talking in the dark >> xiomara&burdock

talking in the dark >> xiomara&burdock Mar 24, 2023 11:33:29 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2023 11:33:29 GMT -5

b u r d o c k .

Isolation has only made Burdock Coy ever the more stranger.

She never really had a chance, feeding spiders to venus fly traps for a hobby shapes kids in predictable ways. It's only fitting she's the way she is, nine days into laundry day, talking to crystals in a lighthouse she hasn't bothered leaving in weeks. She's got the necessities and a little extra, what more can a girl need? There was a point, before in District 3, before she hopped that fence, where she thought she knew what love was.

Well, she was wrong. As she spends another night alone, she cherishes nothing but herself and the talents that surround her. She's prospered in her art, demented and gory finger paintings are practically thrown askew around the lighthouse, laying discombobulated on the floor around her easel. She sits in the window sill, sketchbook in lap with a rainbow of wax sticks to her right. She doesn't know where to go with it, only that she wants it to have three eyes and a bloody mouth. Both it and herself are baked under the moonlight and the still quiet of the night.

The only noise coming from her lighthouse being that of a bubbling soup, perfected with her very own mystery meat.

Who knows where it came from? Her soups were acclaimed for being near disgusting, yet edible. Burdock never really knew what she was doing in the kitchen, it wasn't her domain that's for sure, but a girl had to eat for sure. It's the only distraction she has going against her art work, she scribbles hard on the page until it crinkles, trying her hardest to finish it while the motivation's still there. "Ah, whatever," she says, tossing it aside once she notices the crease it left running down the macabre face she was putting together.

"Soup, soup, soup," she sing-songs down the staircase to the third floor, where a cauldron-like pot sits in the fireplace. There's no table or chairs; in fact, the only other things in the room are a crate of silverware, even more paintings she's thrown down the stairs and dirty clothes. She's down to her last good nightgown - "good" being subjective, with its moth holes and frayed edges. Burdock coughs on the smoke that releases as she opens the cauldron, a questionable stench filling the lighthouse and teasing her appetite.

She looks at it with starving eyes, speaking manifestations into it as if they're expensive seasons: "you're going to be everything." As she walks away, she sorts through the silverware for some match sticks before heading down the stairs on a mission.

Candles line nearly every angle in the lighthouse in a pattern she had been cooking up all evening. Their positions rotate on every floor, with their being as many as eleven on each, and she takes her time lighting all the candles in ascending order. Starting from her moss covered ground floor all the way to her fifth floor make-shift bedroom, she burns her fingertips more than once on the way. "There," she says to the final candle, ritual complete.

Soup time.

talking in the dark >> xiomara&burdock Mar 27, 2023 3:22:06 GMT -5

Quote

Post by minie on Mar 27, 2023 3:22:06 GMT -5

X I O M A R A H A R T

There is something comforting about being alone at night. The cool breeze brushing up against your skin and the night stars shining down over you as if they are trying to tell you that it will all be ok. You do not have to pretend around them, it is okay to breath. This time of night, under the stars is the only time I have ever felt like there was a small chance the child in me was still alive. When everyone else went to rest, I woke up. It was an exhilarating rush to be liberated from the tight cage of society and be full of everything they once took from me.

I held my arms out in a t formation to keep my balance as I walked along the wooden beam that guarded the coast. Holding my arms much probably did not do much considering my right arm held the extra weight of a bottle of booze. The alcohol blanket was the only thing shielding me from the chilly spring breeze that drifted from the ocean past my featherweight body. I laughed out load as I felt the burn from my last sip travel down my body. The burn, the cold, the imbalance, those are things I could feel, those are things I could name. I hold on tight to those sensations as I rack my brain longing for something to switch on there. It was not happening, the million screams that once lived rent free were only mere whispers now. Whispers I could not even understand.

As I started to twirl across the beam, something stopped me, thankfully otherwise I probably would have fallen off and it would’ve been lights out. Instead I saw a building in the distance, I tilted my head as I scanned my brain trying to remember if it has always been there. It probably has, I’ve just never noticed it. Funny, I would like to believe that what seemed like an abandoned lighthouse would have been on my radar. Like clockwork, my body instantly starts moving towards the structure. It was like I had lost control of my body, there was no thought of the consequences but just a naturally magnetic pull. I needed to know what was inside there and the middle of the night seemed like the perfect time to figure out.

It was not hard to gain access to the lighthouse, once in front I just pushed the doors open and it worked. No need for picking a lock or smashing a window. It was as simple as it got. The thing that caught me off guard the most were the candles. There were candles just about everywhere, I clearly was no longer alone. I stared up the spiraling stairs that winded up all the way to the top. I took a second to just admire the beauty of it all. Old and slightly damaged but still beautiful and enticing. The perfect place. My hands reached for the railing as I all of a sudden heard a faint voice coming from above. I could not exactly make out what it was singing. Was this the night if I find out if ghosts were real? Or is it the wind and alcohol playing tricks on my mind? Nevertheless, I proceed with the only logical solution…I make my way up the stairs.

5 flights, 5 flights of stairs. That is how many I walked up to figure out who or what was behind the voice. The candles were also on every single floor, whoever it was put in so much effort and I was terrified of knocking one over. I really did not want to join whatever spirit was haunting this place permanently.

On the 5th floor, I was no longer alone.

There was a blond girl in the room with me, hovering over a cauldron with a wretched smell coming from inside it. This was it; this was actually going to be the day I died. Of course, I would be the only person to drunkenly walk into what seemed to be an abandoned lighthouse and get myself killed by a blond witch. I should have listened to my mothers advise from so long ago and not have wandered off to spaces I don’t belong in. This is the first time I ever wanted to listen to my mother, that is how I knew the situation was dire.

The voices in my head shifted from a whisper to loud voices throwing questions left and right as I felt my body tense up whilst I just stood there. I wanted to ask a million different things, but I could not seem to formulate a single sentence. Instead, I just blurted out ”Hi there! Right, real lovely home you have. I just have one quick question. Am I going to be sacrificed in some kind of ritual or am I hallucinating, have I actually finally completely lost it? Sorry, that was more than one question.”

ELEGANT