familiar sensation of pins and needles down her back. She followed the feeling and looked over towards the grass, expecting to see Maya, the former- was that the right term?-nurse. Instead there was a trio of ghosts headed her way. Any worry about being approached by any of them were thankfully snuffed out. Seemed they were more interested in trailing what she realized then had to be some kind of ghost tour party going on and watched as a small group followed along slightly behind them.

“This guy’s full of crap,” one of them huffed as they passed nearby. “Most of these you can’t even read the names. You could feed them any old shit, what a load of bull,” he kicked out at one of the markers and passed through it, trailing after the others leaving Cassie alone with her thoughts again.

After checking her watch a few times and wondering why she hadn’t picked somewhere less cold and creepy, like Del’s or one of the fancier places. Somewhere, anywhere warm when her guest finally appeared. As she approached Cassie had been close for a moment to asking how she wasn’t in the least bit cold in just her scrubs like that before she realised her mistake with an inward roll of her eyes. “Hey,” she called over tentatively, taking careful steps past what was left of several grave markers dotted along the grass turf.

As she approached Maya tucked her hands into the pockets of her blue nursing scrubs, shoulders turning inwards, almost hesitant behind the nonchalant expression on her face, “I didn’t think you’d show up.”

“Says the person who’s late,” Cassie countered with a not unfriendly shake of her head. “Right,” back to why she was even here, “so, I did a little digging. Got a picture and um, some background,” she looked away, “with, you know, what happened…I’m sorry.” She tumble that last part out, “but, um, remind me again, why can’t you just tell him yourself again?”

“Any time I get near he’s out of there,” she moved to stand beside Cassie, ankles crossed and leaning against the cathedral wall. She let out a sigh, looking out towards the rest of the grounds. “I can’t get within a mile of him,” she turned to look at Cassie, meeting her eyes, “I just want to see him, set the record straight.”

“And you think he’s going to listen to me, to some random over you?” That seemed likely.

“It’s better than nothing,” Maya’s gaze focused on the ground and into her own thoughts.

There was a lull in the conversation after that. Cassie shifted uncomfortably and cleared her throat, “okay, not promising anything, but I can try.” For the moment at least that seemed to be something.

“About the other thing,” Maya folded her arms, “I want them, the rest of them gone. That stunt back at the General-“ she bit at one of her nails, letting out a huff, “I’m done. Anything?”

“Oh,” she was hoping the first thing would be enough, that maybe Maya would have forgotten she’d even asked about it. No such luck. “Right. About the other thing, Working on it,” not a total lie, “but that’s going to take a lot more work. I wouldn’t even know where to start with that stuff. Might take some time, not sure how much I can get hold of, but I’ll…I can try. Time for a change of subject, “oh,” she pointed her finger, “before I forget, for future reference if I ever need a distraction do me a solid and give me a heads up on the game plan first,” she looked over towards Maya, one eyebrow raised and what she at least hoped passed as slight a teasing smile considering the cold.

“Noted.” Maya gave a slow tilt of her head, “and thank you,” she added after a beat.

“Okay, ‘s fine,” she shrugged it off. She hadn’t done anything yet.

Tracking Maya’s brother down was the least of her worries. Keeping ghosts out might be one thing, but getting rid of them was a whole other thing and a route Cassie wasn’t even sure she wanted to go down. Unless she didn’t have to, maybe she could find somebody who could. One thing at a time.

#solo #coffee and contemplation #//I forgot how to title #but ok #Ghostly Encounters

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spookybooscarystorytime · 7 years

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The Carpathian Carver by LJ

New Post has been published on http://www.scarystorytime.com/2017/08/13/the-carpathian-carver-by-lj/

The Carpathian Carver by LJ

The Carpathian mountains cast a long shadow as the Sun set.

I was in this God-forsaken place for my brother. He had left three months ago, leaving a voicemail before vanishing. He said he was on to something, that it might take some time, but that when he returned, we would have no more worries. I’ve been worried every day since. You never really know how much you miss someone until they’re gone.

