the-dreaming-writer

[the-dreaming-writer]

Scribble 6: Cache Y-2

Q. Was that a story?

A. Yeah, I guess so.

Q. Will there be more scenes in that story?

A. Probably.

Q. When?

A. I dunno.

Good ol' numero uno, and a character that I have yet to talk about- tres dropped into another world. I'll get around to them, her here, eventually.

Been feeling some cyberpunk. Futuristic technology. Virtual reality.

Don't think I've ever been too interested in the genre, but finding new opportunities for interesting things and topics to tackle.

There is already quite a few scenes I've already written down, although this one is the only one I'm happy to post.

Am I procrastinating on the "main" story that I'm supposed to be working on by writing this weird AU side story? Yes and No, but in interesting ways. I promise.

[the-dreaming-writer]

Cache Y-2

A year prior to current day. Two weeks after a mission gone catastrophically wrong.

[snow_bells: Talk to me.]

The white letters seemed to pulse against the black screen, oscillating between a dim blur, then a painful glow.

Nauseous. My breath tasted horrible. How was it that something could be so nice going in, yet not later?

I screamed. It was almost a word, the syllables ripped apart by so much. Fear. Grief. Anger. Too much of all of it.

The sound echoed around the dark room. Empty. Noone around to hear my renewed unraveling. No one around anywhere, anymore.

Too much. I couldn't. Never could.

[snow_bells: Please, Careful. You'll hurt your throat.]

[snow_bells: More.]

Despite everything, I flinched at that. A wedge of shock penetrating through the storm. My mind raced.

[snow_bells: Sorry. I know. I'm sorry.]

The cameras?

I looked up towards the roof, felt my neck complain. My back stiff from sleeping at the desk. There was that familiar blinking red, the light of the security cameras, my cameras, that I had installed myself.

But it didn't have sound, did it? Was it obvious that I was screaming, even without it? No, the camera was hardwired only, no way to access it. Right?

[snow_bells: It isn't the cameras.]

No. If she had somehow hijacked the lines. Or the camera wasn't the camera I ordered in the first place. She could have switched the delivery before I picked it up. Simple switch.

[snow_bells: Please.]

[snow_bells: You know me. I'm sorry, really. I am.]

I reached up, grabbing the camera. It crumpled like paper in my hands. I ripped it off the wall for good measure, and eyed the window, considering throwing it outside.

[snow_bells: Calm down. Please.]

"Can you hear me?" My voice was hoarse.

[snow_bells: I can.]

My blood ran cold.

"Where is it?"

[snow_bells: Please. Aryn. Please.]

"Where?"

My eyes roved over everything in the room.

[snow_bells: I wouldn't have told you this if I wasn't really worried.]

[snow_bells: You weren't answering anything.]

"I mean it, Snow. Where is the fucking bug?"

Wait. Not a bug. She knew that I was looking at the cameras. She had visual. That narrowed down the options greatly.

I started scanning the higher vantages.

[snow_bells: Please Aryn, this isn't helping.]

There. A glint between the books.

I clawed for it, uncaring to the mess I was causing. A black stick, the size and shape of a cigarette, with a glossy lens on the end.

Crudely hidden at best. I felt a twinge of annoyance at the fact that Snow had apparently pinned me as someone who wouldn't have read these books. I snapped it between my fingers then cast it aside.

I stood there, breathing raggedly. Across the room, another message popped up on the monitor. Too far for me to read.

I needed liquid. My lungs felt like sandpaper and my stomach was threatening to knot itself. There wasn't any water in the room.

"Snow?" I spoke out to the room again.

Another message. Longer this time.

I made my way over to the monitor, grabbing what was left over from last night. A thin sheet of cheap whiskey just barely coated the bottom of the bottle. I downed it.

[snow_bells: There's more. I'm really sorry.]

[snow_bells: I swear, Aryn. I will tell you where all of them are. But please calm down. Please. I needed you to talk to me. I'm glad you are talking to me. Even like this.]

I slumped onto the chair, the adrenaline leaving me at once.

"How long?" I asked, calmer than I felt.

[snow_bells: Almost from the beginning.]

I had to choke down the bile.

[snow_bells: It's not you. It's me. It's a bad habit of mine.]

[snow_bells: I just wanted to watch.]

"You could have shown up," I hissed. "If you wanted that."

The screen was silent.

