NOT NANOWRIMO AKA 6 PARTS; 6 TO 6

Day 1 - Killer


KILLER #1
"Do you think I’m wrong?"
Her eyes were fire, sparking a trail through the air between them. He frowned, deepening the creases of his well-worn face. The question she posed was an odd one. Of course she was wrong. Killing was wrong, bar a few circumstances, but he knew that those did not apply to this woman and the blood that should have coated her hands with as much as there had been.
No, she was wrong, but the tone of her voice, the way her hands spread out as though in supplication, her sparkling eyes - all dared him to proclaim her as such. It made him wonder, for a moment, if perhaps he was the one that was wrong.
No. Killing was wrong and boy howdy, had she killed. How she’d killed. Bodies hidden, bodies displayed - they called her the Hidden Holocaust, the Angel of Despair, the Soulless, the Bloody Demise. She had many names and to each name, many deaths.
Yes, she was wrong. There was no way she was right.

And yet, still he hesitated.

KILLER #2
I stood above her, the corpse torn and defiled in ways many a man would find disturbing. I stood, still, and smiled into the night. Hers had been so delicious a death, her screams to be savoured for years after the act. I smiled and smiled all the way back to our apartment and when you commented that I seemed to be in a good mood, I laughed and told you the story of a young man's meeting with Lady Luck.

KILLER #3
Ears craning for sound,
Eyes for sight
The dark has hidden us from one another
And he
He hunts
He calls in mocking tones
Screams for us
Screams for you
For me
But I won't leave
The shadows hide me
Hide us
And maybe
If long enough I stay
I will live to see the shadows turn to light
Live to see you once more
To smile
To laugh
Cry in relief
But these tears aren't those
For his form looms ahead
And a different shadow closes around me
His

KILLER #4
"To a bee we are but killers."
"Butt killers?"
"But. One T, not two."
"Okay, yeah, I can see that. Because they die, right? After stinging someone?"
"Correct."
"Hm. But it's not our fault. We didn't tell them to sting us."
"The onus is on us for being in their territory."
"Yeah, but we gotta share, right? I mean, we don't bother them really. We even help by planting flowers and trees."
"You don't understand. We invaded their territory. We took their natural habitat full of flowers and trees that they were used to and tore them down, replacing them with unfamiliar flora. Of course they have the right to attack us for this."
"But... don't you think you're humanitising them too much? They're bees."
"Humanising."
"What?"
"The word is huma-"
"Right, yeah. Humanising."
"Well, how would you like it if someone took away your house and replaced it with another that was, perhaps, not built as well for the climate or didn't look as good? Wouldn't you be upset? You might even attack that person, given the chance, yes?"
"Well, maybe... but I wouldn't kill myself over it."
"What?"
"You know, like one of those terrorists who kill themselves to kill others and all. It's like that, right?"
"No. What?"
"Well... I'm just saying. I wouldn't kill myself because someone took my house and replaced it. I mean, sure I'd be mad and all, but killing myself to get back at them? That's just dumb. At least I still have a house, yeah?"
"I...uh...urgh! Just forget it!"
"I'm just saying!"


KILLER #5
The blood pools around me and I breathe, harsh and loud in the silence of the room. I breathe, cough and choke. I can feel it now, rising slowly within me, causing the air to come out in sharp, bile-and-blood-covered gasps; bubbles of liquid slowly filling my lungs with scarlet poison as I try to catch a breath that will never return once gone.
I don't feel the pain of the wound any more. No, all I can focus on is the lack of breath, the squeezing and too-tight feeling in my chest as it fills - slowly, ever so - with that which is supposed to give life.
A slight buzzing fills my ears and my eyes - long since blinded by the dark of the room - no longer work as intended.
I give one last hacking cough, feel liquid I can't repress fall from trembling lips and
Finally.
Just.
End.

KILLER #6

She fought as one who intended to never see the sun rise again. We all did. Not a one of us evaded that.

The battlefield is filled of many things; broken bodies and weapons that fell and scattered, the sighs of the dying, the screams of the living and the cries of the broken.

She stands taller than the rest, but her back is bowed by the weight I see reflected in her eyes. She - we - have won the battle once more, protected lands and lords who care naught for what weight they put on our success.

Soon enough the memory of this place will be empty - blood stains erased, screams and cries silence and bodies returned to the earth from whence they came. The land will forget and erase the scars. The people who wait for us will forget and move on. All will return to how it was, except in the memories of those who remain after the blood and death of the last few days.

She stands. She remembers. We remember with her, for as long as we last. And then will come the lies.

Tales will be told, in time, of the horrors of that field and many other like it. Songs sang in our honour - telling of how the line held for the glory of our Lords, lying about the bodies that never broke on the field. The singers, the listeners; they won't know. They won't see just how broken the line truly was. In their minds we are shining and strong, bright on the field and bursting with honour.

We know we broke. She knows it. I know it. We all know it. There was no honour here, no brightness, no shining or strength. We are broken, all and every of us - this side of the field or the other. Living or dead.

We broke. We had to.

We are the killers.

Day 2 - Quiet

Quiet #1
The silence shakes the world asunder
As we stand, going under
Through the oceans empty seabed
Might be better just to be dead
There we are
Alone in the world, alone
Standing far
Far beneath the foam
We are empty inside and outside
We who smile, leave with no fight
Hold hands in the sunspot
And think of what we’ve got
At the end
Of it all
We descend
We fall
And cry no more
When knocking on deaths door
We descend into forever


Quiet #2

She is silent as she sleeps. Nose crinkling and eyes fighting behind their lids - dreaming, I imagine, of wonderful things. She mulls on those dreams and never tells me of them, though I would listen if she but offered. I’d love to know what she sees in the night.