I had grown familiar with his journal the past week as I made my way here, traveling from my home in America to Uzhhorod in Ukraine. I boarded a train from there, destined for a small village off the maps. I opened the journal to the entry I had bookmarked:

‘June 13th –

Looks like I wasn’t lost: turns out there’s a town out of the way, East of Uzhhorod. Geez, I had to read over the train routes like thirteen times before I even saw it. It took me all day to get here, unfortunately. It’s super small, pretty old, but the worst thing is that it smells. Real bad. Like they’ve been cooking asparagus casserole in an oven and forgot to check it for two years.

I’m staying at a run-down inn, but at least they’ve got Internet. The people here are real weird, though. They’re- I don’t know, stiff? Not unfriendly on purpose, but just- it’s like I’m in a town full of autistic children. The innkeep barely said a word to me, just brushed his beard up on me and took my money and grunted and gave me a key. His eyes were super sunken in, and cataracted, so bad I don’t know how he could see, and his skin looked real weird, floppy, but I left too quick to get a good look, ’cause I didn’t want to spend any more time next to him, ’cause he smelled like asparagus, too.

Tomorrow I begin my trek into the woods. I’ve already packed my bag, checked and double-checked for food, water, survival gear, cigarretes(essential), a knife and holy water. I have no plan to engage the demon in the least, but best to be prepared. Anyhow, that’s it for today, so goodnight Journy (ha, get it? ’cause it’s like a pet nickname for ‘journal’ and I’m on a journey? that’s funny. I’m funny. god, I’m lonely. but this will all be worth it when I come home.)’

Ah, yes, the demon, referenced to as ‘The Carpathian Carver’ on the Internet. I collected an assortment of tales of folklore and anecdotal evidence on the creature. The earliest accounts attributed to the Carver date back to the mid sixteenth century, during a period called ‘The Ruin’, a period of war for control of Ukraine. One origin story describes a chance encounter between a tribe of druids and a brigade of Russian soldiers. Fearful of their blue-painted bodies and wild faces, and mistaking their sacred runes for black magic, the druids were slaughtered. The last one they killed died clutching an ugly book to his bleeding chest, a tome of esoteric incantations impossible to find anywhere else.

There are a multitude of other theories on the Internet: deviant mutants, supernatural two-bit lores, and then government-sanctioned genetic mutation gone wrong. And aliens. Someone always thinks it’s aliens. Regardless the cause, something IS happening in this forest.

I turned the page of the journal.

‘June 14th –

Today was a waste. I searched for hours, losing the trail and finding it and losing it again. I gave up a couple hours before sunset, insanely disappointed. I was wondering if this Mimic guy was just some Ukrainian asshole jokester.

There was an- interesting- development, however: the townsfolk fished a body out the river just before I got back, a woman. It was messed up real bad, I only caught a glimpse, but the throat was slashed so bad, it was just a gaping hole, nothing in it. Looked like a bear or something had taken the chick down, she had some claw marks along her face and her shirt was torn up. My Ukrainian hasn’t improved much, but I think I heard the villagers whisper ‘voice’ or something like that to each other, but what does that even mean? I don’t know. And they all have weird numbers.

The innkeep saw me looking, and I guess I looked real interested, ’cause he came up to me and started saying ‘don’t go’ (I think) and pointing upstream. He seemed pretty calm for having seen a dead person. He kept scratching himself. I think he had once had frostbite or something, ‘ cause a splotch of his neck looked real bad, I mean, like dead.

I’m somewhat hesitant to continue on, this Carver dude drinks blood like water. But if he exists, that means the Transmutation exists. I can’t stop now. I’ve got some weapons, I’ve seen a few Jackie Chan movies with all the cool kung fu moves, I’m good. One more day. Tomorrow I’ll go upstream, and the day after I’ll be on a plane home, turning all sorts of stuff into gold. A gold bed. A gold toilet. Yeah, a gold toilet will really help me pick up some chicks.’

Mimic. This was all his fault.

Mimic is a user on an Internet forum for paranormal discussion. He is, by far, the leading expert on the Carver, and he says he’s a historian. He’s got loads of evidence on the Carver. He describes the Carver vaguely, though he seems certain holy water is its weakness. Mimic focuses mostly on the Explanation of Transmutation, the book he says the druid died holding. He attributes all sorts of qualities to it, such as the ability to raise the dead, to grant immortality, to convert substances to gold, and myriad other fantastical things. He wrote so in-depth that I’m sure he’s convinced a lot of people to search for it.