I felt a swell of anger, powerful enough that I might have tore into Snow if I could have come up with what to say. But there was nothing. She had been my closest confidant. A resourceful, caring voice without all the messiness of having to interact with an actual human being. Someone I had dumped my heart out to, without needing to do the same in return.

I had nothing. No flaws, no insecurities I could leverage against her, no mistakes or wrongdoings that I could tear open anew.

If I felt any less betrayed, I might have appreciated the irony.

[snow_bells: I told you. I can't.] [snow_bells: This was the closest way I could be.] [snow_bells: It isn't an excuse.]

The messages came in rapid succesion. "No, no more." I snapped "Enough of this- can't. You tell me exactly what's up." [snow_bells: Rin...]

"No. None of that. Or this ends. Now."

Weak laughter escaped me. "Just you and me left, Snow. Never been easier to give up."

Silence. Longer this time.

"I mean it. You finally talk, or I walk."

There was no response. Not even an indication that Snow was typing on the other side. For minutes. Hours.

Finally, at the three hour mark, I stood. There was an odd relief that came with it. That this was it. No more of this futile insanity, this never-ending search that had claimed so many to this point.

I was one step out the door when the monitor blinked, and it took the entirety of my being to walk back. To plunge back into this hell that I had been given an escape from.

[snow_bells: We meet tomorrow.]

[the-dreaming-writer]

Scribble 5: Enthusiasm.

I just wanted to say that I love seeing people enthusiastic about something they like. Passionate about their interests. It could literally be someone fawning over like a cool rock they found on the beach yesterday.

That shit keeps me going.

[the-dreaming-writer]

Scribble 4: Alek

We are going out of order, because

The characters were really never ordered in any meaningful way as to plot, to chronology, or to grouping.

I had this rough draft concerning Alek that I dug up, and wanted to finish.

Alek.

It's weird to talk about Alek without Hazel. It doesn't work like that the other way around. Hazel has had stories where Alek is only a passing mention, where he never even shows up at all, and although I don't consider it to be canonical, she has had stories post-Alek.

Alek doesn't have that. He exists in relation to her. Without her, he's just that mastermind behind every plot in a book, the dastardly foil to the protagonist's journey. The character, whose entire trait is 'I have planned the plan", their whole motivation, "I will enact the plan", in so many stories.

I'm not bashing that. Those characters are amazing if written well, and can make or break books, entire series. But by design, they can never be a full character, not really, at least not one the audience gets to follow like the others. How could you? You'd know the plan, then. All the secrets. All the twists.

Alek was a character that started as exactly that in so many worlds, although back then he went by different names.

Until I put him in a world with Hazel, and well, there's an entirely different long-winded essay about her. Long story short, he could no longer be that, the one with the hidden plan that noone knows, not with her, because she is the one who knows.

And there, when the person couldn't be all that he ever was, I found Alek. The part that's left.

Who is that? What does he want now?

I don't know. I'm sure he doesn't either.

[the-dreaming-writer]

A Letter (VIII)

My Better-Half,

Alek is noticeably more comfortable with the sessions.

He feels it necessary to stress that the only reason he keeps coming is by her request, and while part of that remains true, we have reached an agreement that our talks needn't be a tiring hour of mental chess with a heaping side of insults. This doesn't stop him from prefacing our sessions with the reminder that he could easily make me disappear if a single word of his travels past the room's walls, and while that lines up with his morbid sense of humor, I'm not entirely sure he is joking.

Of course, that will not stop me from writing you, but I wonder what sacred secret he thinks his words contain. Most of his time here is spent talking about her and only her, rarely his work, family, or anything else. It's now been almost several months, and the only information I've successfully gleaned from this man isn't about him at all. The last I checked, their relationship was not an overtly secretive affair, so why obsess about my discretion to this degree?

It may have stemmed from his sense of self-worthiness, or lack thereof. Not self-worth, which I'm sure he has plenty of. 

He prides himself a wicked man, boasts to me of his reach and power, is ruthless to all to a psychopathic degree, and yet- his biggest concern is that this makes him unworthy of his lover. It's comical, a degree of obsession that borders on religious zeal.

For someone so composed and seemingly in control, Alek is erratic when discussing his lover. One moment, she's his angel, sent to rescue him from the pits of suffering, and the next, he loathes her very existence. She becomes his ball and chain—holding him to the ground when he could so quickly ascend to godhood. It's remarkable that even then, Alek does not portray her as ill-meaning; at worst, she is a helpless obstacle set before him by cruel fate.

