(It Takes Strength To Go Back.) In the eye of the storm, the Bloomfield mansion was peaceful. That evening everyone had already made preparations for what needed to be done. They moved around the house with the ease of trust. Her green hair cascaded down the sides of Buttercup's scarlet face as her wings glided smoothly down her back. Her pink eyes, which lacked a pupil, were expressionless, but the way she touched his hands occasionally and joked with Hercules told volumes. Hercules fetched things for her. Whatever she needed as she cooked dinner, he commanded. Salt shakers, vegetables cutting itself with a knife, everything moved with magic across the kitchen. Doug came into the kitchen for bottles of water from the refrigerator and scrambled out of the way of a knife that went just past his head. He looked up at the spoons, forks,pots and pans hovering in the room. "Goodness! It is a war zone of utensils in here!" Hercules chuckled while Doug proceeded to the r
(Establishing Alliances.) Moonstruck had just crossed the river when she heard the growling in the bushes. She paused and sniffed the air. She detected two scents. From behind the trees, one wolf leaped forward. "Don't come an inch closer!" Moonstruck received the command through telepathy. The wolf who had sent the message snapped it's teeth. Moonstruck began a determined, deliberate trot. The wolf pulled it's paws back in the earth and claws digging up dirt, it sprang at her. Anticipating the attack, Moonstruck grabbed the wolf by the hind leg and bit as deeply as she could without severing the limb. They rolled around biting and howling as she fought viciously but mercifully. She fought, not to kill but to survive, because these were still her people. Finally defeated and bleeding the wolf laid on the ground in a spam of pain and blood, but still alive. Before Moonstruck could catch her breath, another wolf had come out of nowhere and dug claws into her tail.
(Blood Trails) A thousand words, many conversations had and yet none received. As a result, unable to breach both worlds, Hercules and Buttercup's thoughts returned to themselves. He missed her. He thought. As he looked at the plane ticket on the bed booked for England. That was after-all, where the blood trail led. Himself, Opal, Bruce and Doug were already adjusting their minds to this new turn of events. Hercules took out a cigarette and walked out the room into the living room, then through the front door. He lit it and dragged at the tip without getting that sensation a smoke gave him. His mind went back to Buttercup. He never thought that there was a woman on earth he couldn't live without and yet, here he was with her running through his veins in replacement of his blood. It was early in the morning. So early he could still see the moon in the sky, it was not yet time to give rise to the sun, that was about three hours away. Everything was black, the tree
(Ode To England.) It was a three hours flight and the plane finally landed at Heathrow Airport. Bruce's magic had disguised any weapon they had on them as legitimate items and so they breezed through customs. Big Ben could be seen from all direction, its hands of time controlling Londoners' movements throughout the day. They walked around abit, stopped at a Delhi where they had muffin and an afternoon tea. Refreshed they endured the crowd of London City. The English were a proud nation and there was much to be proud about. The red, white and blue flags hang from the buildings around every corner. Tourists were everywhere on Tower Bridge, taking pictures and running their hands along the blue straps and railings as they made their way to Trafalgar Square. A soft drizzle of rain began. Umbrellas came out of their backpacks as they pasted the bronze lions, resting on hinds leg, watching over the pride of a powerful monarchy. *************************************** There w
(The Right Of Passage.) Lucinda wasn't seeing Moonstruck as an emerging woman. She wasn't seeing that face narrowed into the shape of a heart tailored down to Moonstruck's cleft chin. She was instead catching sight of the round, chubby, dirt streaked cheek of a child. Behind her father's baggy t-shirt, Lucinda refuse to see Buttercup's peaks of small, rounded breast; instead, she saw a flat chest, that she had scrubbed clean in a bathtub. That long, shiny brown hair was not what she was seeing; rather, it was the uneven, unskilled cut of a young hand that had gripped a pair of scissors by mistake. She wanted only to see her baby. Her baby who had no independent thought nor ambition but to do as Mother says. Moonstruck crossed her legs and sat on the veranda in front of Lucinda. Lucinda took a hairbrush and worked through Moonstruck's tangles. "I am sorry for hurting you." Lucinda whispered into her daughter's ear. "Are you really Mother?" Moonstruck massaged t
(The Manor.) Jatray has had enough of modern medicine. She drove down a back road that didn't get the pampering maintenance that the highways received. She eased up on the gas carefully, slowly swerving around many potholes. She passed a few other drivers who, like herself, would rather resist giving in to the allure of the highway's fast, smoothly paved lanes. On this often overlooked, often rejected road, where gullies descended into precipices of woodland, one could see Mother Nature had battled two moods here at the same time. One temperment was the disorganized chaos of anger and the other was the clean cut, orderly natural beauty of serenity. Mother Nature had stormed through on one side of the road and left bamboo trees, fractured and weary from her rampage, resting broken limbs on each other's shoulders. A few had become uprooted. They shamelessly turned their shaggy roots, massive anthill-like pile of dirt bottoms, up to passing motorist. On the other side
(The Rescue.) The once refined and sophisticated living room was demolished. Curtains ripped, slashed by knives and splashed with blood. Chairs and sofas overrturned, the fighting went on for far too long. Doug grabbed the foot of the piano with one hand and slammed it into Nathan, who was coming at him swiftly with a knife. Broken glass pierced Nathan's skin as he was hurled through the window. Opal had somehow snatched the woman with the chicken by her bloody apron. She reeled her in like a YoYo, turned her around and sent her fangs deep into the neck. It felt so satisfying, the thrill of letting out all she had pent up inside. The rush of fury for all the disruption in her life. The tortures she had done nothing to deserve. She drank the fresh blood, straight from a beating pulse. The woman's heartbeat slow down and just like the chicken, she convulsed in Opal's hand. "It is not enough!" Opal screamed into the room. Her rage building. Her Father bei
(Stolen Treasure.)Jatray fed Izzy soup while she sat up in bed.She brushed the pink hair from her forehead and stared into those brown eyes reminiscing on nothing but pain.There was nolonger a fire there.The spunk of the woman extinguished to ashes.Some people skip past the years of childhood and pre-adolosence. Leaping over each hurdle and embracing life with a positive, joyful bliss.There are some, however, who have knocked so many hurdles over, stumbling through the stages of growth. Some will rise and pick themselves up, while others will let their mind sit in the heap of their fall.In Izzy's eyes, Jatray saw that she had lost the strength to fight and she was spreading her bed in that mind of hers, to lie permanently beneath the sheets of her suffering."Don't get comfortable there Izzy. It will make you forever distrustful and bitter."Jatray said to her. Izzy turned her head to the side and silent tears rolled down her dark cheeks.Jatray placed the bowl in the tray. L