Surely he’s making some of it up. He’s crafting a story, a prank to convince stupid foreigners to travel all the way out to Ukraine so he can have a laugh. That’s what I would’ve thought if I hadn’t received my brother’s journal in the mail. Shipped in a box that smelled of necrosis. The box that contained his severed head, his head missing the eyes. The number six thousand sixty-one carved on his forehead.

I turned to the last journal entry.

“I’m dead. So dead, how’d I even end up here? I’m locked in a closet, I’ve only got a lighter and I’m writing my last words. I walked up the stream. There was this old stone house. It’s the Carver’s. It’s also a mausoleum. Smells putrid. It’s full of the dead. I saw it and waited. I wasn’t just going to enter it, not right away. Night came. I wasn’t worried, I’d be able to find my way back, just follow the stream. And I saw him. The Carver. His flesh clings to his body, he’s so skinny, almost a skeleton if not for the pale blue skin wrapped tightly to his bones. He walked slowly. Surely. With a strange confidence.

I waited a while after I lost sight of him. Just to make sure. I would be in and out in a flash, I thought. Part of the wall had collapsed on one side. I jumped it. And I got hit by that smell, the smell that follows me, it’s sunk into my hair and my skin, I smell like a corpse and- Moonlight lit a bit of the room. Centuries old, this building. And it smelled. There were fragments of bones and trinkets, a stained rug, but no book. I went into a door. The smell got stronger, it was in my nostrils now, and I vomited, I wiped my mouth and pulled out my lighter, my hand shaking so bad I almost couldn’t get it lit, and the dead people were there.

They were PROPPED. Propped up like figures in a wax museum, dressed in fashions from eons ago, all different kinds, all skeletal or ripe green or dirt brown, and some were hanging from the ceiling like marionettes dancing, and others were sitting at a table, silverware in hand, and another was staring out the window, and another had a laptop in its hands, and another applying makeup while staring in a mirror, can you imagine that? A dead person staring at themselves in a mirror, staring with no eyes, just black sockets, and there was another propped up in a chair, reading a book.

The Explanation of Transmutation. I pulled the book out of its hands, knocking the corpse over, a thousand baby spiders exploding from the skull. I ran into the forest, waiting to see the Carver, but he wasn’t there.

I was elated, the world was mine! I stopped to catch a breath, and the book began calling my name. I took a quick look. The pages were blank. They were all blank. Page after page after page, I kept turning. Except the last one.

One sentence scrawled: ‘need new eyes’. And I heard footsteps behind me.

Then I woke up here. And I’m waiting to die. And I’m so alone. I hope someone reads this. Stay away. My brother’s address is 13 XYXYX XYXYXYXY, XYXYXY XYXYXYX, North Carolina, U.S.A. Send this to him. Tell him I miss him.’

Tears came no longer. I had read it too many times, imagined his death too many times. I put the journal away as the train began to slow.

I disembarked, the only passenger to do so. The air had a fetid odor, and grew stronger the closer to town I walked. It reminded me to prepare myself, so I stopped and unzipped my travel bag. I didn’t bring just a knife, like my brother. No, I came to slaughter: a MP5 and a fragmentation grenade, which I purchased through a friend of a friend of a contact in my brother’s journal; six nine millimeter clips and a gallon of holy water blessed by a reluctant priest; a machete, and a liter of gasoline and matches. I was going to torture the Carver to death.

With my weapons readied, I continued into town. Oil street lamps lit the cobble-stoned streets, and I began to see people, slow, milling about aimlessly. I continued down into the middle of the street, studying the town. It was aged, storied with a history I would never know. Was it built during The Ruin? The throngs of townsfolk began to thicken. They all looked sick, and had numbers written on their shirts, what did it mean? They were all in the six thousands, but not one higher than-

These were the Carver’s victims. And they had me surrounded. Dozens of them, all staring at me, the faint glow of the street lamps illuminating the sickly pallor of their dead flesh. I saw the innkeep amongst them, in the back. He was a stranger, to be sure, but there was something I recognized in his gaze. Contrarily, the villagers’ eyes were glazed, void of consciousness. They stepped toward me.