No, the only villain in his scenarios is himself. The one doing the wrong. Making the mistakes. Fucking it all up.

During these moments, I have to wonder quietly if she, and not he, is the one holding the strings. What sweet irony would that be, that the Silence be the one behind the Kingmaker's every move?  

You know I was worried when I first found them together. They are often the balancing factor, eternally locked in conflicts of unimaginable scales. Their struggles have decided the outcome of wars and the shapes of worlds, and the idea of the two of them ever finding themselves on the same side was— frankly, I've always imagined it'd be a death knell, or at the very least, a cataclysmic force.

Turns out, it's just domestic misery. Who would have thought?

If anything, both of them are lesser from this bond. While still powerful, the Kingmaker is nowhere close to what I know he could be, and the Silence, she, has diminished so harshly that I confess I had only been able to locate her through him. At the same time, it's also clear to me that both of them— or at least Aleksandr— desperately need this relationship to survive. 

I need to know more about this. I'm only getting half the picture.

I've asked Alek if he would like to bring her along in a future session, and while the initial reaction was a scowl, he says he'll try. I can tell he hopes it will be productive, and I must admit that although keeping this relationship dysfunctional is in my best interests, this is an irresistible puzzle to solve. I don't expect it to be soon. I know she's a busy, distant person.

Being lesser apart,

N.

[the-dreaming-writer]

Scribbles 3: April

It is mildly surprising to me that this is the first time I have ever written about April here, given that she is one of the oldest stories that has been rattling around my brain for over a decade. Some of her have spilled out here and there on places that are not Tumblr, and I guess it was only a matter of time before it did so too here.

April is not the first character that I have ever dreamed of, although she might be the first story that I have. All the others before her have existed in some formless void, maybe only as a participant of a handful of scenes. She's the first one that I've sat down and really thought about how to write, how she acts, what she means to the rest of her world.

That doesn't mean I know completely how her entire story goes. I think I know all that has happened to get her to the point where I find her recognizable, and then I know a fair amount of the world and how it reacts to her presence.

April's story is also one that I've been trying to write in its entirety for a while now. I think I've written chunks of it in places that I'd need to scour to rediscover, and I'm sure there's a short story version of it somewhere in my folders. Funnily enough, most of the things I've written for her that I've put out are pieces that trace around the outline of her story. Post-mortem pieces, others looking in, stories from the rest of the world after hers has taken place. Like this one!

I guess a writer would do anything but write the story itself. I'll get around to it eventually.

[the-dreaming-writer]

A Letter. (I)

My Flame,

What more is there to say of they with the glowing fist?

Of all twelve, I learn the least from talking with the Spark. Not because they hide their intentions like the others but because of their unparalleled openness. They wear their every intent on their sleeves, making it impossible for me to learn anything new from them that the world had not already known. Given that they had made their debut.

And what a debut it was here.

Locating the figure heralded as the Bull of Rovio took only days. Getting to them proved much more challenging, as the entirety of the city was—how to put this delicately—looking to drive a stake through anyone with the tiniest inkling of an aristocratic background. I suppose I could have thrown on a different face and slummed in with the locals to earn an early interview, but I have never been one to obsess over lost time, and like I said, I expected to learn as much from a distance anyhow.

I had discovered it was a girl—not even a woman, although you would not be remiss to picture a horrifying demon by the way they refused to even whisper her name. Not out of fear, since those outside her city underestimate how terrified they should be, but out of necessity, I believe. I suppose it is much easier to imagine that they are striking down monsters than to say they are struggling with a band of barely teenagers.

April, her name was, though I need clarification on the last name.

Fusdae, Dalle, or Valcourt? The former two do not have any traceable family roots that I can follow up in any meaningful way, and the latter is a high house. A damning point that would nullify its candidacy if it were not also the title I have seen for her in reputable academic texts.

If you are already wetting your pen in contempt, please withhold it. You know that I, more than anyone, know names do not matter. There is something more here than my own fondness for frivolous pedantry. I would not have batted an eye if it were any of the rest with these faux names. But not them. Never them.

I know them. Her. She with the glowing fist.

I know her better than she knows herself. She does not play this game of alter egos, our complex web of identities and deceptions. It runs counter to everything she is. Not many can even force her to play this game, and it is disquieting that I can readily locate none of those suspects who can.

No matter. I will soon do so, for my patience is plentiful.