Quiet #3

On tiptoe he steps through the fire.
Never seen before, such a being to desire.
And I do. Desire.
Oh, jealous is he without a lover
And more-so the one with no-one to hate
For both are the same when it comes to desire
And fire brings light and death alike
Careful how one handles the silence
It shows much of a man in its wake
For where one will talk to fill it with quibbles
Another will use it to expand the mind
Which are you?

Quiet #4
Step softly into the great beyond.
Beyond the horror of your past.
Past the memory of your dream.
Dream beyond what you think you are able.
Able those who cannot and will not.
Not those who shirk all.
All they are lost to you.
You know this as one who knows the night.
Night-lit lamps that guide us farther.
Farther than the last of our strength.
Strength we lost when we took the last step.
Step softly into the great beyond.

Quiet #5
When she laughs it's just a soft exclamation of breath. She hides her joy; done so as long as I've known her. I try to get her to make noises - actual sounds - when she laughs, but it doesn't work. Tickling, play-wrestling, jokes and funny movies all result in the same noiseless laughter.
I've become used to it. Grown to love it, in my own way.
Yes, I know that one day she'll laugh again - with an explosion of noise and sound and colourful exclamations. One day, when she realises I'm not going to leave just because she makes those sounds. When she knows I won't degrade her or hurt her in any way due to them.
I can wait.

Quiet #6
It's dark when she finally wakes. Silence greets her ears and for a moment she's stricken with the thought that they no longer work. She rumbles his name, softly, her voice still thick with sleep and smiles when she hears the sound. She's not deaf. Not anymore, at any rate.

Sometimes she'll dream sounds so loud and wakes in a cold sweat when they suddenly cut out for not reason. It scares her that she might go back to being unable to hear their voices, having to rely only on sight to know what they want to say.
She never really realised, before the sounds returned to her, that so much could be hidden in noise. So many truths lost to those who couldn't hear the tremble of a mask in a voice, the lie in a catch of breath or the pain in a closed-mouth moan - all hidden parts of the world that she'd never known before.

Sometimes she drives into the woods out of town and just screams up at the sky, glorying in the reverberating echoes and hurried scuttles of surprised fauna around her. She's teared up more than once when a bird broke out in song or her son sings silly rhymes he makes up or learns from children's shows. She laughs more, less conscious about her own sounds because now she can hear them and judge them accordingly. Too loud, too soft, too harsh, not strong enough - she now knows which movements work for which sound, which vibration indicates an increase in volume.

She now understands the alphabet in ways she never did before and has fallen in love with words once more.

Day 2 - Blanket

Blanket #1
She throws a blanket around my shoulders as I concentrate on the screen before me, furiously pressing buttons in the hope of beating the latest area I've found my characters in. It's odd - sometimes when I play I forget she exists. Sometimes I can't concentrate on the game itself for all the focus I have on her. It's maddening that something as simple as a laugh from the other room, or her hand resting on my hair can distract me so much.
I wonder if I do as much to her.

Blanket #2
I don't use a blanket any more, now that they moved in.
It started as a joke - a middle-of-the-night piece of mischief where-in they snuck into my room on over-exaggerated tip-toes while I watched them from where I'd been reading my current book.
"We can't sleep!" they mock-pouted, eyes crinkling with mirth, and when I patted the bed to tell them it was fine, they leapt on me, making me lose my page (and the whole book, at least for a day or so).
We talked until the sun shone and eventually drifted to sleep, warmth from their bodies seeping into mine.
I was horrified to find myself extremely late for work that day when I finally woke, only to be propelled back to bed by her - softly yawning out that she'd already called in sick for me and that I should just enjoy the day.
So I laid back down, between them. His breath was hot on my shoulder as he readjusted his body to flank me in the bed. She had no qualms with climbing half-atop me and sighing contentedly while she slipped back into sleep.
We'd never slept alone again, bar the odd time out of town or sleeping at a friends'. We never really wanted to.

Blanket #3
She blankets me
Covers me in
Love and hate
Too hot together
Too cold apart
She blankets me
Covers me in
Laughter and tears
Too loud together
Too silent apart
She blankets me
Covers me in
Safety and Fear
Too close together
Too lonely apart
She blankets me
Covers me
I blanket her
Cover her
We should never be apart
But we cannot stay together
We blanket each other
And fear the end

Blanket #4
It took you forever, but finally you cast off the last stitch, tie the last knot and lower the needles to your lap. Weeks have passes since you began the journey of the thousand clicks, and you're more than relieved to have it complete. Finally you can say that you knitted something of worth.
The blanket is laid out on the floor before you, a brightly coloured cloth that you once despaired of being whole. Tiredness swallows your mind - you were up all night finishing this one piece before it was due.
Now you can rest, content in the knowledge that you didn't mess up; that you reached the end before the deadline; that tomorrow your grandchild - scheduled to be born - will have his or her first blanket, made by your hands.
A piece of you will be with him or her for as long as this blanket lasts.

Blanket #5

Blanket #6

Day 4 - Charge
Gah, I'm falling behind. I'll have to do a catch-up for these tomorrow. >.<;

Charge #1
She swiped the card one more time, waiting for the tell-tale beep that would let her know the transaction had gone through without issue. It was their last day together and she wanted it to go perfectly, thus the last-minute shopping trip.

Charge #2


Charge #3


Charge #4


Charge #5

Charge #6

They aren't exclusive to one person - I'm doing a one-theme-a-day-a-thon (though I've missed a few, I'll come back to them when I have some extra time) but you guys can do as you will. One theme a day, one theme a week with one post a day, one post per day with the same theme, one post a day with different themes, seven different themes a day... whatever you like. ;p