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[Loba]

Quote

 

Do I ever wonder?
More than words can say
Heaven knows it's hard
Enough to pray
Let me tell you something
There's a change in me
Even now you're gone
You'll always be

Notes:

• Have you ever started a book or settled into a film and found yourself completely transported?
• Sitting atop an ent's shoulders, that carries you under the dark bows of Fangorn Forest, or chroming your teeth with the war boys before glorious death in the wasteland?
• Call it escapism, but there's a magic in walking the paths of someone else's mind.
• Even more when you realize that you could be the one to lay those paths.
• A world is a very large thing to create, though, without the proper tools world building rapidly devolves into a difficult task - you end up putting patterns in the wings of every beetle, naming every star of every constellation in the sky.
• We may be a foundry, but only for stories, if we're going to help you learn the art of forging worlds, we'll need a proper angle to do it on, luckily we found just that.
• With the help of the amazing humans behind WorldAnvil, we've been able to turn this series into something special, not only are we going to discuss how to build worlds, we're going to give you the opportunity to do it yourself.
• WorldAnvil is a website dedicated to organizing and hosting your fictional worlds, you can write articles about your world, link them together like a Wiki, draw maps, nest those maps into larger maps, and access dozens of other useful features, all for free.
• For this series, we're going to be working closely with WorldAnvil to run a world building competition - the prize, we'll use your world as the setting for the short story at the end of this series.
• If you've been following the bizarre correspondence being kept with the entity that's been sending letters, you will want to stay until the video's end - the most recent letter received is the strangest thing they've said.
• World building is interesting because it isn't exactly what it sounds like, as much as you can use it for spinning a whole world from the ether and devise the lineage of Gods, you can also use it to dress the inside of a hut or plan the layout of a town's square.
• In this sense, the world in world building doesn't really refer to worlds at all - it refers to the places greater, smaller, varied or singular, desperate or cleverly interwoven - which compose them.
• There are a lot of very good reasons to begin worldbuilding, pure love of the craft, experimentation with concepts and environments, searching for ideas and inspiration.
• But we are story tellers, for us, worldbuilding represents the development of the places in which our stories happen.
• The setting - and this is where things start to get complicated, so, find a notebook and buckle up!
• It should be pretty clear at a glance that worldbuilding and setting design share an intrinsic connection, but they are not the same thing.
• Where worldbuilding is about the creation of places, setting design is obviously about the creation of settings.
• That's a good place to start, but for it to make an actual sense, we need to explain what we mean when we say the words place and setting.
• In his book Story, Robert McKee lays out the four dimensions of setting which are period, location, level of conflict and duration.
• The location and period together make place, the presence of all four of these things together makes a setting in which something most often a story happens.
• For instance, Mediaeval Italy is a place, a Mediaeval Italian villa frantically trying to create a quarantine in the days before the black plague arrives, is a setting.
• Everything so far has just been the groundwork for our actual topic... as long as you have a grasp on what the terms place and setting mean, you should be able to follow along without too much trouble.
• What we really want to do here is show how setting design bridges the gap between world building and storytelling, and after a lot of research, we found a very simple way to do it.
• We call it the three F's of worldbuilding, not to be confused with the four F's of evolution, that's something very different.

Does it seem so funny
For a fool to cry?
Do you know the meaning
Of goodbye?
There's a river flowing
By a willow tree
When you need to know
You remember me

