Whispers in the Shadows

I don't know why I even bother most days. Why do I do it? Stay when I could so easily purchase an Amtrak train ticket and go into the sunset, ne'er to return? Is it the job? The vain, frozen hope that someday what few people I even dared to call "friend" will one day return to me and it'll be as if they never even left? The stupid Social Security funds? My piss poor excuse for a family? I just don't get it, really. I long to leave and etch from the dust and debris of this world of shadow and light something in which I can find peace, acceptance, love, respect and kind, caring friends and, maybe, even a girlfriend. But yet I remain here in this wasteland of hatred and malice and cold, frozen hearts and closed minds. My crimson tears drip to the floor every night now and I so long to put them back into their heart shaped glass box, lock it up real tight, throw away the key and never once ever let them out for even a moment's rest, but for whatever reason that I have yet to determine, I can't seem to do that. So out they come. More and more and more every night. I don't feel lonely per se, but I do feel empty as if I am just a walking, breathing, consuming shell for other peoples' amusement. Someday, somehow, someway, I'll get out. I know I will. But then again, I've also always known I'll die alone, forgotten and cold. Has that time finally, after so many years of scraping around in the dirt, come to me at last? The toys in the attic no longer hold my interest and the dust is getting thick. The cobwebs are spreading and the shadows are lengthening as the sun, in all its faded, melancholy glory slips back behind the silvery curtain of the rain clouds to cry alone for the death of her Icarus and the tears don't even reach the hearts and souls of those below her, save perhaps for me and a very few others. I've a tear each for those that do not cry or cannot and to them I shall give them their tear, saddened though I mayst be, at the loss of their wonder of the world around them, at least for the briefest nanosecond I can put a thin, if cold, smile on their face one last time before I, too, must away ere the breaking the of dawning of the end of age where the courage and heart of humans have failed and broken and cold, frozen darkness has swallowed everything.

I Met a Woman

I met a woman

Whilst walking up the stairs

To the second floor of the house

All she ever, ever did was stare and stare

And stare some more

Sapphire eyes with amethyst tears

Drip, drip, dripping in garnet flames

Of joyful regret and blissful remorse

The flies, their eggs have lain

In the putrescence of the burnt and blackened

Gates of the broken soul and shine emerald diamonds like

The cold, cold stars on the blank magazine’s TV screen

As it screams in silent worthlessness about the lonely

Emptiness of the Hollywood world of reality in the make believe

Shadows of pill popping depression-istic Demons that pretend to be Angels in disguise

I met this woman

Whilst walking up, up, up the stairs

So barren and frozen, empty in the whispers of the past that are

Really the future while the present sits on the soft wooden Wookie chair and ignores us all

Lank toxostoma rufum hair streaked with corvus corax and cardinalis cardinali

And dotted here and there with cyanocitta cristat and archilochus colubris

All these wild, wild flapping feathered things so tame and docile

As the tree falls down on the breath of the toothy metal smile

I met this maggot crawling happy-go-lucky blue girl with silver duct tape lips

Dancing on the landing of the second story stairs

With a Christmas sparkle green smile as the flute

Beat to another tune that was being spoken inside the

Cymbals of the broken concrete drum

How I just stood there upon that little tiny step

And closed my burning, aching eyes

Plugged my bleeding whoring ears with shaven fingers

And I wish, wish, wish, wish

That this woman would just go down the stairs,

Out the kitchen door,

Onto the porch,

Then out the back door, through the patio gate

And down the street

And away, away, away from me…

Schizophrenia

I cut because they tell me to do so
And for every little slice I make,
I get twelve hours of silence
And not a second more.
I hurt because they tell me I should.
I cry when you say it's all right.
But nothing is all right.

I say that they are there.
But you tell me they are not.

