breatheideas

[breatheideas]

Life ties

You wake up and realize that some days are harder than others, that there is nothing to make you get up except that you know that you are supposed to. Then the day comes when you don’t want to and those are harder. When you are laying in that warmth and comfort you start to ask yourself why it is that you need to get up, “why do I have to do anything?”, and there are the typical answers, work, money, obligations. 

But what if one day comes around and you know the answer with out a doubt? What happens then?

[breatheideas]

burning...

You know those superhero stories where they tell you that the hero loses everything and because they are strong they become a hero, well that is not what my story looks like. 

 I can feel what everyone else feels heroes included if they are close enough. I don’t have emotions of my own that I know of. I thought for a long time that it was normal to feel sad when someone was sad and happy at birthday parties, even feel pain when someone fell down. As I got older it got worse, I found that I wasn’t  feeling anything of my own. I noticed that I circled through groups of people and was constantly the friend you found when you wanted to tell someone good news. I found out the extent of my emotion went a lot deeper however when I was in the third grade. 

My one constant friend that was naturally and perpetually light, came from a family that was well enough off they need not worry, had parents who loved and supported him and was always taught to be kind to others. On the first day after winter break, he came to sit next to me in class, something immediately felt wrong. There was a pit, a hole, a chasm that opened in my chest and it felt like everything in the room would fall in. 

My head was spinning and it was hard to breathe right. He sat down in his chair and didn’t say anything, which for eight and nine-year-olds is almost impossible. I started to cry I was in so much pain and I felt paralyzed and anxious worried about anyone who looked my way. 

I reached out for him and we jumped at the same time. It was slightly helpful to feel startled instead of that pain that I couldn’t understand. I was able to catch my breath and ask him if he was okay.

“My dad died.” he said with the bluntness that only a child can wield. This short sentence had lifted part of the weight that had been settling in my chest. I didn’t want to see my friend in this place so I stood up, reached out and hugged him. I squeezed until the pain in my own body subsided to a dull roar. It was bearable again and then we sat back down. There was the smallest amount of relief when I let him go, like I helped ease that pain in him too. 

And that is the first time I ever felt grief.

[breatheideas]

A favor or two...

The benefit to having no soul is the complete freedom from risk. I have no qualms about the impact I have on anything and I am free to experience everything that I want. I have no fear about what happens if. Some days this is the coolest thing on the planet, and other days it has me plastered to my bed. I could spend weeks traveling the world and not spend one second worrying about what someone back home is doing. I could steal, cheat, lie and trick my way out of any problem and I wouldn’t be concerned with the consequences.

I have no consequences, therefore, there is no risk to anything in life. I have a comeplete free will.  Mind you this has not always been the case so I can appreciate the situation I am in. Ten years ago I was approached by the stereotypical “bad boy” and offered a deal. I was 17 and my brother was bleeding out in the passenger seat next to me, I had wrecked the car learning to drive and hydroplaned into a bank of trees. He was choking and gurgling and trying to tell me to get out of the car when a hand came through the windshield and pulled me out. 

He was wearing a leather riding jacket and some worn leather gloves that wrapped around my face. 

“Do you want me to save him?” his searching, slick like honey.

All I could do was nod. 

“Would you give me your soul?” his voice came again, this time hard like the honey had stopped against the glass edge of a jar.

I just kept nodding. “Yes, yes, yes...” I repeated it over and over and over, long after he had left. I don’t remember how but an ambulance had made it to us and gotten my brother out in time for them to get him to a hospital. They said that he would have died had the EMT’s not been rerouted. I only remember his voice and those hands in leather gloves around my face. His eyes searching my face blue like tossed sea water, searching. 

I didn’t think anything of the accident or the man until a week later when I stepped into a fight and punched someone in the face. When the counselor asked me if I regretted hitting the other student I said no. I got suspended on the spot I wasn’t worried or sorry. I stepped in because someone was in trouble and I really wanted the fight to stop. This calm and calculated thought process brought me to thinking about the man on the motorcycle and I went through the motions in my head. Systematically checking off items in my head or possibilities that I hadn’t thought of. Then I came to the realization that this may be the best thing that has ever happened to me, which it was. 

It has been almost ten years to the day now since my brother's accident and I have adjusted to my profound life change. I fight, I travel and I do generally what I want without drawing too much attention to myself. 

