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saneabandoned · 3 months ago

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Amber

Oh, hello. I didn’t see you. How are you doing? It’s been a while, not sure if you remember me. We can start over, if you’d like. I can help you remember, or I can help you forget. But I will never leave you alone, you and I are one, made of the same matter, the same way rain is water even though you don’t drink it. The sea is also made of water you don’t drink. The same water runs in your body, flows in your veins as part of your blood. Yet you don’t drink it. Oh, but I do.

You wonder why I’ve come back now. I know I’ve been gone for a while. See, I couldn’t be there. When you don’t need me, that’s when I come, that’s what I’ve always done. You can kick and hit and cry and shake all you like, but that won’t ever push me away. See, I’m the only one who’ll never leave – I’ll boil your insides when you want to be cold, and I’ll freeze your blood when you’re trying desperately to warm yourself up. I’ll make it impossible for you to touch another person, you’ll feel like they’re not real; you’ll smell desperation when you try and do it; and you’ll see yourself as barely a figment, as your own reflection; but you’ll never know for sure what you are, or if you’re even there anymore. There will be my voice in your ear, always, always there, and your mouth will be forever dry. The loneliness will consume you and ---

I leave the pen abruptly and shake my head. I had no idea my mind was so full of this when I sat down to write in my journal this morning. My hand aches from pushing the pen too hard on the page, there are a few places the paper is starting to tear from the pressure. I really hoped it would work – I’ve watched so many videos of people claiming that it helps to start the day with a few minutes of just writing your thoughts down, clearing your mind, setting your goals for the day. So, I decided to try it out – I have always liked writing, and it might just help me slow down for a few minutes before I have to rush out. It is a sunny and warm morning, birds have just started chirping, the sky is blue. It smells like autumn already, I can hear a gentle breeze swooshing and picking up the yellowish-orange colours from the ground, spinning them in beautiful little clouds.

My sandwich has now gone completely cold, and it probably tastes like sponge. I am not good with eating and writing simultaneously – should have known that really. I get up and go inside, putting my plate back in the microwave, setting the timer, then looking around. Pages scattered, clothes starting to pile in certain corners of the room, dishes waiting to be washed. It does need cleaning, this place, but I’m just not sure I have it in me, not now at least. I stare at the microwave, watching as my food spins and spins.

And then I can feel it coming and I can’t stop it, it’s like a wave, first warm, then hot, and finally scorching, crushing me, pulling me down, and I’m suffocating, and I feel my knees hit the floor, and I can hear the distant beeping of the microwave, but I can’t stand up, and I can’t stop seeing everything. The flash, the sudden light, the unnatural silence, and my ears ringing (they would for days after), the smell of smoke. And above that, the metallic taste of fear that spread faster than butter on toast.

You were there. You were inside. You were.

I ran after you, squinting my eyes and not seeing anything in the smoke, the ashes piling in my throat, suffocating me in a way that felt like they were reaching my heart; but someone there stopped me, maybe a firefighter, because I remember their sirens blaring loud and piercing, the same sound I wake up to every morning. Someone held me and tried to put their heavy arms around me, and I still remember the pain from their touch, though I knew they were only trying to calm me down, tried to make me stay put; but I couldn’t, I knew if I could only get there, I would have… would have…

It’s too late, they said. You can’t do anything now.

I had stood so close to the fire that the tips of my fingers got burned, and I can still feel it from time to time – and they’re always so cold and no matter what I do I can’t warm them up, sometimes it’s like they aren’t even attached to me anymore. But I’ve tried, do you hear me? I know you’d be mad. You hated the cold. You’d have taken care of me, if only I could have gotten you out of there.

My left shoe is still stained by the coffee I dropped on my foot when the explosion happened. I can’t seem to get it off, and now I have one brown shoe, even though I tried everything, bleach included, and its stench followed me for days, sticky and blindingly strong. But it didn’t work, the shoe is still brown. I hate brown, you know that; I hate all of its nuances, I hate it on clothes, and I hate it on me – but you liked my brown hair, and you liked my brown eyes even more – you always said they were warm. “Amber is my favourite colour”, you’d laugh, you were always laughing when I was asking you things.