I have caught wind of change. House Villeneuve has taken an interest in the state of the wretched town, and to my and everyone's surprise, their convoys have been allowed past the flaming wastes of all the others' endeavors at the same thing. The people owe it to their lesser status, a barbed comment that scarce conceals their envy. I am not convinced of this. Nonetheless, this presents a way I can exploit, not immediately but in due time, to have that talk I have been itching about.

I will write you soon then.

Not yet yours, N.

[the-dreaming-writer]

Scribbles 2.

I know, I know, I haven't finished Crush and I'm writing something else. A travesty, I know.

Life caught up in a major way, and I've been super busy and unable to write anything. Then, it quieted down, and whatever momentum I was building up for writing Crush didn't come back to me naturally.

I'm still going to return to it, eventually, as I do know how exactly I want the story to go, but it'll be a bit before I can do that.

Photodouble is something entirely different.

For the past week, I've had the utmost pleasure of meeting so many wonderful people. I've also had the pleasure to hear so many of their stories. Many of them sad, bittersweet at best.

Of course, most of them are not mine to tell or write down. But I think in the process of taking them in, they dislodged an old dusty thought of mine, and amplified it.

I don't know if I'll ever write more on Photodouble.

I'll write more on the subject, in different ways, in the future, I'm sure. But I think it was a short outburst of something that I just had to get out.

Do I know how to end the piece? I would like to think I do, that I have the back half of that small piece of me, from way back when. Maybe it's rattling away in a different corner of my mind, equally dusty.

Or maybe I don't have the answer yet, and I'll find it later.

[the-dreaming-writer]

Photodouble

Hey,

They told me I should give you a name. I don't really see the point in it, if I'm being honest. I never really need to know it when I'm just talking to you. Only when I have to talk to someone else about you.

I guess I'm not going to do that anymore, talk to people about you— I mean. Everyone just always insists on asking. It's annoying. I'm sick of hearing the same things, the same questions, the same worries.

They say you're not real. That I made you up.

I know better than that. I know you're real. And I know you made me up.

I don't know if you made all the others up. Maybe they all have their own real people who made them up. Maybe it's just all you.

Or maybe I'm the only one, and everyone else is real, and that's why they worry about me so much. They never seem to ask me my name, but always yours. Maybe there's been a terrible mistake, and I'm supposed to be there, and you here, and by giving you a name, they think it'll make everything alright again. Like you'll take your rightful place as a real— whatever I was supposed to be, and I'll be where you are, nonexistent. Never have, nor ever.

I'm rambling again. I'm sorry. I know you've heard this a million times before, I know.

...

I wonder what you think of me.

I wonder why you won't tell me what you think of me. At least, I don't think you ever did. I hope you never did.

It's so hard to remember sometimes, what you've said to me, and what I've said to me, and what I've said to you. I don't know why, you and I sound nothing alike, and yet I can't.

(...)

[the-dreaming-writer]

Scribbles 1.

Introducing the true low effort section because I am somehow unable to handle sticking to low effort when writing a story. Low effort— by the way, not bad— the latter of which I'm still able to do, consistently, even with the absence of the former.

This is half an excuse for me to delay the actual posts for a day, half an excuse for me to put out thoughts I'm having— maybe organizing them, and half an excuse to just talk about what I'm writing— because like any writer, I love talking about my writings, far more than writing them out.

That's three halves, but I'm not going back to change them into thirds— that's the sort of low effort posting you can (not) look forward to.

I know I said we were taking a break from Crush, but I had a vision of a scene so vivid, I had to put it down into words. It wasn't even originally a part of what I had planned, and yet, now I think it has wormed its way into being one of the core parts.

I'm already wishing I'd handled some of the earlier parts differently, but I guess that's the inevitability of quickly moving forward without revision. It's a good exercise, though I'm now entertaining the idea of producing a final version once I reach its end, although knowing me, that would take another long while. A lot of these sections were written to be independent, with mirrored structures and cliffhanger final sentences. So, we'll see if I decide to go through the hassle to merge these.

This also doesn't mean I'm definitely going back to the daily postings since midterms are here, but there might be more pieces of the story than previously thought as they force their way out of me.

Oh well, that's about it.

[the-dreaming-writer]

Crush VI.

The lid had lifted soundlessly, unattached to the rest of the wood, and at once, I felt a wave of dizzying nausea rush over me. It was an alien sensation— yet it was eerily familiar, and my mind readily supplied me with a memory so vivid, I now wonder if the events that followed came solely from the box, or if it was merely a catalyst for something that had been a longtime brewing.