I  am sitting and working out the details of some corporate work for a freelance hacking community and who do I see but motorcycle guy. I never knew his name but I would never forget that face. Especially since he is still wearing exactly what I saw him in the last time we met. 

He is beelining right for me and I glance around to make sure that he is not heading toward something else. He comes straight to me and hands me a paper. I look at it and then back up at him. 

“Here, you can have that back I need a favor.” He says to me I can remember the hardness in his voice. 

I look at him again, “Who are you?” I ask, in awe that this is real. 

A smile sneaks up the left side of his face. “Well I’m the Devil darling, who else would you sell your soul to?”

[breatheideas]

Secrets

These two were the pillars of strategy with a mental fortitude between them that even Churchill would be proud of. They were flanked by two other women and a quite boy who seemed to shrink into the ground at his feet. Their faces demanded attention and respect. The first woman was a porcelain doll with sharp, deep brown eyes and lips pressed into a hard line. 

The second, she was an olive wisp. Sharp features and the same brown eyes. Both of them were lithe and wiry. In them, you could see a bit of war still as if they knew they could never leave the field. 

You would think that it had never ended. And then the boy looked up as if he were about to speak. He didn’t. However, you could see on his face that he wanted to tell you something. It was as if he knew what you were thinking like he knew that you had a myriad of thoughts in your head and most of them were screaming at you to listen to these two. 

That boy with his simple clothes could see into your soul. He penetrated you in a way that was more than uncomfortable. His perception left you feeling naked and vulnerable but instilled a sense of trust so deep that you would follow any command. 

And that is what you did. 

“Come with us, don’t look back and don’t say anything.” He said after another stalled attempt.

Then you were mine and you came back to me a totally different person. 

“Ashley, do you understand what I’m telling you?”

I looked up at him then. I didn’t say anything because I knew the repercussions of that action. The flowers on my arms hummed with pain, they were growing deeper and I felt it like a pull back to my war, to my place. I didn’t understand what Jess had said that day but I had trusted him then. I trusted him now as well. When he told me to go home after two years and try and fit back into my life as if I hadn’t left, I trusted him. 

“They did something to you!” he said his voice shaking. 

I knew what was at stake. And I knew that as he told me my own story His words and mine began to mix together. I could not remember what was my memory and what had been borrowed. But Jess couldn’t know, wouldn’t understand what had happened to me. So I said the only thing I could think of.

“I understand.”

[breatheideas]

Creative Juices

I’m trying to start a new chapter and feeling like there is a something that I still need to do before I can start. 

Even if the only thing that I get done today is this I feel like that is enough. 

I can’t remember where I heard it but I’m hearing it in my head....

Done. Not perfect but done. 

And that is where I will start.

[breatheideas]

I have no name

I wake up most days screaming. 

Sometimes, I don’t even notice that I am awake, all I see is the fire crackling along the bridge. I can see a person burning on the other end of the way, the fire licking at their feet.

I calm down just a little when I see the familiar space I sleep in. The same mute neutrals and the same metal edges.  

That’s when I notice the burns at my ankles and realize that I am the one burning.

[breatheideas]

It can always be worse

“Please believe me, killing you is a kindness”

Let me just start off by saying that I don’t believe it. I have been in this shit hole for the last year and I still think you are all loonier than looney toons.  And yes it may be because I am not from your silly little world, but boy let me just say this, I am NOT here on purpose!

“Oh, joy, more of your holy warrior bullshit, let me tell you what you can do with your kindness” a smirk rolled over my face. I may be bound, and well, but to hell if they think I’m going quietly. 

“A warrior is born to fight, not to rest, you will understand.”

If I roll my eyes any harder I’m going to pull something, “And how is it that I am going to be killed today?”

Gorish, my glorified body guard, has decided that it is his mission in life to get me to understand this place and why I am here. “Battle with the Hallarish is a glorious path to death.”

I am starting to be annoyed by the names of these beings that I fight. Hallarish, you might as well call it a hell beast and just get it over with. I am now itching to get it on with myself. How bad can it really be? The cut on my forehead is still itchy and bleeding, the chain male they gave me is starting to smell of rusty copper and my sword is in serious need of attendance. 

“All right big guy, let’s get this thing over with, It’s just going to be a big death appaloosa anyway right?” sarcasm is totally lost here and Gorish thinks I am turning to his way of thinking. 