• Free design - this is what most people think of when they think worldbuilding, it is essentially the free development of a fictional world's places independent of any possible settings.  As you plan the locations and periods of your world, nothing is stopping you from painting with the broadest strokes, sketching with the most minute detail - you might place a mountain and move on, you might turn that mountain into a volcano with cultural significance to those living in its shadow who worship the primordial being that lives within.  You might even strip all of this from your world after creating it, you have the freedom.
• Fixed design - when you decide to add a level of conflict over a duration of time to a place in your world, it becomes a setting.  At this point, the design of this particular place within your world becomes constrained by its new needs as a freshly established setting.  Take, for instance, the volcano from our free design - you might say that people it its foothills worshipped the primordial being inside, but what if the volcano begins to show signs of eruption?  What if in the weeks leading up to the cataclysm, all those people have to decide whether to flee or accept the gift of the god they worship?  Now you've appended a level of conflict over a duration of time, and in the process posed a whole list of questions about the place this new setting exists in.  What is their technology like?  How hard will it be for them to get away?  Is there any way to protect themselves should they choose to stay?  These questions now require answers for this part of the world to be cohesive.  It is now beholden to the setting.  It has become fixed.
• Found design - This one is special because unlike the other two which are methods of building, it's a method of selection.  Found design is what happens when rather than freely building the places in your world, or determining which places need to become settings, something external drives you to discover the parts of your world that need building.  There are a lot of reasons this might happen, but the interactive nature of tabletop rpg's makes them one of the best examples.  A game master might have painted some broad strokes for their world and may have created plot hooks to compel the players towards certain possible places or settings, but what if an npc mentions that there is a cult out there somewhere who worships a primordial being in a volcano?  And what if the players then decide, plot be damned, they want to go find it, for the game master, that might just be a footnote, they might never have intended to develop that part of the world in any way, but now at the very least, they need to flesh out the place so that players can experience it, even more, they might need to add a level of conflict over a duration of time and turn this little footnote into a fully-fledged setting, depending on what they and their players want from the experience.  Instead of attempting to preemptively free design every possible blade of grass that could exist in their world, instead of plotting out a field of fixed settings with their own predetermined levels of conflict, they've allowed themselves to find the places and settings within their world.
• We're storytellers, what we really care about here is how worldbuilding applies to storytelling, and for that we look to fixed design.
• When writing a story, we want to be fairly constrained with the places we're building because if we go wandering freely into our worldbuilding, we might never actually write a story.
• In fact, there is a term to describe the phenomenon of writers getting lost in free design - worldbuilder syndrome is when instead of working with a fixed design to develop the place specific to your stories setting, you begin a free design and get totally lost within the innumerable details of your world.
• Luckily this is very easy to prevent, there are two main ways to approach fixed design - let's go over them one at a time.
• First - the way we described earlier; you'd begin with a place, turn it into a setting through the addition of level of conflict over a duration of time and then build the details of the place specific to that new setting, essentially if you've decided your setting is going to be a city at the volcano's base and the days before it's eruption, full of people deciding whether to stay or flee, that is not the time to begin developing the holy unrelated underwater kingdom on the other side of the planet.
• Second - way to approach fixed design, this is common with higher concept stories, is precisely the opposite, you begin with your level of conflict over a duration of time, and then build the place in which these things exist, in order to turn them into a setting.  So instead of creating a fixed point in a preexisting world and getting very detailed with it, you are creating only as much of the world as you need to from a starting fixed point, for instance you may decide you want to write a story about a people who are confronted with a cataclysmic event have only several weeks to decide between their beloved religion and their own lives.

Do I ever wonder?
More than words can say
Heaven knows it's hard
Enough to pray

• Level of conflict and duration - you might then decide that their culture and religion has developed around a primordial being said to inhabit the volcano they live beneath.
• Location and period - these both work really well - a recent Slavic folklore short story began with some inkling of place, generously given by the existing myth and tales and then we went on to add a level of conflict over a duration of time and developed a setting from there.
• Junji Ito short story on the other hand began with the high concept that our protagonist ought to be a vehicle for the main spectacle, the horror, which let us develop a level of conflict over a duration of time before building the specifics of the place in which they exist.

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by Loba

[Loba]

Quote

The world flashing past
So many of us moving so fast
I feel my heart slow
As we wonder I don't bow down

Notes:

• What happens to the human spirit when we take our own life.
• It is common for people to think about leaving this world because this is a crazy planet, prison planet, it's weird - you're not alone in the impulse or the idea.
• The human spirit at the time that somebody takes their life - what happens to that spirit - most of us have been touched in some way by suicide, maybe we know somebody who's killed themselves or we know somebody who knows somebody that's taken their own life and the thing about the people left behind is that it's not just about the grief of loss and dealing with that energetic shift that we all must go through when we lose somebody - it's about the confusion around suicide.
• It's about not knowing where that person is.

Nothing left undecided
Upon steel on steel
Through these cuts in the Earth
No question who was here first
Many dreams many lifetimes
Any of which could be me
Except that I'm the one unable to move upon this machine
Upon this machine

• If we've grown up in the church, especially Christianity, then we've been taught outright that people who kill themselves go to hell, and so now we're not just grieving because they're no longer with us, now we're grieving because they're in hell and we're caught up in this tremendous feeling of sadness and loss and we don't know what to do.
• People who commit suicide do not go to hell and there's one reason for that, and that's because there is no hell.
• Hell as a concept is unscriptural and it's also illogical.
• It's not about going to hell or heaven, it's about dying and going to your place in the line.
• Every single creature, people included, want to draw closer to God, that is the nature of life, we are all returning to the source that created us, that source energy.
• We would call this God energy.
• The amount of light within us dictates how close we are in the process or in the line in our return to God.
• When we die, we don't go to hell or heaven, we go to a dimension that is an energetic match for our energetic constitution at the time of death.
• For example, if you're somebody who dies and you are a despicable person, you've been mean, you've been cynical, maybe you've committed crimes, maybe you've lied, maybe your signature as a human being is quite low, when you die, the first dimension you're going to encounter is the dimension that feels like the person that you are at the time of death.
• So, you're going to be going somewhere that's a match for anger, that's a match for hate, that's a match for crimes or whatever it is that you've done to become a bad person.