Crimson runs down the gutters of the street,
Corpses shuffle around and follow me
Drip, drip, dripping and hanging flesh
With maggots crawling
In through empty frozen eye sockets and
Rotting, blackened teeth with
Swollen tongues and mucus oozing
From sores red with gaping crucifix holes
Broken hands reaching through the scorching shadows
Pulling and dragging and ripping and tearing and shoving me down again
Whispering screams in the bright night time daylight
Insects buzz, buzz, buzzing around my head

They whisper sweet nothings in my ear.
I listen because they tell me to do so.
Every thing they say makes perfect sense
Every thing you say doesn't.
I don’t want any more!

But they still tell me that they are there.
I try to see you, but you are blurred and foggy.
They are not.
They are solid as ice through crystal
Bending and refracting the light
Like the lies that are truth and the truths that are really lies
And yet...
Everyone else tells me that they are not there.

I do not lie when I say this:
I know that they are!
Sitting here all alone,
I touch them and I get back tainted love.

I feel disgusted and I am awash in my own sapphire diamond tears
That rip apart what little remains of my violet chalcedony soul
I run from them.
And I gave them all I could give.
But they took it all and then some more.

I close my eyes and lay my aching head
Upon that softly coarse pillow as I
Pull the blanket up real tight
But they poke and prod
Like some mad scientist and
They will not leave me alone.
Not 'til I have given them
Their payment for the day
For every crimson ache I make
I get another twelve hours of peace and
Not a single second more
The more I make, the longer they leave me alone and then
When the lines fade
They come back and I pay them again.

You tell me it is not right
What I am doing
That it is a sin to damage all that your dead little god gave me
I ask, "What god could ever let his child suffer like this and pay him in crimson for peace?"
No answer have you for one such as I
You still tell me they are not there
And never, ever were
I say you are lying to me
I know that Big Sister is looking for me
I see it all the time
People go missing for days on end
No trace to be found
Then I see them walking about
They are the failed ones
You tell me aren't there....

I say that they are there.
And you say that there is no one there.
I hear their whispers in the shadows,
Telling me what I should do.
You hand me an orange plastic friend
And tell me it will help save me from myself but
Nothing ever, ever will.
I hear them still with every little blue and red and green and white pill I swallow.
I take my life because they said I should
So I can avoid becoming like them.
You still say that no one is there…

Finally got Chapter 22, "The Hunted" done and published on fanstory.com. I've gotten decent reviews on it. Mostly five stars and one four star rating so far. I don't mind getting three or four stars in the reviews because then I know that I am making true and real progress towards getting to be a better, stronger writer. The five star reviews, while nice, I tend to ignore mostly because they are almost always along the lines of "Well written piece." or "This has a smooth flow of words, well done!" and blah, blah, blah. Basically they tell me nothing. I want to know what, if anything, I may or may not be doing wrong and why. I don't need to hear that people liked it and that is all they are going to say. I want to know what they liked and why and what they didn't like so much and why. While I'll not waste my breath nor my time defending my work to anyone for any reason whatsoever, it is still helpful to receive a rather scathing review here and there so long as it is not an attack upon me, personally. Attack and criticize my work all you want. That doesn't bother me...much. But start calling me an "idiot", "moron", "fool" or saying that no one is going to want to read this trash and you'll royally piss me off and get a decent tongue lashing of your own. I mean let's face it, assigning five stars to someone's work that hasn't earn them doesn't help that person become better than what they currently are. All it does is make them expect to see five stars every time they publish something and they get let down when they don't see them. I prefer to assign three or four stars to my work and let the world decide if I have truly earned the fifth and the highly coveted sixth star (or higher) from either fanstory.com or anywhere else for that matter. So, please, get as nasty and cruel as you want. I dare you. Just don't make it personal because if you do, I'll make sure you know the error of your ways with my dulled serrated razor of a tongue that I have and no, I don't have that little thin in my head that tells me when to keep my mouth shut. That's for so-called "normies" and I am far from. Until the sun sets...