He slaps me on the back, “Wishes of thunderous glory!” nearly pushing me out of the cell and into the woods beyond. 

“Yippee, more monsters.” Not that the last ones weren’t a piece of cake or anything, but hey what’s a girl in the wrong dimension to do but role with it.

[breatheideas]

Remember me if you start to feel alone

“I used to tell myself that if I could only know what you were thinking, feeling, that I would know what to do, but the truth is it doesn’t matter. Not to me, not anymore.”

I have to keep calm, to make sure she doesn’t know I’m lying. But I can feel the crack in my armor and I know I’m close to breaking. I have to make this quick.

“Siora keeps me in control and I can’t quite my power like you can but she can quite me. I need her near me.”

Tears were welling up in her eyes and I could see a tidal wave of pain threatening to crush her. I can’t watch her break but I have to break her. I need to know if she can control it with out me.

“What we have been doing doesn’t work. I am going to Ellyrse.”

And the tidal wave came. I felt waves of cold brush past me and I knew she was trying to pull her power back into control. I turned my back to her then and walked as quickly as I could. 

Ice was reaching across the ground never quite reaching me. Siora was on the flight deck with fear brushed across her face. She knew as well as I did that If I stayed this station would collapse into oblivion. Siora tightened her jacket to fight against the bite of cold in the air. 

Ash had grown stronger in the last few weeks and dangerously so. I reached were Siora was and she extended a hand to me. I felt the snow before I saw it and I knew that Ash was loosing control fast. 

“Get us out of here before she reaches you.” I whispered for fear of freezing to death. 

“No one can touch you when you’re with me that is how the silence works.” Siora said factually, data always calmed her down.

She didn’t know Ash very well and didn’t know what I knew. Ash wasn’t just the ice and the cold and the winter she was absence of movement. Anything that moved was vulnerable to her and her power, even that of a silence.

“Better safe than sorry.” I said turning involuntarily to look at her one last time. Ash was surrounded by winter as if trapped in a snow globe. She sat crumpled on her knees shaking and desperately trying to hold on to what little control she had left. 

I will find a way to save you, you are not alone little sister. 

[breatheideas]

Rescue me

Sounds came back first, a siren or maybe an alarm, then was the crowding of the debris around his person. The dust or maybe ash was billowing across the floor stifling the oxygen. Echoes of running and gun fire rang out in a tumult. 

How close had he come?

A familiar smell filled the room, that of bergamot, a hand gripped down on his shoulder. Brother.

“Phi, look at me can you move? Did you find it?”

His eyes were purple and almost closed shut. His face was riddled with scratches from his left temple to his nose. Thick scarlet blood ran from his nose and the opposite corner of his swollen mouth. 

Cameron reached out to see if any of the bones were broken. His hands trying desperately to be gentle and thorough. 

“Phi, it doesn’t look too bad,” a clear hitch in his voice, “but we need to go. You have to get up”

Phellix stumbled to his feet leaning heavily on his brother. 

“How close long was I out?” Phi coughed out, the heavy metallic taste slowing his speech. “I mean how much time do we have?”

Cameron paled a little, “Not a lot, now move” 

Wincing from his own injuries they left.

[breatheideas]

demonia

Marius couldn’t tolerate her arrogance anymore.

“We were cursed with you, not the other way around!” he spat at her.

“You cannot be serious, you’re a demon” Caroline felt his words hit her in the face.

“We are not these unclean things that break and destroy and wreak havoc. That is a lie you people made to justify what you do to us. We just want to go home, to the home you ripped us from,” 

Words were falling so fast from his mouth that he couldn’t stop. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

“You are our hell! Do you understand? We came first and your people raised us because we had power once,”

Marius so close to her was breathing heavily, he felt hot all over, his control was slipping.

“We just want to go home! You pulled us from our homes and into this place and you torment us! The things you ask of us; it is your nature to destroy not ours!”

Caroline was shaking beneath his hands, her face flushed. He could not read her and he felt the shame of his slip up. Humans were not meant to bear the weight of their faults and now he knew that he had crossed a line.

“Do you understand now you silly little thing?”

Caroline paused searching his face, he was so confused and angry and warm. He loosened his grip on her arms. Caroline let out a breath of what sounded like relief. Marius stepped back. 

Caroline stepped with him, confusion took over and he was searching her face now. Caroline pulled his face to hers and kissed him with a tenderness he had not expected.