Pardon caravan emotion
Alone in crowds just like me
I fell between the moments
I fell between the endings

• And that will look like hell to you, that's why we have people who are reporting near death experiences and saying, "I went to hell."
• No, they didn't, they went to a mirror reflection of their own energy of who they were at the time of their death, likewise if you're somebody who's lived your entire life trying to be a good person, we always don't get that right and of course we are human, but if you've been trying to live your life as a good person, kind, to be love, to be in the light, then when you die you're going to go to a dimension that matches your energetic signature.
• We call this heaven, is it really heaven?  No, it's just a mirror reflection of your energetic composition at the time of your death.
• The thing to remember about these mirror dimensions is that they're temporary, most of us will not hang out in this preliminary dimension because it is all about getting back to God.
• And just as in life, we have had the opportunity to enlighten, in death what we would call death, there is no death, in death we are also given the opportunity to advance and to enlighten or to advance in the line.
• What happened to Hitler when he died?  Probably one of the worst people that any of us could imagine.  Did he go to hell?  He probably thought so, but what he did was he went to the back of the line, and now he's got all this work he's got to do energetically to become proximate once again to the source that created him, but he has the chance to ascend, he has the chance to evolve.
• So, people who commit suicide, they're not despicable people, they're not bad people, they're typically sad people, they're people who are depressed, they're confused, maybe they're not in their right mind but they're not bad people.
• So, when they die, they end up somewhere in that line, maybe right in the middle and they hit a dimension that looks like how they felt when they died.
• Every single person who dies and goes into those dimensions will encounter a helper or two, typically more than two helpers.

As rain runs around the windows
Nothing here is still
All the paths have collided
Through all these villages and hills
So many dreams so many lifetimes
Any of which could be me

• These are spirits that show up that help us to leave that dimension and go to the next one, they help us to evolve, that's their entire role.
• A lot of people who kill themselves are actually really enlightened, they're just experiencing a window of weakness.
• People think about how great it is going to be to be dead someday because we don't have to deal with what's going on, on the news, or what's going on in politics, what's happening to our food, we don't have to deal with all of the problems that are part and parcel with human existence, we get to just go to that dimension and we can do our work and get closer to God - sounds awesome.
• Many people who have a spiritual compass or spiritual orientation or who are enlightened actually, when they die, they're way up there in the line.  Quite close to God.
• We all have the same shot in life and in death, just because somebody kills themselves doesn't mean they go straight to hell.
• There is no hell - they may go to the back of the line, but they can get themselves out of that just as we can get ourselves out of that just as we can get ourselves out of darkness, and backwards thinking here in life.
• God is a God of love, he loves all of his creations and seeks to have his creations return to God, so that we can commune and be in union with the creator that brought us into being, that is the impulse of life and it is the impulse of God.
• So, all of us, when we die, that fateful day, we are going to be in a space where we can advance and be close to God, that means even the worst among us, even the best among us, and all those that have taken their own life.

Except that I'm the one unable to move upon this machine

Quote

Notes:

• What you can expect to experience in the life review that takes place after we die.
• There are a few things that happen once we die, the first thing that happens is we are popped into an astral dimension that is quite close to this earth reality, and from there we cross into what some people call the light, but this is just a transition into a higher, a newer dimension.
• Once in that dimension, a few things can happen, but one of the things that always happens is something called a life review - a life review is an opportunity that each soul or spirit has to take a look at everything that they did in their life when they were alive on planet earth.
• So, everything good, bad and in between.
• The life review is actually a pictographic holographic experience, what you see are like pictures in front of you sort of like a holographic picture and you don't just look at the picture and remember what it is that happened in that particular experience, you actually go into each and every picture, you actually go back in time, if you will, and re-experience that situation, circumstance or person, but you don't just experience it from your vantage point, in other words, remembering what happened to you at the time.
• You also experience it from the other person's vantage point, or from the entire situation, all views, panoramic, and this is important because every single person that we have hurt, every single person that we have done wrong, we have abused, we have been critical toward, we are going to actually feel visa vi the life review, what it felt like for these people to be hurt by us.
• We're going to actually experience their pain.
• Likewise, we also experience how it feels for someone else to have been blessed by us, every single time we do something kind or we bless someone, or we go out of our way to be kind or be generous - that is obviously experienced by that person and we get to feel what that feels like to bless somebody.
• One would much rather have a life review filled with experiences where one is within the love that they give themselves and given to other people.
• One may not have a fully only love full life review, they will have moments where they have to relive what was done to other people.
• We came to this world, we came here to have experiences where we loved and were loved and we also came here to experience moments where we were in pain and caused pain to others.
• All of this is useful in the grand scheme of things, all these experiences are simply energy and at the time of our death, when we are in front of that hologram, we actually get to feel in our spirit, in our soul, that energy and it edifies us and it causes us to evolve in the afterlife, we get to ascend, we get to proceed and draw closer to God as a result of all the things we did and experienced.
• Knowing this should compel you to be better in your life, to be good in your life, to be love in your life - remember, you were created in love by the God of love, and it is your duty, your obligation to be a human being on this planet who expresses and represents that love.
• You want to have more of those kind of experiences when you stand in front of that hologram then the other ones that you know are going to hurt.
• Be love in this world, be kindness in this world, let all these experiences edify you and edify others.