Been struggling with the latest chapter of Swan. Einasze, the half fiend\half human female fighter of the group gets into a big fight with a water nymph that stands guard of the Pearl Gates that lead into Lodon's and Nodelamasts' home. During the battle, Einasze calls up black lightning and nearly kills the nymph with it. Suddenly realizing what she's done, she runs off into the forests that surround the vampires' home and in a wild uncontrollable fit of fury, she destroys her great axe, chucks her large bastard sword off into the trees, and strips completely out of her armor and then leaves it where it rests on the ground. Then, to make matters even worse or perhaps better, the girl meets the ghost of her mother, Maeryn the Light, who is a powerful sorceress. The ghost takes Einasze into the past and shows her her birth and a few events just after that. During this time the Queen is looking for Einasze because she feels that the girl shouldn't be left on her own after what happened to the nymph. Einasze learns that she and Arn Stormwynd, the adopted daughter of the King and Queen, are related and that Arn has had her aging magically slowed for a yet unrevealed reason. Basically for every two years that pass in the mortal plane, Arn will only age once. Einasze is almost 18 and Arn is 15, but they are supposed to be the same age. Anyway, Maeryn tries to get Einasze to join her in the "shadows' shadows" but the Queen stops this by making her wake up and pulling her out of the illusion that the ghost created, which understandably pisses the ghost off. So all of that brings me to chapter 22, which is what I am struggling with.

We're in the field that Einasze had entered and met her mother in during the previous chapter. The Queen is holding Einasze as the girl coughs violently and spits up blood from an injury she received during the chapter that led up to her fight with the nymph and the Queen is terribly frightened of the ghost, but realizes that it's the real Maeryn, who turns out to be the Queen's sister. Silver, a large white wolf that is both the pet and friend of the vampires has tagged along to help find Einasze and protect her and the Queen, attacks the ghost and is thrown around like a rag doll. During the battle, Einasze traps the spirit in the black sapphire on the pommel of her sword, saving her life and that of the Queen's. However, the Queen is pissed because she recognizes the sword for what it really is: a Balor's Sword of Soul Stealing. What Einasze has done was to use the most foul of magic and weapons for the purpose that they were meant for, even though she didn't realize it at the time. All she wanted to do was save their lives, not give her demon father more power by trapping a soul within the gem of the sword. So, here's where I am stuck: should the Queen and Einasze exchange such violent, pissed off words that the girl runs away again, leaving behind her sword and armor or should the Queen be able to convince her that what happened to the nymph really wasn't entirely her fault and that she should come back with her? If Einasze does run away again, what should happen to her now? If she returns to the group, how should they react upon seeing her? What should I do with the broken great axe?

I had planned on having a small band of vampire hunters show up soon, but I am not certain if I should have them enter the story during this chapter or the next. What do you guys think? Lodon, Nodelamast, and their daughter are the only good vampires in the Western Kingdom, but many people only view them as freaks or cold blooded killers and want to kill them. Lodon is also completely bat-shit crazy, but still tries to do good in the world. Well, anyway, I have much to do with this chapter and I am hoping that somehow I can get everything right about it because the last couple of chapter really haven't been all that good in my opinion, but then again, authors tend to be the worst critics of their own work. Until the sun sets....

Been working like mad on my latest work which is a book series set in the Wizards of the Coasts' Dungeons and Dragons world of the 3.0 and 3.5 core rulebooks of the Player's Handbook, Monster Manuals 1 - 5, and the Dungeon Masters' Guide. I have called the first book in the series Swan and the first 21 chapters are listed on www.fanstory.com under the user name of sylvernyght. For those of you that wish to read this work, please be fairly warned: the books in this series are NOT meant for kids. They get graphic in violence, language and sex. Particularly in violence and sex because there is a scene of the graphic rape of a minor  in Chapter Nine, "The Madness of Ryxs," and a graphic love scene between the two main-ish characters, Galaukiir Amanodel and Valanthe Galanodel, in Chapter 16, "Hyln Village". Just so you know, I am not including the rape of Arn Stormwynd as a form of entertainment. It is merely a means to show what causes her behavior in later chapters in the book and in the rest of the series as well.