Marius closed his eyes and let her lips wash away the shame and hate and pain. His hands found their way back to her, to his hell. Caroline traced the back of his neck with her fingers and drew back.

“Help me understand” she breathed as she looked him in the eyes. 

[breatheideas]

As it is a new month....

so too shall new goals begin...

[breatheideas]

Twist tuesday

As she stood in the door way it was everything that she could do to keep silent. A lifetime of training and preparation to go unseen was finally coming in handy.

“This was not the plan..” whispers floated past the cracked open door. The voices were pained and tired.

She looked for another access point. There was a window just above the door that looked too obvious and a trail that led around the house. Foot prints wore the path into the ground and it made the choice more promising.

Taking care not to step on leaves or rocks, soundless in her movements, she came to a drain pipe that lead to the roof. She began to scale the side on the wall using the tensile strength in her fingers and toes to keep her ascent quite. 

Once she reached the top she moved to the sky light that had more voices escaping from within. 

“No one understands what happened. We need to keep it that way, because if we don’t there is no way to fix this.” Panic was seeping from the voices in the room. 

Marking each person in the room she made seven people, which included the initial century she had knocked out. She needed them spread out so that she could even the odds but it didn’t look like that was going to happen anytime soon. 

The drop was about twelve feet, there were three older chairs in the middle of the room surrounding a long table, and to top it off, it looked as if all four of the remain centuries were carrying hand guns. Her tranquilizer gun still had four rounds but she wasn’t going to get more than one shot. It was now or never.

She jumped into the room rolling on the table to ease her impact. The first three guards didn’t make it to their guns before she shot them. The fourth however moved straight for the ambassador she had heard talking. She took cover behind one of the older more ornate chairs hoping that it would offer more defense than the shadows. 

A few shots fired and hit the chair and she was glad for her choice. She rolled out and made her shot at the last century successfully. She raised her gun and moved to the ambassador who was now moving away from the body that he thought was expired. 

“Where is the other one!?” She commanded.

Then a snap in the darkness caught her attention. She stood and turned around to find a man had invaded her space and wrapped his hands around her throat. 

“Sydney, What a gift indeed” 

Confusion swept through her whole body. Who was he and how did he know her name. “Who are you?” she choked out as she struggled to free her self.

“Well, your father of course.”

[breatheideas]

Movie Pilot Monday

so thoughts for a little later today....

I just read immortal warrior and it had a picture of a man. It made me a little irritated and I was like why the hell do you never see warriors as women... let alone the immortal ones. bull. shit. 

It is women who endure.

[breatheideas]

Where is she going and why?

#write me #selection sunday

[breatheideas]

Salute saturday

Because I have literally spent all weekend working on this final, salute Saturday is going to be to all the people on platforms for crowdfunding trying so very hard to keep their dreams moving!

#just keep swimming

[breatheideas]

So follow through Friday...

was spent completing my cinema history video.

#homework for days

[breatheideas]

Through the looking glass Thursday

Every surface is one that can be broken: 

“We are not in Narnia, Gandalf is not coming and there is no Buckbeak that we can ride off in! Get your head back down here and help me figure a way out of this.” Kyle

“Don’t you think I know that” Ilan looking around saw only the table in front of him covered in books and maps and plans. 

The door they had entered through had vanished and all that was left was the simmering box that had taken it’s place, not quite silver or steel. Not a window or door, only the table in the middle of the room.

The maps and plans were scattered on the table, leaves in autumn, dying pages loosing color. Kyle poured over the biggest one again looking for something, anything, that would help them out. Each of the pages looked older than the last, paling with age. 

Hours tick by and the lines seem to blur from them. She threw them in frustration. 

“There is nothing here.” Exasperated Kyle started to stack the maps together, her eyes aching and tired.

“Wait! Stop! Give me those!” Ilan almost cleared the table when he stood.

Kyle handed the maps to him as he twisted and laid them over each other frantically.  As his hands slowed, and a small road seemed to pop up from the grounds like a daisy in the middle of winter. 

“That’s it, do you see it!” Ilan now excited by the possibility of a way out. “We were looking for a way out, not through.”

“Ilan, I don’t understand. What do you mean through?”

“The sign on the door when we entered this hell hole, the exit can only be seen through the test of glass, it’s an illusion, it’s glass! Kyle, we can break through the glass!”