I suppose it doesn't matter much now.

My memory of early childhood is patchy, isolated images and impressions, but this came to me better than most. It had been the morning after a sleepover— important because we had been a group of sleep-deprived thirteen year olds, none of which lends itself well to coherent decision-making. One of the boys had had the bright idea to go up on the roof— and although the rest of the girls had stayed back, I remember agreeing largely because they had all but counted me out.

It was perhaps also why I had showboated, making a point to linger on the edges of the roof, boasting how unafraid I was. I was afraid, although only the correct healthy amount, as soon-to-be events would prove, and I suspect all of us secretly were, under our faux teen-bravado.

Like you probably guessed, I fell, although to my credit, through no fault of my own. It had been a strong gust, sudden enough to have even stumbled the athletic kids, and in an instant, I had found myself without footing, toppling face-first off the roof.

It wasn't a very tall roof, as you can also guess, since I'm here talking to you. I can also tell you that it was only a two-story house and that the fall shouldn't have been long enough to even think a single full thought. Except that was not what had happened.

I had clenched my eyes shut, arms shielding my face as I braced for the impact.

It didn't come.

For a moment, I had wondered if I had just fallen on the roof, looking like a dumbass, but I had felt absolutely nothing. Nor had I heard the laughter that would have absolutely followed if I had.

I have been told numerous times, by people I have shared this story to, that they too have similar childhood memories. Ones where they flew, levitated— dreams so vivid they had been stored as memories in our prepubscent brains.

I usually left it at that, had even half-believed it, but I know— in my heart, that it had been something deeply different. One, this was a memory in my teens— while theirs were almost always as a baby or a child. And two, I hadn't been flying. I'd been falling.

I know because I remember the air whistling past my ears, I know, because even though my eyes were tightly shut, I could hear the surprised shouts of the others fade away at frightening speeds, and I remember— that sensation, that unquestionable certain sense baked into the core of every living thing, that I was falling.

And then I had opened my eyes, eyes I had kept closed in fear that it was the only thing keeping me from the inevitable ground, and I saw the sky. I remember how plainly blue it was because I remember wondering, despite everything, how I had managed to flip myself midair, why I couldn't see the lip of the roof that I had fallen from, where the sun had gone.

And then I hit the ground, or I assume I hit the ground, because a blinding pain shot up my arms, my nose, and then everything went black. I had woken up in the hospital soon after, fortunately with just a broken nose— though I'd been disappointed that I wasn't going to have a cast.

And that was that.

No crippling new fear of heights, not even a long-lasting mark to show for it. My friends had watched me fall off the roof, normally, which then earned me a bit of precious respect in my school, and my dad had told me that the slowing of time in danger happens sometimes— although now I have to distrust that explanation as well.

Truth be told, I had all but forgotten the experience until that very moment— on my couch, lid in one hand, the other holding onto the table with an intensity that I hadn't consciously chosen, staring into the interior of the box— if you could even call it that.

It was the sky. Cloudless. Sunless.

I tore my eyes away from it, a herculean task that I am sure I only managed because it permitted me to do so, and my gaze landed on the bottom of the lid, onto the face that had been looking inwards, where a single line of engraved symbols lay, circling around another identical knob.

A warning. Except it couldn't have been— since there had been no way to know of it before lifting the lid. A mocking, then, although the finality I felt from them were far too solemn to be anything but sincere.

Then my eyes were forced back to the sky, and I knew that this was the same sky, the one that had stolen me all those years ago, and the sensation doubled in strength— then again, and again, until I was no longer sure I was still in my room, although I could still see it, the table, the couch, the floors, and the walls.

For the next few minutes, although it had felt like hours, even days, I could only think one thought— and the rest that I'm about to tell you, the descriptions, the wonderings, the paranoia, would only come after, although not long after. But it's important to stress, again, that during that long moment— there was only the sensation, growing stronger with every second. The one sensation.

I was falling.

(...)

[the-dreaming-writer]

Pause

Pausing the creative writing exercise. Midterms coming up, and the film festival work is reaching a peak as well. Expect some ramblings about films, and some radio silence in between.

[the-dreaming-writer]

Crush V.

It was the next weekend when I finally put aside the time.