“Isn’t amber the thing that flies get stuck in?”

You’d shrug.

“I like being stuck, at least it’s somewhere warm and cozy.”

I hate the warm now. I can’t stand it, really, I can’t. I don’t know how it can be cozy. You would have again laughed at me, “you and your weird associations”, you would have said. I can almost hear your voice, though I know it’s not real. The other day I saw someone, and I thought it was you, the only way I could tell it wasn’t was because they walked right past me, even though I had frozen still and was staring at them. You wouldn’t have ever done that, you were always so warm to me, to the point where I thought I’d never get cold again, not from anything, not from running in the snow naked, or having ice touch my bare bones. But now I hate it when I’m warm, and I hate sitting here in the sunlight, but oh how you loved it though. I used to, as well, but now it feels chemical, like it might burn me and my skin will peel off and I won’t be able to feel anything anymore, and I will have to walk around exposed. I prefer my cold, numb fingers, and my breath coming out in little clouds, the only proof I have that I’m still alive. You’re not, I know that. I know because I couldn’t see your breath when they brought you out.

My sandwich is cold again, but I don’t mind that. I’m so tired of trying to warm it up, it’s easier to just eat it cold. Tastes the same, actually. Only it’s a bit bland sometimes, if the bread or the salad is not too fresh. Like today, I suppose. But I can deal with it. Not out there on the porch though, not until the sun sets at least.

The journal might as well stay out there too.

#my writing #writing #short story #original story #original writing #snippet #random writing #word vomit #idk how to tag this #just something i wrote to deal with the pain of existence

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saneabandoned · 3 months ago

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When the sun rises, I'll be okay

The old gothic cathedral was the only landmark in this god-forsaken city.

It loomed, tall and dark, above all else, surrounded by the flashing neon, plasticky-fake lights of the neighbourhood. The people in the houses were preparing for Halloween already, putting their decorations out on the porches, trying to make their simple yards look like cemeteries. The cathedral didn’t need that – it had a cemetery of its own.

It wasn’t a huge building, nor was it particularly famous or interesting. It was just another religious site, which is to say, it wasn’t visited often, and not by many. Living in such a hopelessly boring town often did that to people.

The girl was always there at the same time every week, though. She never missed – but she never went on a Sunday, when the other (very few) people were going – she preferred to go alone, and stand outside, liked to stare at the smoked black façade for a long time, as if she could see something on it, something else, more than just the scratched, peeling surface that to her was so reminiscent of burnt skin and coal. There was a huge door, inscribed with Latin words she couldn’t understand, which looked even bigger when she stood in front of it, almost like an incantation that made the door be impossible to move, like it was put there so that she wouldn’t go inside. It was not a friendly entrance.

There was also the statue outside, right in the centre of the cemetery; if you went in through the main gate, there it stood. It looked like it was crying, with its head bowed, and eyes closed, hands joined as if in prayer, even though it was a statue of an angel, and it was meant to be prayed to. Heavy raindrops were falling down its stone cheeks and dripping soundlessly on the muddy ground, just like tears. Its gigantic stone wings were raised behind its back, as if it had just come from heaven and was seeing earth for the first time, in this old misty cemetery. It looked so sad, so very sad.

The girl inhaled deeply in the misty air that surrounded her and took one last look at the angel statue before raising her hand up to the cathedral door. Why did they always put sad angels in the cemeteries, like a reminder of some kind? It wasn’t like it was a happy place anyway, but the statues only made her shiver, because they looked too real with their calm, beautiful features, exuding emotions that looked too human. Way too human for a ten feet stone figure.

The door opened without a sound and soon, the only thing there was just… silence. It was quiet inside, and it smelled like absolutely nothing, the temperature not too warm, but not too cold either. It was like a vacuum, there was suddenly nothing more important than what was around; the walls were glistening with gold ornaments, the mural on the ceiling depicting Judas and Jesus, the moment of betrayal and the bitter realization. The altar was so huge it seemed impossible that this was the same building one saw from outside, there was something alive as the reflections from the rain splattering on the windows made the floor look like a mirror, and the girl stood silently, not moving. She felt as if the space was whispering to her, one haunted entity to another, both aware of the same truth.