Quote

Notes:

• The meaning and purpose of a life review - as immortal cosmic beings of infinity, our life on planet earth is like school, at the end of any school term, there is usually an assessment, an evaluation.
• Many are not aware, but each one of us will take ourselves through such an assessment at the time of our physical death, when we leave this planet.
• This assessment is commonly called a life review.
• At the time of our death, when our soul is ready to separate from the physical body, there comes a moment when our whole life rolls by like a rapid motion movie, and we are allowed to look back once more.
• Fully conscious, we evaluate our past, the earthly life down to the most insignificant sensation.
• We will evaluate it from different points of view, which we have never done before.
• The main criterion is that of actualized, unselfish love and service.
• The exact moment of this review varies, in many cases the soul is still connected to the physical body via the silver cord.
• This way the dying person would have one final opportunity to make amends, forgive or ask for forgiveness before he leaves the earth school.
• But very often this review will take place after the soul has arrived in the spiritual spheres.
• The life review is not always like a projection on a big movie screen, it can be like a panoramic view or like many T.V. screens, or three-dimensional holographic experience, or some have this life review in an amphitheater or an arena.  
• Others heave their review read from the Akashic records by spiritual beings.
• In many cases we are accompanied by our guardian spirit, and other beings of light like a council of elders who are observing the review with us - these beings of light can fill us with the love for this process so that we can feel totally safe, supported and deeply loved in their presence.  
• This is significant because our life review can show us moments, habits or deeds that we are not proud of.
• We cannot escape from who we really are.
• In the spiritual world, nothing remains hidden because we no longer have a physical body with which we could fool others and even ourselves.
• This can be a very painful but humbling experience.
• We can see this life review, also just like a mirror that reflects back to us the contents of all our feelings, thoughts, words and deeds, exactly as they have affected others.
• We see the ripple effects of our actions.
• We may feel how others have once felt because of us, and what future choices they have made because of us.
• Without this mirror, we may never be aware of how even the most innocent acts or words have impacted others, either positively or negatively.
• In our life review, we may also see why other people have hurt us.
• We may gain insight into their own personal drama and struggle that make them a thief, abuser or just a very unhappy and imbalanced person.
• We may suddenly feel deep compassion for those we thought were our enemies.
• We now sense the truth.
• Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.
• What if during our life review, we may be surprised to find out that all the things we thought were terrific, like all our grand and worldly achievements are actually of very little value, or totally meaningless now.
• Why?  Because they're mostly done for ourselves.
• What if it may turn out that deeds and thoughts, that we might have considered to be unimportant are far more meaningful than we could possibly have imagined?
• For instance, what if we may find out that a simple smile that we once gave to somebody and which we had immediately forgotten was the most important event in our life?
• Let this sink in: it is often an event that appears insignificant, but maybe the whole reason why we incarnated and came to planet earth in the first place.
• In such moments, we had acted spontaneously from our heart from love instead from our mind, or intellect.
• We had expressed love in a purer, greater and unconditional manner.
• Throughout this whole process of the life review, we will be our own judge, nobody else would judge us - not even God because God is love and love does not judge.
• Even the beings of light who maybe with us will not judge us, on the contrary, they may rejoice and even applaud us when genuine love is displayed in our review.
• They may also ask us questions to help us explore whether our motivations were based in love.
• We would be our own judge over our past thoughts and actions, this is a moment where we can see how we have measured up to our goals and mission in life.
• Our life review is a form of self-appraisal to monitor our spiritual development.
• But there is one another reason as to why we feel so intensely how our words, thoughts and actions have hurt and impacted others during our life review.
• This pain is the basis of our conscience and will be stored in our soul for future reference.  
• So, if we in the future once again come into a similar situation of a conscience, we quickly bring back this pain to remind and warn us not to do the same mistake again, but think, speak and act from love.
• A life review can be humbling, sometimes painful, but it will also be thrilling because it gives us a deep understanding of our life and of our true purpose.
• In short, we may recognize that the only thing that is important is to live through the heart and be service and love for one another.
• The question we would be asking ourselves, how much have I loved unconditionally during my life?
• Our life review will give us the honest answer, so the message for all of us is that every day counts - are we willing to clear up anything, are we willing to bring balance and order back into our life, for if we do, we can actually rewrite the script of our future life review into a much more positive way.
• Particularely when our words, deeds and actions are based on love.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Loba

[Loba]

Quote

Yeah, I'm going up tonight like I should know better
Faded focused on your eyes, know I'm a go-getter
Know it's colder on my side, we let the road wet up
Nights in a row get up, you know I know pressure

Notes:

• I suddenly found myself in complete darkness.  There was nothing to grab hold of until I remembered that I had a body.  When I felt the love of light come on within my heart and little by little it grew larger until it illuminated my body.
• I sensed that I was in some kind of cave or dark tunnel and towards the back, a small light appeared that grew larger to the degree that my light grew.
• It got nearer as if it were a reflection of where I should go.
• In the darkness, there were many shadows of people around me, walking without feeling or purpose, like zombies.
• I saw on my right a being who didn't show me his face.
• I thought it was my dead grandfather; he indicated to me that I shouldn't try to speak with those people because they would pay me no mind.
• They were in their unconscious dream, walking like robots.
• This made me sad and feel compassion towards them.