It hadn't been more than a week, but the return to normalcy had come even sooner than that. The group chat had recovered as well, and having gotten past the somber wall of funeral RSVPs, they had been asking me about what Liv had left me and why.

I told them that I hadn't checked yet, and I didn't know. I don't think they believed me, and they must have talked about it amongst themselves, because the questions ended abruptly as they had begun.

And I really hadn't checked. The whole thing had felt so surreal that actually examining the thing hadn’t felt right when I had first gotten home. I did have the decency to take it out of the bag though. It was wider, and shallower than I thought it had been, having been put sideways. On my countertop, it almost looked like one of those fancy chocolate boxes.

This was the first time I was taking a proper look at it.

The walls were varnished wood, with no writings or markings on any surface. I couldn't even see seams where the sides met, and the only indication that the box wasn't just a solid cube was the small knob jutting out from the top.

It was an old box, though I could not tell you why I thought that.

Perhaps it was the smooth edges, that maybe they had been worn down by time and touch. Or that faint scent of dustiness that clung to its surface, hinting at years spent tucked away in forgotten corners. Whatever the reason, there was a certain aura of age about it, a silent story whispered through its unassuming exterior. It seemed to hold secrets, memories, something. And as I ran my fingers along its weathered wood, I couldn't shake the feeling that within its confines lay something that far predated me.

I don't know. I felt scared.

The longer I just sat there, staring at the thing, the fresher the memories of the funeral seemed to become, and soon I could feel that haunting gaze on me again. And that muffled mewling, that scratching, that—

I had checked, you know.

Liv's family didn't know where Zoto was, or Ink. I think they supposed they had just ran away, became strays, which— probably was the most likely option, in all fairness. It really didn't help in this moment though, as I sat there looking at the box, trying to convince myself that it was anything but that.

(...)

[the-dreaming-writer]

Crush IV.

It had been a mistake, when we first hung out alone.

We, and Nate, had made plans to "study" off campus. It had been his idea, like most ideas had been back then, and he had been unable to make it, as something had come up— the details of which I probably didn't even care to remember then.

I don't think either of us wanted to be the one to suggest cancelling, so we ended up spending an evening together.

In a lot of ways, it was almost an awkward first date. We started with standard pleasantries, and then the usual questions, each back and forth barely longer than two or three sentences at a time, punctuated by stale silence as we tried to dig up more things to say.

It was only when we finally discovered that we both had pets, that I think we really began to talk. It surprised me that she was far more talkative than I was, although I guess that wasn't much of a high bar.

She had shown me pictures, and I her mine. Two bobtails, Ink, the blackie, and another I can't remember. The conversation steered naturally into my volunteering work at the shelter, and I remember her eyes had lit up at the prospect of my stories.

You should have led with that, I think she told me, and I had told her that I didn't usually bring it up in conversation. It had seemed pretentious, boastful somehow, and I hadn't done that much work there anyway. She had poked fun at me then, and then egged me on to tell her more.

Sounding that first meeting out loud, it seems almost weird that nothing really came of it, but that's how relationships are sometimes. Only there when you're there in the moment.

Maybe, if things had been just slightly different, we could have been good friends. The next time we hung out was directly after graduation, when I helped her meet Zoto, and a few more years after that was the last time.

...I really hoped she was okay. Zoto, I mean.

A bleak image ran through my head as I glanced at the bag, its contents still trapped in its case. Zoto, inside the box, clawing to get out, whining for her big human to come back. Maybe Liv, in her last moments, had decided to send her back to me.

It was a stupid thought.

I made a mental note to check if she was okay anyway, then distracted myself with my phone the rest of the ride home.

(...)

[the-dreaming-writer]

Crush.

Changing the title of Inheritance to Crush.

The story is tumbling towards a wildly different direction and genre than I first intended it to go, and I think a name change is apt to reflect that. Also, to absolutely no one's surprise, it's going to be longer than I initially thought it'd be- which was like three posts, max.

Might take a break in between to write something else, might not, we'll see.

[the-dreaming-writer]

Inheritance III.

It was only right after the funeral that I found out.

Her father had caught up to us in the parking lot, in the middle of working out the details of our carpool. Nat had nudged me as he approached, clearly set for me, and the group quieted as they noticed one by one, half of them watching him intently, the other half trying their best to pretend they weren't.

Maybe it was that sudden shift, or maybe I had done a poor job of masking my own discomfort, because he stopped at an awkward distance, hesitating, clearly lost at how to proceed.