Everyone dies in the cathedral.

She’d known this ever since she could remember, she’d had to find out; but still, she kept on going there, every week. Was it the eery inside of the church, made so that people would feel small? She didn’t ever actually listen to the sermons anymore, she never went where people might see her; but she could guess the content – get as close to God as possible, so that you could be saved. Did she want that?

Saved from what exactly? And wasn’t this God’s place? Wasn’t this cathedral supposed to be an asylum from all sins? People have been all things unholy since the very beginning of the world, Jesus himself was betrayed by his closest; but why was this place making her think all of this, of all that has happened; of the smoke and the fires, the screams, and the terrible, terrible echoey loneliness they’d left behind? Wasn’t that wrong? Wasn’t she all wrong?

She looked around, but there was no answer – just rows and rows of empty seats, once again proving how abandoned one felt here; there was no God here, that she was sure of. There were only the priests, and they weren’t listening to you, even when you really needed them to. They were just doing their job, or so it seemed; if you squint your eyes, if you pretend hard enough.

Outside, the air was crisp with autumn’s cold and something else, which was equally as chilling: the silhouette of the cathedral, enormous and lurking in the shadows, sharp and ready to pierce the clouds, to reach God and demand its will. It seemed like it was alive, almost like it was God itself, the girl thought, she had always thought so. It should be in charge of everything then, who goes and when, and how.

If they went, too, apparently. Sometimes one was forced to stay, lurk in the shadows, stuck to the same place forever.

The building looked unnatural, here, in the echoey emptiness of the small village – but who’d made it so huge? It was so tall, as if whoever had built it had tried to make it a pilar of all hopes and dreams, instead of focusing on the lame little houses further down the road. It looked like it was supposed to be placed somewhere more respectable, a capital where many people would see it, it was meant to be a central figure of a big city; it wasn’t meant to just be here in the muddy grass, up a hill that no one went to; surrounded by the smell of animals and cooking, by the artificial lights of these lame Halloween decors.

It was supposed to have a light of its own, to be bright, welcoming and warm, to provide home to the homeless and feed the hungry; to absolve sins and offer peace to the restless.

The girl, feeling that same restlessness settle deep into her once-existing bones, and tasting the sleepless night that awaited her once she got back to the abandoned apartment, felt like maybe a walk around the cemetery would help ease her mind. Once out of the unnatural quiet and wishing the cathedral would just magically disappear in its own shadow, she reached the grave she always went to and sat down on the grass, staring at the lettering. Every time was like coming for the first time, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to numb herself to it all. But here, alone, sitting on the muddy ground, was the only place she let it succumb her. Not caring about the incessant rain and the cold it brought along, she just kept staring at the stone.

A light shadow moved somewhere behind her, and she turned, startled, snapping out of her trance. There was a figure standing there looking at her, a boy, actually, probably somewhere around her age (though she didn’t quite remember what that meant anymore). He was just as surprised to see her too, it seemed like, judging from his frozen expression, his eyes slightly widened underneath his messy dark hair that unlike hers was completely wet from the rain, and slathered on his forehead. His stare was cat-like, two yellowish-hazel eyes stuck out unblinking on the pale face beneath his hood. She sighed, it was too late to pretend she wasn’t there.

“Got a cigarette?”

He seemed confused at first that she spoke to him so directly, but nodded, automatically pulling out a pack from his back pocket, silently handing it to her together with a lighter, shivering upon meeting her trembling fingers that took it thankfully. She knew how it felt – not unlike putting your hand in a bucket of ice. As she was lighting the cigarette and putting it in her mouth, longing for the relaxing feeling she could still pretend it gave her, she also knew he was looking and observing her. Small in frame, long, straight dark hair. Half-closed eyes the same colour as the rainy sky, skin so pale it was almost translucent. Or so people usually thought, as they never considered it could really be translucent. Never considered it wasn’t skin at all, at least not anymore. They never thought she might be of the same matter the fog around was made from.