Came up, came up, came up
Drip, drip, dripping gold metal
Got us, got us falling like rose petals
Got us, going crazy we won't settle
Got us, got us falling like rose petals (rose petals)

• I decided to continue on my way towards the light at the back of the tunnel, and came out upon a very beautiful little beach.
• There were many ranges of colours that I have not seen on earth, they were very clear and sharp but didn't hurt my eyes.
• There was very white sand and the blue of the sky and water were very lovely.
• The colour of the rocks, etc. weren't reflections of anything.
• They shone in their own light, the figure on my right who was guiding me stopped.
• I could not see his face.
• Though we were at a small enclosed beach, there was a hill that served as a place for projecting my life from beginning to end several times.
• At first rapidly, and afterward more slowly, it was amazing how my life was shown with events I had completely forgotten about and others that were so insignificant that it felt like I was seeing each frame of the personal movie of my life on earth.
• I realized I understood everything with great clarity and super lucidity, that I had never experienced before.
• I discovered that I had personally chosen to take on a physical body and have the life experiences I was having.
• I realized I had wasted time in suffering, and what I should have been doing was using my freedom to choose true love and not pain in all that came into my life.
• I saw that I myself had designed the life I would lead before voluntarily coming into this world.
• I saw that my freedom within the physical body was to be found only by consciously cultivating happiness in all my thoughts, feelings and actions because I had designed or chosen my destiny before taking on a physical body.
• I realized that there was no judging or punishing God-like religions say there is, and it was my mind with an expanded consciousness that judged itself and sifted its actions through the filter of perfect conscious love.
• I returned to the front of the beach and saw on the bottom something like an island in the form of a mountain.
• At its peak in the sky, a very white sun spoke to me telepathically and made me understand everything about life.
• Suddenly, coming out of this light, I saw a myriad of beings dressed in white, they followed someone who carried himself with great magnificence, who had a white beard and wore a kind of tunic that was whiter than that of the others and was very beautiful.

Twenty shots, I'm 'bout to pull up with the gang
Silver switched to gold, I guess they had to freeze the frame
Couple yеars ago, I wouldn't think this be a thang
Now they pull up on me diffеrent, feel like nothing been the same
Sometimes wish it never changed
Sometimes wish it'd fall apart
Take me back there in the dark
Understand it's just the start

• He came down on my left where I was standing, without touching the earth, floating above the peaceful sea.
• On his breast he wore a gold cross of Malta, surrounded by a circle that was also golden.
• He looked at me with serenity.
• And the procession of beings was my late father, who also wore a white tunic and I asked him telepathically what are you doing here since you have already died?
• He told me in like manner that he was in the world of the living, and that I came from the world of the dead on earth.
• This greatly surprised me and I remembered that I had come from earth and have left my three small children alone.
• I looked at the bearded man and asked him to allow me to return to be with them because they needed me.
• He agreed and told me I could go back.
• All of a sudden, I went to a place lower than the images on my left and saw a series of rocks in the sand jutting out into the sea.
• I saw myself sitting on the largest rock which was between the beach and the sea.
• I wore a white tunic that was semi transparent, decorated with twinkling gold stars, I was surprised to see myself pregnant since my marriage was not a happy one and the last thing I wanted was to be pregnant again.
• Suddenly there emerged from the sea, I only saw the upper half of his body, a beautiful being, quite young, of white complexion with very large turquoise blue eyes and golden curly hair.
• He smiled at me, and told me telepathically that he was my true husband and sent me his love.
• I felt infinite tenderness, I understood that the kind of love closest to divine love in this life is that which we feel for a small child.

I know, I know, I went too far
I know, I know, it's push to start
Now get the fuck out of my car, 'cause you don't know me

• As this wonderful feeling came over me, I heard within my heart a voice that said through love you will understand everything.
• The essence.  This was followed by a feeling of great peace mixed with joy within my soul.
• I sense that my life would change for the better and this has been the case ever since because I have a greater understanding of my life's true meaning.
• I then turned to see the light in the sky, a telepathic force poured a series of codes filled with millennial wisdom into my mind about creation, the world, my life, and that of all other beings that inhabit all universes, everything being eternal, spiritual life, everything belonging to it, and that the distinctions or differences that we make in this life are done out of ignorance or because we have forgotten this truth.
• As if by a giant magnet, the light drew me to it and I was submerged in its interior, where all there was was light.
• I forgot I had a body and felt fused with the light.
• At that moment, I experienced a feeling of unity and understood everything with extreme clarity.
• I discovered what reality is, and saw and understood with my consciousness so alert that it allowed me to comprehend everything with infinite perfection, without any doubt.
• From my heart sprang a feeling as if there were something I had always known but had forgotten, and that I cannot explain with words or human language.
• I felt like a co-participant in the creation of the world.
• These are just some of what I understood, remember and brought back with me to this day.