The love scene is meant to draw readers closer to the two Elves as well. One rule of writing that I am just beginning to understand and appreciate is: "Write for yourself first and foremost, the audience second" and I have several friends that have gone through this kind of hellish nightmare. I will not defend my work to anyone for any reason other than to say that if you're foolish enough to read it without reading the warnings that will be published with the book series, then as far as I am concerned, you deserve the anger you may feel when reading these scenes. I don't write for kids and never have nor will I ever write for kids. I write mainly for adults and by that I mean people that are 30 years old or older. Basically, people that are mature emotionally enough to realize that this isn't supposed to be entertaining. It is meant to drive the story forward and get the reader to feel for the plight of Arn and the love between Galaukiir and Valanthe and nothing more or less.

I am having trouble with Chapter 22 in that I am trying to decide exactly how to explain that Einasze, a half human half fiend fighter is related to Arn. Arn is her sister and neither of them have ever met each other. As far as Einasze knows, prior to Chapter 21, "Shadows of the Past", she's an only child. Now she has met the ghost of her mother, Maeryn, and her mother shows her images of the past from Einasze's birth and various events in her life that reveal to the girl that she has a sister. Later in the story, we will learn why and, possibly, how Maeryn managed to slow Arn's aging down so that Einasze will be the older of the two. In the book, Einasze is almost 18 and Arn is fifteen when they should be the same age because the two of them are supposed to be twins.

For those that wanted to know, Arn is the current wielder of the Sword of Ryxs, which is both a cursed weapon and a possessed weapon as well. In the sapphire embedded within the cross guard of the sword are three souls. One belonging to the original wielder of the weapon, one that belongs to the Elven prince that the original wielder murdered and the final one belonging to the Elven maiden that the wielder fell in love with, was rejected by, and also murdered. Basically anyone, male or female, that uses the sword is cursed to become the original wielder psychologically pretty much whenever the soul of this guy wants out and they are also driven totally bat-shit crazy because of this. To prevent the soul of the sword from taking over Arn, a sorceress in the King's City gives to her every week, a quartz crystal that is enchanted to absorb at least some of the evil of the weapon. When it turns jet black, Arn must replace the crystal with a new one or be driven mad with blood lust and wanton violence as well as a deep hatred of all those of Elven blood, even the Drow.

According to Elven legends the only thing even have a chance to defeat the cursed weapon is the enchanted ring that the Elven maiden was wearing at the time of her death, now called the Mourn. But only an Elf female can wear it or even use it without being cursed by its grief that it carries within it. I am also having a little trouble is showing the relationship Einasze has with her demon father, a currently unnamed Balor that is second only to the Demon Prince of Undeath himself, Orcus. In Chapter 22, yet to be titled at the time of this blog, the Balor tries to sort of seduce Einasze to the paths of evil through the spirit of her dead mother by bringing the girl into the shadows' shadows and once there, he will corrupt her and destroy every last trace of her good side, thus paving the way for the demons to enter the mortal Material Plane. The basic gist of the whole series is:

What happens when Orcus, Demon Prince of Undeath, finally kills Gra'azt the Dark Prince and Demogorgon the Mad (as far as I know he doesn't actually have a title so this simply my assignment to his character). Demogorgon is a two headed demon and both heads have their own personalities and both want to destroy the other, but neither realizes that the destruction of one means the death of both. Anyway, I also wanted to address the issue of what happens if Orcus kills Lolth, the demonic patron of the Drow and does so in a way that she can never, ever be reborn as was done by R.A. Salvatore in the War of the Spider Queen series that he wrote as well as what will happen when Orcus destroys all the devils of the Nine Hells? Basically it's going to be total and complete chaos! Whoot! So back to writing....