“Wanna sit?” Her voice seemed to startle him a bit for the second time, and he hesitated for a moment before looking down at her again, and she was so alone, so small, and he couldn’t not. So, he sat. She didn’t move, as if not really noticing that he’d stayed, the same way she seemed not to notice the cold rain.

…

It was already close to getting dark, and they’d been sitting for a while, occasionally talking about nothing; it was mostly him asking questions. Her name was Raven, a fact which she’d admitted quite unwillingly; it was an unusual name, it always had been, and it sounded made-up, people often said, but he thought it was nice. That warmed her up a little. She hadn’t had a friend in a long while.

Actually, she didn’t remember ever having a friend, not even before.

She’d never seen this guy here before either. In fact, it was weird that he was still here at all, she felt like he wasn’t real, like maybe he was some sort of a vision too, a mirage, just a figure made of the smoke that for her always surrounded this place. At the same time, it was like he’d somehow always been there, just like she had been, as if he was also searching for something long gone, beyond the ugly landscape, beyond the silhouette of the huge building. For Raven it symbolized only despair, and loneliness; a profound kind of loneliness that made her feel like she was also made of the dark bricks and stood out among the others; she’d never had anyone to talk to anymore, and certainly not here – but this guy that was still sitting next to her, occasionally offering a cigarette, barely shifting his position; that was a new sensation; she hadn’t been so close to another human for… a while.

He asked her why she came here; she made up a story about the grave and someone close having been buried there. It was easy, for it was so long ago even the lettering had faded now – he wouldn’t be able to read the name on the grave. And it was not a complete lie either, Raven considered; after all, for all she knew a previous version of her lay there, the one that liked going into the church, that enjoyed listening to the choir; the one before. The one that could laugh and leave traces in the mud when walking, the one that felt joy and pain, the one that wasn’t just a memory, a mere shadow of a once living person.

The one that had a name written on a stone.

She asked him the same, and he vaguely explained that he lived just down the street, in one of the houses. “The one with the huge skeleton in the yard,” he laughed. Well, then this could be a similar scenery for him, Raven thought bitterly.

Perhaps it was a dream after all (wasn’t everything?), the cemetery gate clattering against the wind, the soft grass swaying, the raindrops falling like tears from the sky, which was now bloody and red as the sun had set, leaving nothing but shadows behind. The whispering kind of shadows, the ones Raven had encountered numerous times before, many times right here, at this time of day, the ones she came to find. They were always waiting and calling for her, ever since that first night, and only here did she find what she needed – consolation, some kind of understanding. She’d never had that before with anyone, and the dark isolation the cathedral projected was simultaneously something she dreaded, but also her most comfortable sensation, the one that felt so incredibly hers she couldn’t imagine ever feeling any other way, because she didn’t remember what it was like to feel at all, her heart was made of smoke now

She looked up to the last traces of light in the sky and prepared for another night to come, a restless, haunting period, during which she was bound to see everything again and again, over and over, as if it was happening anew right before her eyes, the blazing hot of the fire swallowing her whole. It would never end, and she knew she could never wish it to end, no matter how much she endured night after night – after all wasn’t that what made her the way she was? Who would she even be without it, without this phantom agony? What would she be?

A quiet voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Do you want to go?” That’s right, the boy was still there; she’d forgotten, so unused was she to the sound of someone else being there. She didn’t answer.

He waited for a while.

“Go where?”, Raven knew she didn’t really have anywhere to go to anymore.

The guy shrugged, standing up clumsily, wiping the grass from his hands, rubbing them together to warm them up, and then reaching down for her. His eyes were almost lighting up the space around his face. He was all contrasts – sharp features and soft words.

“I don’t know, anywhere. It’s pretty cold, and soon it will be dark. Come on.”

She looked at his hand for a second and felt something she usually only felt when the nights were over, and her terrors ended. Right before the sun came up, when her mind was blank and she didn’t quite remember who she was, when she was floating through the crisp morning air, and she had but one thought she knew how to put into human words.