Gun in hand, I dropped the bag and began spraying bullets into the crowd. Black, bloodless holes filled their bodies, and they just kept coming, ignoring the rounds aside from a flinch from impact. Clip after clip was spent, I could smell the decay on their breath, could see the yellowed whites of their eyes, and then there was the click of the last magazine running dry. Only a few lay still. I began to worry.

I strapped the bag of munitions to my back and sprinted toward the closest building, kicking down the door and barricading it. As soon as I stepped away, the door rattled on its hinges, the villagers’ bloodlust made audible in clarion screams. It wasn’t going to hold very long. Shadows flit by the windows, I heard glass shatter somewhere. Got to go, gotta get out, where do I go?

I ran through the house, searching desperately, but only one thing came to mind: burn, baby, burn. I wouldn’t be able to escape, but I wouldn’t be the only one to die tonight. I began another lap through the house, unzipping the bag and pouring the gasoline in a trail, evading villagers that had breached the building. I struck a match and the trail lit, consuming the house in an instant. A few villagers in the way of the trail became walking torches, though they did not scream as the flames roasted their skin. In fact, they made no reaction, other than to continue to lumber toward me. It was useless.

I tried to run. They were around every corner, I couldn’t get out. I ascended a staircase, trying to dodge the flames quickly climbing it, and then I stopped as I heard a loud groan. The stairwell broke, and I fell.

I awoke with a start, my temple pulsing in agony. The smoke was caustic as I inhaled, and the light of flames flickered through cracks above, illuminating the tunnel I was in with eerie light. After my eyes adjusted, I crept down the dank passage, my heart thundering. I saw torchlight near the end, set beside an ancient, rotted door. It was heavy, and creaked loudly despite my caution. It opened up into a mammoth room, cobbled and mildewed, lit by lanterns in intervals. A foul odor crept into my lungs, and there was not a breath shallow enough to save me from it. Stone tables were staggered throughout, at least a hundred, each with something on them-

Embalming tables. They were all embalming tables, still occupied by bodies of mangled, pale flesh that hadn’t seen sunlight in decades. I walked silently toward one, careful not to wake them, lest they be animated like the villagers. The one I looked had a carving in its chest, the number one-thousand and twelve. He kept them, the Carver kept them as trophies.

This was disgusting, I was disgusted and I needed out, I needed out right now. The confines of the room began to close in, claustrophobia squeezed my lungs as I ran through the room, aimlessly searching for an exit, any way out, but it was filled with tables, tables and corpses and that terrible smell.

And in my carelessness, I knocked over a trap of tools rusted brown, and they clattered to the ground, the echo lasting several moments. And before I even looked up, I could feel eyes on me. And when I did, every corpse in the room was sitting up, staring at me. And then cold, fetid hands clasped my face from behind me, and the world faded to black.

I awoke to darkness, hanging by my arms. I stood up, the reek of death all around me. When my eyes adjusted, I realized I was in the room my brother had described, the one with all the corpses propped, except they were all staring into my eyes with green, withered faces. I remained motionless, for I could not tell if they were alive or not. They were perfectly still, but their eyes, their eyes were alive and glistening. I looked around, but there was no escape. I saw the bag with my supplies in it, five feet away, but impossible to reach, for my wrists were bound by chains.

My head dropped. This was it. I had failed. I would die in the same cursed place as my brother had. Oh, my poor brother, I was not strong enough to avenge you. I looked back up. Like a hallucination, two corpses lay on the floor, one freshly killed, one headless, and a ghastly figure kneeling beside them with a book in hand. It had a mask of human flesh on, the innkeep’s, he was wearing the innkeep.

The creature was frail, emaciated, his bones more prominent than his musculature. Varicose veins pulsated, splintering off from his heart like lightening. There was a patchwork of his victim’s flesh wrapped around him, interspersed by dried blood and pale blue. He began incanting an ancient language with the voice of a woman. And he looked at me, my brother’s eyes inside his darkened sockets. The demon put his finger inside the newly deceased’s head, rubbed the browned blood on a page inside the book, and then placed his hand on the headless body. It began twitching.

The Carver dropped the book, standing to look at me. He ripped the flesh mask off, the Moon lighting a sickening smile on his lipless face. The headless corpse stood up, wobbling, ‘six thousand sixty-one’ carved in its chest. A boast, a trophy. The Carver reached toward me, his fingers misshapen claws. The corpse flinched, bristled behind it, as if agitated.