Yeah I'm going up tonight like I should know better
Faded focused on your eyes, know I'm a go-getter
Know it's colder on my side, we let the road wet up
Nights in a row get up, you know I know pressure

• One - we live in a plural unity, or oneness, in other words, our reality is unity in plurality and plurality in unity.
• Two - I was everything and everything was me, without essential differences other then in temporal appearances.
• Three - There is no external God, but God is in everything and everything in God, just as life itself.
• Four - There is no God outside ourselves, but is rather in everything and everything is a part of God as is life itself.
• Five - God is everything and nothing at the same time.
• Six - Everyone and everything are temporal phenomenon within this dimension is where it should be because it emanates from the blueprint of a shared dream.  If we can call it that, that is repeated indefinitely until we understand what is essential or real. 
• Seven - Everything is part of an essential game of life itself and to the degree that we live by true love, unconditional and universal, the closer we are to an understanding of what life truly is, which is true happiness and perfect wisdom.
• Eight - Everything is experienced in this life and the next are essentially the same because everything is God.  Nothing is outside of God, just as nothing is outside of life itself.
• Nine - Death is a metamorphosis of time.  One more illusion from our mental concepts, essentially time does not exist nor does space, they are illusions of our creative mind that plays a game of self deception in the creation of events.
• Ten - We are like a mirror where we perceive the refection of our reality in its many facets and illusions.
• Eleven - The creator is eternal creating and one of the creations is the practice of conscious love.  One learns to paint by painting, that's why this temporal human illusory creation exists as though it were a matrix within another matrix, and this within another multidimensionally until we wake up.
• Twelve - I experienced something that can't be transmitted with words, but that can be expressed as the essence of life is its total nothingness.  Please understand, nothingness as something that has no intrinsic substance but is rather constructed by a multitude of phenomena which in turn are formed by another untold multitude of phenomena to the point of infinity.  I understood that intangible, indescribable life is all that exists - there is no death, it's only a description to show the polarities in the world of phenomena.
• Thirteen - Consciously living by love is the essence of life itself and is made manifest or materializes in this plane of existence as a cohesive force to recreate itself in multiple forms as a game in which nothingness recreates itself in temporary illusory events.
• Fourteen - The known universe is a fraction of infinite reality that by love has become finite pieces in our temporal hands.
• Fifteen - I learned thousands of other things without end and it is difficult to express in words because words are insufficient, they can't describe what I experienced in this other state of consciousness that was much clearer than this one.

Came up, came up, came up
Drip, drip, dripping gold metal
Got us, got us falling like rose petals
Got us, going crazy we won't settle
Got us, got us falling like rose petals (rose petals)

• When I returned to this life I felt I had fallen into a very heavy space, and that my body was as lead and my mind was the same and very slow.
• I saw my loved ones, family and friends as if they were nothing to me.
• They were only reflections in the great theater of life and each one voluntarily agreed to play a part to learn more and better how to love.
• I spoke with them to tell them about my experience and they looked at me as though I were crazy.
• I realized they didn't understand what I was saying to them.
• Little by little, my experience grew faint, but there appeared many new special experiences of telepathy and intuition developed between others such as voluntary out of body experiences and involuntary bilocation.  
• I especially cannot control the later and I would like to know using conventional language how this phenomenon happens.
• I only know that everything is eternal, pure consciousness and that we are in a mental dream that is permanently being constructed as a dynamic of consciousness that knows itself and recreates itself through each one of us, that we are the point of emptiness where the void or nothingness of the universe becomes aware of itself.
• It is really hard to explain this.
• I know that everything I saw originates from thoughts or the universal mind.
• It is projected in images and events that interact with lucid consciousness as an experience, and this whole experience is a part of the infinitude of that which is real on every plane or level of existence that we want to invent or divide into pieces so that our temporal mind can decipher despite its limitations.
• I believe I understood that what we call God is the silence of indescribable life that is in everything and everything is in it.
• As an analogy, we could use the image of steam converted into water then into ice.
• Once it is in that state, ice forgets that it is steam with its capacity for expansion.
• This is what happens to us in this plane of consciousness.
• I believe I understood that what we call God is the silence of indescribable life, that is in everything and in which everything exists or is within it.
• A marvelous loving and conscious eternity.
• I feel that all the images that were created in my mind during this experience before entering into the light are symbolic thoughtforms of something perhaps more profound that could serve in support of a translation of that which is an essential experience.
• It is impossible to explain with our limited human language, yet I am now trying to decipher it little by little.
• I noticed a change in the speed my mind worked and developed my intuition or universal perception of life.
• It is difficult to translate with my physical brain that which is essential or infinite with conventional language.
• Perhaps through the art of telepathic communication, soul to soul, it can be done.
• I will continue trying to do this and will try to see if someone who has experienced the the same phenomenon, or who has had a similar experience has another part of the verbal puzzle..
• I will conclude by saying, from but one piece of clay, may forms can be made.  All mental designs crystalize in fleeting forms of nothingness.

Twenty more, I'm 'bout to pull up all alone
Couldn't find my favorite chain, but I'm still dripping in gold
Out here coping with the pain, through the lanes we on the go
When I needed you the most
When you end up like a ghost
Sometimes I wish you would've left me in the cold out on the coast
Now we found a way to float through the waves on our own

Edited July 10, 2022 by Loba

[Giulio Bevilacqua]

Thank you. This stuff is so fascinating to read 

[Loba]

Quote

So you left a hole
A hollow sack beside my bones
I picture you calling
I am only watching
My thought

Notes:

• We're going to talk about the void today, it's about the void, that is to say, a sense of complete and utter darkness.
• To many religious folks this can sound a little scary because it sounds like a form of outer darkness, but that doesn't seem to be what it is at all.
• To some people it is unpleasant, to some people it is very pleasant and to most people it's somewhat benign, it's kind of like an in between place that maybe a brief moment or it may feel like it goes on for a long time.
• This experience was a case where they were pronounced dead and placed in a morgue before they came back.

