October 18-November 13

[Melody]

Since no one had made a post for this challenge yet, I thought I might as well

You're a child's imaginary friend. She/He is growing up, and you're fading away. Challenge by Taria.

[Melody]

This didn't really fit with the challenge, but oh well =)

Dreams are no more than the fanciful thoughts of children; they are meaningless. Hallow and void of empathy, they leave only brokenness. Still, there was a time, long ago, when I believed in happiness.

No more.

The house is old. No one has lived here since... Quite a long time. The day everything changed, and tears flooded the floor as a great sea of misery. A mansion it was. Tall and proud, furnished with oak and alabaster. The stairway was something to gaze with awe upon. It spiraled upwards for a great span, and the steps were of solid marble. They say if you look close enough, you can still see the blood.

Some days I pretend I can still hear the laughter, the sounds of joy flooding the halls. I can almost hear them. Almost. But Alas, those days are gone.

It was a dark night when it happened, much like tonight. Wind howls in through where the glass is shattered. There was a small child in this house that night, not yet nine. Cold and hungry, there was no one to care for him.

I remember, it was under the stairs he hid. He had looked upon them with such reverence. Even then, the house had been void of occupants for many years, with a dark secret surrounding it. The stories that flew through the small town, just below the hill on which this house was perched. They say had things happened here.

The boy did not come out again.

I'd comforted him. I was his sole companion. No one knew him bettered than I, no one understood better what he had endured. But I had not know the secrets of this house then, for I would have warned him.

“Run,” I would have said. “If you wish to live, to spare yourself of a lifetime of torment, run.”

But I did not know.

Tonight, it's been four hundred years. Four hundred years since the boy entered this house. Four hundred years I have been here.

For I am that boy.

There is a creak at the door. Dust and cobwebs fly as it opens, the wind tearing savagely at it.

Two small figures walk in, a boy and a girl, either a day past nine. In the boys face, I almost see a small reflection of myself. So young, so innocent.

There is a curse on this house. Once in, you cannot leave. Unless your debt is paid. A soul for a soul.

I would warn them, I should warn them. If they go now, there might still be a chance.

But no.

I approach them. A floorboard groans, and they look up, but they cannot see me. No one can. Four hundred years I have been here.

Tonight... I will be free.

[Wlonnie]

The Failed Muse

Warning: Highly unedited, posted right after hammering out the last sentence. Possibly triggering, as there are implications of abuse and suicide. I don't know why everything I write is tragic.



Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson.

The droning of the stage director's commands never stops. Miss Jackson, point your toes! No, you stupid girl -- that is not how one completes a pirouette! His voice is like nails grating against the inside of her skull. I should know; after all, the Jackson girl's mind is my home. He drags her down, makes her weak, and deflates her every attempt at accomplishment.

At the end of each class, she bangs her head against the locker room doors and erupts into a silent succession of tears. I try to help, I really do, but it seems that the cloud around her eyes is drawing a barrier between us. My little girl has walked through hell, and now, not even the faintest glimmer of light can reach her.

Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson.

School is even worse. Eight hours a day of taunting and name-calling and horrifying advances. They shove her into the arms of other girls, laughing when she refuses to give them a show. It's a slap in the face, a brutal attack against the person she's grown to be.
I wish she noticed the silent one in the corner, willing her on with eyes of coal-blue strength. But even admiration must be given fuel to grow. Everything beautiful in her life, even the one she thought she could love, fades away to a dull grey backdrop.

There's nothing I can do about it.

Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson.

The crowd jeers and laughs as she sings for them, hair pinned up, lace clinging to her form in an attempt to become armour. Nights like these always end badly. Her feet are sore from dancing, her arches fallen and bruised by the overuse her talents. Each customer tastes the sting of liquor on her lips, and the crimson blood drawn from her thighs sends them keeling back after a night of horrors.

She is weary. She is broken. She is spent.

I know the end is coming before she even starts to wonder.

Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson.

It was a Sunday morning when she went, leaving me in the empty space I imagine all of the muses go. She'd spent her last three months in the hospital, holes in her arms and legs from administering too much self-relief. Listening to me hadn't been her priority for three decades, but in the end, whatever she'd shot into her system gave me access back into her thoughts.

She sobbed when she saw me.

I reminded her of the blue-eyed girl, of the hopes and dreams and future she left behind. Sorry, sorry, sorry. It was like she'd forgotten how to form any other word.

In the end, it was us.

And now, as she's jumped her last fence and escaped through the final window, I am alone. She is gone, and I have fulfilled my duties.

Into the mix of muses I fall.

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