#chapter one ⚕ the serpent biting its own tail.

[uroborosymphony]

Monsters and humans.

september, sunday 18th, 2:31am. Seoul.​

ft. @darkepithymia

The ravens in my eyes have not stopped contemplating it. The majesty of it. 

In a box made of glass in my woodened bookshelf : a heart. It has been gifted to me, has captured the depths of my mind ever since. It almost feels like it’s speaking to me, whispering to me, calling for me in the night as I walk out of my rosy sheets of silk to find myself in the living room again, haunted. I could spend hours and hours admiring its chirurgically proceeded arteries, the wonders formol have done to the ventricles, how beautifully done was the virtrification process. The glassified heart has then painted in red, the veins in black and gifted to me.

Art.

Pure art.

An art of barbary, an act of madness, an act that tainted souls and minds and psyches... for me.  I smile to myself, giddy.

I knew Yongdae has helped Geonwoo. The trustworthy doctors in the underground were rare these days and these two do work hand in hand behind the Grim Reaper’s closed doors. They do have secrets nevertheless, sometimes locking themselves in the study the way they do, leaving me bored in the VIP salon of the club with only Mr Known to keep me company. I’m not truly mad at them, but I do like whining. If only I knew this time it was for them to serve me a soul on a plate, I would have been less difficult.

The lights are dimmed in my house, only my favorite Chopin’s waltz is playing as I lounge on my couch of velvet, the length of my hair cascading down my bare chest almost exposed by the robe that was slipping off my shoulder, the ebony of my hair betraying the porcelain of my skin.

“It’s magnificent.” Says the voice in my head.

It’s only her and I now. Many voices used to live within my mind, pulling on my brain from one side to another, ordering me to start fires or end my days. Years after years, they have morphed into one and only. My ally. The bridge to my subconsciousness. The one who thirsts and feeds on blood, the one who sings to the glory of vengence, the one who one day will consume me whole and let us ascend, let us be god.

“Wouldn’t a collection of hearts be even more magnificient? One by one, the core of our persecutors, caged, owned. By us.” I answer out loud, the lowness of my voice echoing in the immensity of the emptiness of my house.

“You finally realize the power we hold, don’t you. Embrace the rise, in no time we will be ready for our ascencion. That joke of a psychiatrist was just a pawn and had to go first. Hahahaha isn’t he more useful now? For us to contemplate like this in a box of cold glass. We will climb the ladder, taking off each piece of the game, bishops and knights, until finally, wet get the queen’s head.” 

"We have our own army now. Allies and knights. Blood oh blood will rain without us having to lift a finger until dommsday. It’s only for the final act that I will take my gloves off and do what I’ve came down this earth to do. It has begun, finally, it has. 

So.

Who’s next?”

[uroborosymphony]

Murder on the dancefloor.

july, sunday 3rd, 9:13pm. Barcelona.

My name is being called. I’m Cayetana here, they call me Caye. It puts a smile on my face as I make my way towards these familiar faces. They like her, they like Cayetana, her ginger hair swaying around her curves when she moves, her foreign accents dancing when she speaks the local languages, her carefree laughter echoing in the early afternoons. An exotic bird, who runs by the sea and bite into tangerines until the juice is dripping down her neck, and her fingers,  messy and tangled in her white summer dress. That’s what they see in me, nymph of the sun, vestal of the sea. No eyes have witnessed the abomination I become when the moon rises and the life is purged out of me, like a poison that did nothing but to consume me to the guts, to the bone. Whenever I’m alone at night, in my house, like a witch in her santuary of despair and madness. There, my broken bottles lie around as the wine fills my veins until I finally get to see them, hear them, these realities that only exists in my head. And I always stumble my way through the house, escaping down the beach as I fall on my knees down the sand, surrounded by them as if they were truly here : my family and my baby. But I wake up, alone, hungover, pathetic, bleeding, in places i don’t remember making my way to.

I’m wearing a blue dress, blue jewerly that matches with it, and the lights of city reflects on the red of my lips. I place down a tray of little cakes. We are in the park of la ciutadella, immense gardens with a small place in the middle where dancers gather and dance in the afternoon. Salsa, Tango. Usually the music is playing and we switch partners as the songs come. I now come in here, on the daily, as I was warmly welcomed by the group united by the passion of dance and sangria. Tonight is a special occasion : we’re having a contest. One they’ve been talking about since I arrived, a tradition they usually hold just for fun and connection between the artists we are. Strangers came to watch, couples, children, curious pedestrians.