The time is rolling by without you
I'm holding on and waiting for a change
I'm only lost because I found you
If I could then I would
Go where you are
If I could then I would
Go where you are

• The first thing I remember about my near death experience is that I discovered myself in a realm of total darkness.
• I had no physical pain, I was still aware of my existence, and all about me there was darkness, utter and complete darkness.
• The greatest darkness ever.  Darker than any dark, blacker than any black.  This was what surrounded me and pressed upon me.
• I was horrified, I wasn't prepared for this at all.  I was shocked to find that I still existed, but I didn't know where I was.
• The one thought that kept rolling through my mind was how can I be when I'm not?  That is what troubled me.
• Slowly I got a grip on myself and began to think about what had happened, what was going on, but nothing refreshing or relaxing came to me.
• Why am I in this darkness, what am I to do?
• Then I remembered Descartes famous line, "I think therefore I am."  And that took a huge burden off me.
• For it was then I knew for certain I was still alive, although obviously in a very different dimension.
• Then I thought, "If I am, why shouldn't I be positive?" That is what came to me. "I am in darkness but I know I am, I am what I am, I must not be negative."
• Then I thought, "How can I define what is positive in darkness?  Well, positive is light."
• Then suddenly I was in light, bright, white, shining and strong, a very bright light.
• It was like the flash of a camera, but not flickering.  That bright.

I'll go where
Where you are
Go where
Where you are
Go where
I'll go where
Where you are
Where you are

• Constant, brightness.  At first I found the brilliance of the light painful, I couldn't look directly at it.  But little by little I began to relax.  I began to feel warm, comforted and everything suddenly seemed fine.
• The next thing that happened was that I saw all these molecules flying around, atoms, protons, neutrons, just flying everywhere.
• On the one hand it was totally chaotic, yet what brought me such great joy was that this chaos also had its own symmetry.  
• This symmetry was beautiful, and unified and whole, and it flooded me with tremendous joy.
• I saw the universal form of life and nature, laid out before my eyes.
• It was at this point that any concern I had for my body just slipped away because it was clear to me that I didn't need it anymore, that it was actually a limitation.
• Everything in this experience merged together, so it was difficult for me to put an exact sequence to events.
• Time as I knew it came to a halt.  Past, present and future were somehow fused together for me in the timeless unity of life.
• At some point I underwent what has been called the life review process, for I saw my life from beginning to end, all at once.
• I participated in the real life dramas of my life, almost like a holographic image of my life going on before me.
• No sense of past, present or future.  Just now, and the reality of my life.
• It wasn't as though it started with birth and ran along to my life at the university of Moscow, it all appeared at once.  There I was, there was my life.
• I didn't experience any sense of guilt or remorse for things I had done, I didn't feel one way or the other about my failures, faults or achievements.
• All I felt was my life for what it was, and I was content with that.
• I accepted my life for what it was.
• During this time, the light just radiated a sense of peace and joy to me.
• It was very positive.
• I was so happy to be in the light, and I understood what the light meant.  I learned that all the physical rules for human life were nothing when compared with the universe, with this unitive reality.
• I also came to see that a black hole is only another part of that infinite which is light.
• I came to see that reality is everywhere, that it is not simply the earthly life, but the infinite life.
• Everything is not only connected together, everything is also one, so I felt a wholeness with the light, a sense that all is right with me and the universe.
• I could be anywhere instantly, really there.  I tried to communicate with the people I saw, some sensed my presence but no one did anything about it.
• I felt it necessary to learn about the Bible and philosophy, you want, you receive.  Think and it comes to you.
• So I participated, I went back and lived in the minds of Jesus and his disciples, I heard their conversations, experienced eating, passing wine, smells, tastes, yet I had no body.
• I was pure consciousness.
• If I didn't understand what was happening, an explanation would come, but no teacher spoke.
• I explored the Roman empire, Babylon, the times of Noah and Abraham, any era you can name I went there.
• So there I was, flooded with all these good things and this wonderful experience.

I lay on my back
The stars above my head move fast
The night keeps me going
'Cause I know your sky is spinning
The same

Edited July 11, 2022 by Loba

[Loba]

Quote

•  

My Night with The Beast aka How to Cut a Cord

“There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast. . . . Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! . . . You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are the way they are?” - The Beast; Lord of the Flies

• Trigger warning: This story contains scenes of rape, abuse and attempted murder.  Do not read if you are sensitive to such material.  I've written it to come to terms with some things from my past, to understand my hatred of men, to reconcile with the atrocities and abuses that happen in the world and to come to understand that despite all of that - why am I somewhat attracted to it?  What is its appeal?  I want to understand why a part of me thinks I deserve mistreatment and where that comes from, and how my insecurities play into this.  I've drawn inspiration from my personal experiences, accounts from other women and a bit of embellishment and imagination.