“When the sun rises, I’ll be okay.”

#my writing #writing #oc #creative writing #fic writing #short story #original character #original story #i am writing #gothic?writing #i missed posting here #i am back

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saneabandoned · 3 months ago

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13.

I never know which day it is

except today;

maybe in some other place our number is not cursed

it’s not in winter,

it’s not one too much,

it’s not the traitor, it didn’t cause the end

#my writing #writing #poetry #poem #original poem #diary #page from my diary today #my diary #diary entry

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saneabandoned · 3 months ago

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I can’t delete anything that has you in it -

and I write so much, I fear you won’t see it

Because I’ve sent you all the letters

and it didn’t matter

I am not obsessed, but I am nothing

if not obsessive

I read that somewhere

And all I do is dream, and then I wake up

I can’t stop it, but it’s not your fault

You’ll forget, but I won’t, and there’s nothing to do about it

It’s nothing to you, but

it’s dirt under my nails,

it’s blood dripping,

it’s stains that can’t be washed,

it’s wounds sewn and reopened

it’s a smile that hides venomous teeth

and all this poisonous anger

blue, it never ends

it drowns

where do I put it?

#writing #poetry #writer stuff #songwriting #anger #heartbreak #quotes #my writing

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saneabandoned · 5 months ago

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Sometimes in war, it’s hard to be the one that survives. ̶ CC-2224 “Cody”

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saneabandoned · 9 months ago

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Echo moodboard💭

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saneabandoned · 9 months ago

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20 Questions for Writers

Thanks for the tag @cacodaemonia I think I've done this one too, but some things have changed because I've written more. :D

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 97 works posted on ao3. About 15 of them are fics and the rest are art, ficlets, drabbles, or combinations.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

My total count is 257,934 with nearly 100k for this year already!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Star Wars, mostly The Clone Wars, but also The Bad Batch, SW Legends, and combinations.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

the longest klick (TBB, Mayday&/Crosshair)

say you feel the same way too (TCW, Echo/Fives)

cabin fever (Star Wars, Cody/Obi-Wan)

codpiece chaos (TCW, Echo/Fives)

nearly a skywalker (TCW, Gen, lots of Rex!)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes! Sometimes it just takes me a while.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmmm, I tend to not write fics that end angsty. I usually like to have my angst with a happy ending. I honestly can't think of any... *shurg*

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Ummm, most of them???Maybe the longest klick because Mayday deserves so much better? I mean, they all do, but he just pulls at my heart strings so heavily.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No yet! *crosses fingers*

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Heh, heh, heh, I doooo! It's mostly clone/clone and I give them a hard time *snickering*, but I did write Ahsoka and an OC, a while back. I've never posted it and I'm not sure I ever will. I've got to get everything else out of my hear first.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Other than within Star Wars? Nope, not yet.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

*knocks on wood again* Not yet!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope, but that would be really cool!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have and it was a hoot to write. <3

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Probably Echo/Fives, but Codywan was my gateway drug to tcw. I think Finn/Poe was the first Star Wars ship though.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Want to finish? Uhhh, all of them, but the 'want to finish' and the 'probably never will' are two separate piles.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Not my wrists. XP Ummm, I really like to do research and try to make Star Wars things seem more plausible. Is that a strength? *shrug*

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing in the wrong tense for paragraphs or even pages without realizing it. Typing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I like to write bits and pieces of Mando'a and other Star Wars languages (some I make up), but unless I have the other person confused and then the whole thing translated, I feel like it's harder to read.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Pacific Rim (never published) ... although, now that I think about it, I could just post it anonymously? *thinky face*

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

A toss up between the longest klick and in the wake of darkness

Tagging!

No pressure tagging for @seascribbling @flowerparrish @frostbitebakery @insertmeaningfulusername @spiritofthenortheners and anyone else who wants to take a crack it it.

The template is under the cut.

20 Questions for Writers

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

10. Do you write crossovers?