However.

I need a win.

To wash away the pain of my own perdition. 

I want a win.

To make the scars on my feet disappear.

I crave a win. 

For my son to be proud of me.

I will win.

“Qué lindo! What’s the flavor?” Questions Ana, her smiling eyes on me as her fingers are pinching one of the small cakes I’ve made out of the tray. Every one was in charge of bringing a something to eat for a little get together before the contest starts, this is my contribution.

“White chocolate and lavender. The flowers are fresh from my gardens.”

I answer with a smile painted on my lips. The cakes are white and purple. It’s pretty. And I watch her as she takes a bite into it, content. Oh she devours it in such a filthy way.

This isn’t my first lie, nor my first attempt. The lavender is only to cover the taste, the mix of flowers i use for my cakes isn’t quite well received by the human organism. Anybody having a cake tonight sure won’t be able to dance the way they usually do. Nothing that could kill Ana and the others - I think - but their muscles might become a little less responsive as time will go.

The smile on my face never withers as more and more contestants come and have a bite of my creation. 

And I stand still.

Smiling.

I win.

[uroborosymphony]

Sangre de mi sangre.

june, sunday 26th. 8:15pm. Barcelona.

The house is silent. Only the singing of the birds, the crashing of the waves against the shore. There are so many rooms, a maze, a labyrinth to loose myself into, just I, and the voices in my head. The sun burns in the middle of the afternoon, my feet are bathing in the cold water of the pool as I sit at the edge of it, the hem of my white dress getting soaked.  

I look just like her.

My mother.

As I reach the age she had when she gave birth to me. On the rescued pictures from the past, she wears the same large hats I do, the same white gowns I do, under the sun of Barcelona. A sun we shared together when my father took us on this trip, when I was a little girl. I remember. She turns around. I run to her. She hurries to catch me before I jump into the pool, her features buried in my cheeks as the sound of my giggles paints a gentle smile on her face. She loved me. With all her joy, her hidden pains, her strong yet weakening heart, she loved me. I replay these memories by the gardens, in my little theater until the sun goes down. In the play, I am her. I turn around and a child is running to me, my child, my little boy I will give birth to. But when I try to him hug, it’s the nothingless that calls me back to reality. I fall on my knees and my glass of wine breaks onto the ground. The red is spilled, like the blood on my hands I can’t make the stains of disappear, the pieces of glass cutting through my flesh.

I’m alone again.

But I saw him, I see you, my little boy.

The world around is spinning, the world around is dancing as I dance by myself. I stumble my way through the house. The vases, the flowers, the plates of fruits and bread, everything that meets my path is turn into a colorful mess the blur of my eyes can’t comprehend. I’m stuck in a body that’s too slow for me, a reality that holds me hostage. I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, from rage, 

rage, 

rage, 

and rage.

I want my mother back.

I want my son back. 

I want the love that blood creates, back. And they took that away from me.  

Somebody’s at the door.

The door bell is ringing and I freeze on my spot. 

Silence. 

This house does not belong to me but to people I’ve never met before. I broke into it when i saw it’s been empty for a couple days already, closed windows, piled up mail in the box. I then proceeded to deactivate the alarm systems and ingestivate on the date the residents would come back. Papers they left on the kitchen tables, printed documents for the vacations they were on, their return was planned for July, not now.  It was a family vacations : a father, a mother, a son, a daughter. There were endless pictures of this perfect little family through the house that I smashed the day before, I couldn’t stand the smiles of something I can never have.

 The door bell rings again, I hear my name being called.

"ILANA!”

“ILANA!”

They know my real name? My hand reaches for a piece of glass as blood is dripping down my wrist already. Somebody knows, somebody knows who I am, somebody knows I don’t belong here. I will not let anybody take anything away from me again, I will not let anybody take my son away from me. And I stand, walking to the door like an enraged animal, the white of my dress carrying my limbs as the water is dripping from the hem, mixing with the blood in rosy pearls that cascade down my ankles. 

Fingers on the knob, I open the door like a hyena, my hand holding the piece of broken glass aiming straight in front of me with the desire to hurt as I scream like a caged animal on its final moments.

Nothing.

Nobody.

The doorstep is empty.