He was clutching a paper bag. It was black, faintly emblazoned with the logo of some department store. It swayed in a way that suggested it had something in it, and I could tell, even before he told me, that it was meant for me.

I broke from the group and took a few steps towards him, and he shifted his grip on the bag to hold it from the bottom. If he had prepared something to say to me, he seemed to have forgotten them in the face of the stares, and it took my soft greeting for him to finally reclaim a few of them.

Three words, to be exact. Or three and a half.

It's for you.

I could see a boxed silhouette outlined by the creases as he held the bag out— offering the strap to me in a way that made clear he was keeping his distance, maybe having come to the conclusion that his previous embrace was the reason for my wariness.

I took it.

I mean, what else are you supposed to do in a situation like that?

He seemed to find some footing at that. He then said: "Liv wanted you to have it." Then: "We haven't looked inside. She was very clear about that." Then that pained smile again, as if he had said something funny but was unable to find the mirth in it.

I could feel that the eyes were on me now.

His too, although his was a different kind, as this grieving father stood before me, as if expecting me to say something profound in return, something he hadn't known about his dead child. Or maybe it was an accusatory look, suspicious that I knew something incriminating, or I knew something that could've been used to save her.

No, there were no anger in those eyes, but there was a flicker of pain, palpable when I said nothing more than a hollow thanks, my lips unable to figure out that sweet lie he so desperately needed to hear.

A silent minute passed, and then he spoke his farewells, wishing us safe travels. His eyes lingered on mine for just a bit longer, and when I averted my own, he nodded silently before turning to leave.

I left in a cab soon after that.

I know how that must have looked to the others, not that it matters now. But at that moment, I was on the verge of an episode, and I wanted nothing more than to be alone, in the quiet darkness of my room, curled up under the covers.

(...)

[the-dreaming-writer]

Inheritance II.

It wasn't an accident either.

A colleague at work had reached out to her emergency contacts after a prolonged leave, and her father had been the one to find her in her flat. The police had been called shortly afterwards, but it had quickly been made clear that whatever had happened, had happened soley within those walls.

I hadn't tried to pry for more details. It was bad enough that she needed a closed casket, and that told me more than what I wanted to know already.

I saw him now, the father. He was in the front row, a good few rows ahead of us, but I could picture his eyes clearly, the haunted look they had held when he had greeted us in, managing a smile that didn't reach. Eyes that had seen something that shouldn't have been seen.

As I introduced myself to him, I remember thinking to myself that those were eyes that had seen something impossibly terrible. Something even more terrible than seeing your only daughter in her own house, lifeless.

Then I thought maybe I was being insensitive, thinking such a thing. That maybe there really was nothing more terrible than that.

But those eyes...

I was spooked, is my point.

I was still lost in those thoughts when he leaned in to embrace me, a gesture that he hadn't shared with any of the people I had come with. He had been saying something, and was now repeating them in a quiet murmur as he did so, and I had caught none of it.

Liv must have talked to her family about me, more than I thought she would have, which had previously sat somewhere around not at all. I felt a stab of guilt at the idea— that she had perhaps considered me more of a friend than I had her. But I knew that wasn't true.

Like I said, we were barely friends. The last time I had seen her alone was years ago. I didn't even know when her birthday was, other than vaguely recalling that she had introduced herself a Gemini.

I didn't pull away from the hug, though. How could I have?

When he finally did so, he apologized with that same empty smile— about how he must have soaked my dress. He hadn't, obviously, I could tell that the man could muster no more tears to shed, let alone let them pool onto my shoulder.

It weighed heavy just the same.

I had offered a smile of my own, a string of sweet nothings, and then I had shakily made my way to where the rest of us sat.

They said nothing, but I could tell they had found it odd as well. One of them, Nat— I think it was, asked me about it and I could not answer. She didn't push. It was hardly the place, and if anyone had an excuse to act oddly, it was probably him, we had thought.

But as I sat there, looking at his back, I found my mind wandering back to that encounter, running through the few handfuls of interactions I have had with his daughter, trying to pick out which of them he had been told.

Nothing jumped out at me, of course. There was nothing to be found.

He had been told nothing. He hadn't even known what I looked like, as Liv had never pointed me out. He had only recognized me by name, a name that he had read countless times in the past few days. He must have assumed, the details of what both lost and irrelevant, as it would be wrong nonetheless.

She had left me something in her will.

(...)