“New- heartttt?” he hissed. He poked my chest and began pushing, slowly, maintaining eye contact the whole time, his head tilted, relishing my reaction. His finger squirmed, sliced tissue, prodded my lung. And suddenly, he fell to the floor. My brother’s body had attacked it. But as soon as the Carver lost sight of me, it flailed blindly, searching without eyes for the chains that bound me. It made contact, and with supernatural strength, tore it from the ceiling. I would’ve offered thanks, but it didn’t have ears with which to hear me.

The Carver was back up, and grabbed my brother’s body, throwing it outside, through the wall. As soon as he turned back to me, I whipped the broken chain at it, denting its skull. It fell back to the ground, stunned, and I went for my bag, rifling through it. I desperately threw the vials of holy water at demon, but they did not impede his recovery. No, no, I grasped, as the Carver pulled apart my chest, and through the pain I swung the machete down, tearing his torso wide open. He recoiled, falling to his knees at my feet, clutching his spilled innards. I reached back into the bag, grabbed the grenade, pulled the pin with my teeth and shoved it inside his wound.

This was it.

The explosion was deafening. I sailed through the air. Dead flesh rained from the sky. Everything was destroyed. Through the haze of my fading consciousness, I realized that I was missing most of my body. I lay still. This was the end. I gave it my best, and had won, even though it cost my life to succeed. It was worth it. I closed my eyes. Time passed, but I could not tell how much, nor did I care. And then something shook me awake, a cold breeze or a soft howl from far away. I blinked. The air was charged with some sort of energy. I looked over my shoulder and saw a blue glow as the Carver’s body began piecing itself back together, only tiny pieces, but it was forming quickly. Already a finger was reformed.

No! I won! I had won! I had beaten him, I would not allow my victory to be snatched away, I would NOT allow this. I began crawling with the last limb I had attached, at first to the Carver, but then to the book lying next to him. It was already open, turned to a page which I could not read. But something called to me from it, whispering in my mind, and I knew not what I did, I only acted. I picked a bit of the Carver’s gray matter off my face and placed it on the page, which set strange runes aglow in blue light. The book spoke to my mind, told me to trace the last rune, but I hesitated.

I knew what this meant. I would become the new Carver. I would become a monster, unredeemable, atrocious, forsaken and alone. But was I not already alone? The Carver’s head was mushy still, but his face was forming. And if I did this, how many brothers would I steal from the world? How many families would I destroy without regret or conscience? Was it worth vengeance? The Carver’s torso was fusing together, bone popping out of a hand that reached toward me. If I chose this, I would be immortal, undead, leading a hollow life of stealing from the living. Could I live with myself knowing what I was? The Carver pulled himself on top of me, his saliva dripping on my face.

Was this worth absolute victory? What would you think, my brother?

I think so. I traced the rune.

My body disintegrated.

The transformation was extraordinary. My mind was filled with knowledge, foreign memories made, consciousness transcended, senses redefined, beliefs and morals distorted and remade. Existence was understood from a whole different perspective. Life was an essence, something tangible, transferrable, if one used the right tools. My body was reformed, stronger, more powerful, restructured with a foreign genetic code. But it was malnourished. I reached out for one of the myriad limbs laying around me and used it, absorbed it. Ate it. The feeling, the taste was intoxicating. My greatest desire now was to use it, to experiment, to see how much flesh I could transmute.

The old Carver stared up at me in horror, broken and writhing. Yes, I knew what he was thinking. He had not known fear in centuries, and to stand here above him, to revel as he cowered, it was bliss.

“I’m going to torture you to death,” I whispered. And then I consumed him, in thin ribbons of flesh and rivulets of blood, dissecting him, peeling his flesh, taking inventory of his organs, collecting his nails, strangling the screams from his throat, for hours on end. And when I finished, when he was naught but a slimy paste, I sought the long-dead, and consumed them, too. I left the old building to find one more corpse, and found him.

Ah, but this one I would not eat. I hungered, yes, and I would sate that urge with a million souls, for I was the new Carver. I generated flesh on the body before me to erase the number placed on it, except I left the ‘one’. The first. You are the first, my brother. Let us share this victory together.

#demon #monster #Creepypasta

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