“UMMA!”

My son. My eyes shape change as the corners of them widen. I hear him calling for me from the gardens as panic is growing on my distorted features. I can hear his voice. He’s calling for me. He’s in danger. The strangers, the persecutors, they distracted me, they called my name by the door to take him away from me. I run, stepping on the broken glass, I limp my way through the livingroom as I answer to him.

“BABY? I’M COMING!”

I call as I’m speeding up to reach him. My love. my son. But i’m desoriented, my mind switches from voices to places.

I see her, I see me. 

I’m coming, carne de mi carne.

I see them, I hear them.

I slip.

I fall.

I’m coming, amor de mi amor.

My head hits the corner of the kitchen counter.

My body lands liveless on the floor.

Blackout.

I’m coming... 

... sangre de mi sangre.

[uroborosymphony]

Qui de nous deux.

august, saturday 12th, 4;56pm. Seoul.

Lana's eyes are piercing. She knows they are. Not the shape that is, not the color and its darkness only but the universes they carry. When she lands her eyes on you, she feeds the demons that exist into yours. 

"Seulgi, darling.” 

She calls softly, sitting down on the high chairs by the bar in the black of her dress. And so, the deep of her eyes meet the other's. Seulgi’s. Cash’s assistant who, similarly to everyone in the room they were evolving in had her own work duties to attend. However, when it came to Lana, the girl surprisingly always found herself in minding the Diva’s needs. “Do you have my cigarettes?” Lana questions on her usual tone, her eyes on the small girl who sometimes would end up taking care of Lana’s belongings as her highness did not want to carry a bag. “Thank you Sweetness, I would be lost without you.” Lana answers with the usual deep lingering in her voice, her index fingertip lifting Seulgi chin and blowing a kiss to her with her lips only. To which Seulgi gives a simple smile in return.

The power dynamics in which Seulgi writes herself are fascinating. To Lana, that is. Dominants and dominated. Legends would say the dominants wear a crown and sit all mighty on a pedestal the dominated has built for them. Lana likes to carry herself as one hostile, devoring, dominant thing, and so she was curious, watching like a predator, what could possibly go through the head of someone who seemed to find comfort in being the dominated : the discreet, delicate, demure Seulgi.  

On days of co-existence, Lana would sit in the gardens behind the café and gallery, comfortable, under the sun, her prada sunglasses being pushed down, Kafka in between her hands, yet her eyes observing every single one of Seulgi’s interactions. The young girl was almost invisible but not in a way Lana was finding it laughable nor pathetic - it could look like it, that the almighty was looking down on Seulgi, but on the contrary, she was not. There was a certain comfort that was guiding Seulgi’s presence and existence - due to the girl’s natural ability to simply blend in and mix, she actually could go everywhere and anywhere. 

Easy - is a word that sometimes sounds too degrading. It is easy. She is easy. It’s too easy. As if nobody liked easy. It is not true, everyone loves easy, simple, under control, it adds the grease in relationships and connexions, it smoothes everything into a perfectly still surface with no bumps, no deceives, no pains, no bad surprises. Everyone ends up picking easy over any form of headache or complication.  

“Do you need anything?”

Seulgi’s voice surprises Lana, taking her out of her reveries. This is new. The smile resting on Seulgi’s lips is tamed and gentle as usual. It turned to a point where the young girl would even ask our Diva if she needed assistance. For once she didn’t and no matter how hard she wanted to find something for the young girl to do, only silence remained, and the demons in both of their eyes connect’ed.

“No, Love. I am good, actually.” 

Her tone is colder than it was supposed to but it doesn’t matter to Seulgi, the younger girl says she’s heading home, and wishes Lana a good evening with what to seemed the most genuine intention, turning around, leaving. 

Right. 

Everyone likes easy.

[uroborosymphony]

Who killed Honey?

june, friday 10th. 4pm. At the Red Line, Kabukicho, Tokyo.

The fever from last night has not left the atmosphere. It scattered and sank through the golden and the black of the walls. My first performance, my first stage on unknown lands is for me the way to mark a territory. The eyes landing were not expecting a lioness aiming for the hunt. And the red line girls, the escorts, they look at me differently now. It’s envy. The ugliest of the seven sins yet one that brings the shadow of a smirk to the red of my lips. In the afternoon, the Red Line feels different than in the night. It is still open but not to the public. The girls are getting ready downstairs, dressed, powdered, helping each other out to fit their designer dresses gifted by the men they usually take care of. I’m watching them as I’m sitting down the couch, the one made of red velvet on the balcony, sipping on my glass of chardonnay. There’s hierarchy : the older girls, the most experienced ones are wearing the most expensive dresses, Dolce, Versace, they are at the top of the pyramid, always by the side of the important men that stand in the shadow. Meanwhile the younger ones fill the gaps, serve the henchmen and even run errands for the main girls. It’s fascinating to watch. A queenless hive. Bees controled by men. 

I stand up. My long black dress following my steps as I stand by the railing, as my lipstick keeps on tainting the clear of the glass like blood. My golden heels hit the ground and I climb down the stairs, slowly, one by one.

There are frames on the wall, pictures of the golden nights of the Red Line. A little sepia, a little black and white. Like a wall of glory that belongs to another time. My fingers explore the frames. Years are written along with titles to each photography. In a place that holds all the sins a human soul can feast upon, there is a red thread, history. History made by souls that here, are somebody yet nobody. Aliases and tragic stories of the world of the night. There a couple pictures of the stage before it was mine. The Red Line is known for its shows in the neighborhood, it’s one of its assets. The money earned on nights with shows is doubled compared to any other day. In the end, I am surprised myself they chose me - anybody trying to sing in this crazy area would want the Red Line stage. My eyes linger on one picture, one that features a singer under the spotlight. She is beautiful. Black long hair cascading down her exposed shoulders, a red dress embracing her shape, golden heels to follow each one of her moves. Gracious, Ethereal. She looks timeless, captured on that wall. I narrow my eyes as the written year says “2022″ - this was taken recently then? The title of the photography says Honey. 

Honey. Honey. Honey.

The word travel through the pages of my mind.

Flashbacks of last night are making their way back to me. After my show, an entire bottle of champagne in one hand, i was celebrating, in a middle of a pool of a loving souls that came to celebrate with me. My loves, my friends. Clients were passing by, resting a hand over my shoulder, a large smile on their lips. Men. Older men. Who in a way, probably thought they could own me simply by the gaze they had on me all night. 

Congratulations Honey. You did well, Honey. 

That’s what they said to me. That’s how they called me. A nickname, a petname i first thought - like one would call ‘darling’ or ‘baby’, I was ‘honey’ last night. But the woman on the picture is... too. The curl of the strands of her hair reminds me of mine. The shape of her eyes, too.

“Are you coming?” 

A voice from above my shoulder calls me back to reality. It’s one of the girls, the only one who’s talking to me, the one I met right before I started working here. “We’re going to run errands for Onee, are you coming with us?” I am barely paying attention to whatever she’s inviting me to yet I realize she is being nice by offering me to spend time with her and the girls - as the singer, I am obviously not included in their circle of gossips and scheming. “Who is she?” I ask, pointing at the woman on the frame. The photography I’ve been staring at for the last ten minutes. “Was she a singer here?”  I question.

“Honey? Nobody told you about her?” She questions in return, her eye brow lightly rising. “She was ths singer before you, she killed herself last month.” She then added with a voice that didn’t hold no emotion whatsoever. To the line, my eyes widen slightly. “What happened to her? Why would she kill herself?” I immediatly asked, my tone laced with surprise and concern. “It happens a lot around here you know. Everyone loved Honey, the clients, the bosses. She was close to us at the beginning and then she was not. Always talking to the higher ups, invited to the top floors to eat with them, she became a Queen and we were dirt under her shoe. Some say it was all a mask, that she wasn’t all alright in the head, that she was seeing things, losing her marbles every day. Others say that she killed someone. Or that she had debts her own life couldn’t make up for. So she jumped.” 

My eyes weren’t leaving hers as she was telling me the story of Honey. Something deeply cold, the absence of emotions she was displaying was icing my blood. As if, in the end, here, a life couldn’t matter less.

“So, you coming or na?” She then asked again, losing patience. The switch disturbed me. 

“I’m good. I will head back home. You girls have fun.” I simply answered as she nodded and half wished me a good day. She walked down back to the other girls who were gathering their Vivienne purses to head outside. I remained on my spot, my eyes fixated on the frame of Honey on a night of glory, the thought of her lifeless body found in the morning on the wet tarmac.