Tired eyes echo tired lives
We’ve worked ourselves to the bone each night
To keep ourselves crawling back inside
Fingernails are broken down
Our limbs are torn out
Hearts are crowned
With the sorrow of a decade of decay

Our waxen wings have let us down again
Like Icarus, we flew into the sun
The pride in our eyes was our only disguise
And now we lie here broken and alone

It happened last month during the night of a full moon.  I was taking a hike on a trail that I use regularly and decided that day that I would go a bit further and it took longer than expected.  By the time I was halfway back down the mountain, it was dark out.  I knew this trail and had followed it many times and the moon offered extra lighting and so I had a false sense of security.  I did not have anything on me and I brought no one with me, although my family knew that I was making this hike as I do it nearly every weekend.  I heard a rustling sound in the bushes behind me just beyond the trail and at first I thought it was an animal, but then I heard the sound of fast, heavy footsteps racing towards me and before I could turn around, something large and heavy knocked me to the ground.  The wind was knocked out of me and I found myself on my stomach on the forest floor, wrestling with what felt to me at the time to be a very large man.  He ripped off my yoga pants and tank top with his claws and raked into my skin in the process.  I tired to turn around to kick him off of me, but he had one hand on my back, pinning me down and I couldn't move.  I tried calling for help and screaming, but I knew no one would be out on the trail at this time of night.  My clothes were laying around me, shredded.  I felt the tip of something press against me and in an instant my body was collapsed into it, like a knife cutting into butter.  I had never in my life felt a pain that sharp, that obtrusive.  I screamed.  My lower body started to convulse, trying to push him out of me.  He did it again.  I screamed again and clawed at the dirt from under me, writhing, flailing, panicking.  My heart felt like it would beat right out of my chest.

This is when I realized that what I was dealing with wasn't entirely human.  I felt long, sharp jaws grasp across my entire neck.  I could feel his wet, heavy breath collecting moisture in my tangled hair, on the back of my neck and I knew if I continued to move around that he would bite into me and I would be done for, so I stayed as still as possible.  A large amount of adrenaline was running through me and the pain from his thrusts eventually gave way to a sense of numbness.  I tried to focus on my environment.  Anything to get out of my mind, to try and pretend that what was happening was not indeed happening.  I breathed in slowly the cool summer air and concentrated my vision on the black forest in front of me and tried to look into what was there.  I concentrated on the feeling of the needles moving under my swaying body, and the softness of the dirt and tried to ignore the sounds of his pants, the slick, wet sounds of his movements.  The numbness gave way to a warming sensation that started in my cervix and spread throughout my body in waves.  It was a welcome sensation to the sharp, splitting pain that I was experiencing only minutes before.  I felt like I would black out and tried to focus in on this sensation and everything around me, which I was more acutely aware of.  It felt like with each movement I was hitting a ball of flesh, that he was trying to press into me, but it wouldn't fit.  I felt my skin start to split and it finally tore and he inserted it inside of me.  If I could feel any pain at all, I would have screamed like a caught rabbit, but luckily it gave way with as much ease as the clothes that were torn off my body.

He turned us on our side and put one hand on my belly and another cross my mouth.  The air smelled so sweet in between his leathery fingers.  I felt dwarfed, stuck like a pig on this giant's body.  There was the sensation of a slow drip of warm liquid that filled what little space there was left inside of me.  He pressed his wet nose up to my ear and whispered, gruffly, almost sweetly, as if he hadn't just been my rapist, "There is no cure Annie..." 
I didn't know what he meant.  My mind was left to fill in the blanks.
"There is no cure Annie..."
...To your shitty life.  Your spirituality is at a standstill and hasn't gone anywhere in years.  You cling to old experiences and rehearse them in your mind in the hopes that they will provide the key to your development as a person, but all you end up doing is muddying the waters.  Do your experiences even mean what they did originally or have you gone over them so many times that they've devolved into an egoic shit show of hopes and dreams that will never play out?  God has abandoned you.  You deserve this.
"There is no cure Annie..."
...The one thing that could have saved your life from all of this, from your inevitable self destruction, is your beauty and you're getting older and it's fading.  The medicine caused you to gain weight and you'll never have the figure you used to have.  You never did anything with yourself, with your life.  You're useless and overly dependent on the people around you and you do nothing but cause problems for them and you focus solely on yourself.  You deserve this.
"There is no cure Annie..."
...You hope that if you're just good enough, if you can turn the tide at the last minute that you'll be granted a second chance in a better life, but this is all you'll get.  You're blacking out and you might never wake up again.  There might be nothing there on the other side.  It's just you and The Beast, engrained as an experience that will live on in the ripples of time as your only legacy.  And they'll find the remains of your body tomorrow, ripped up, torn and eaten, strewn across the trail.  They might remember you for a time, before everything that you ever were fades away into the obscurity of nothingness.  There is no heaven for you.  There is no hell for you.  Only Now, and you deserve this.
"There is no cure Annie..."  
The ground around me feels as if it is spinning and I can't retain consciousness any longer.  I dissolve into what feels to be the deepest sleep of my life.

The next morning I wake up - surprised that I am still alive - to the sound of bugs flying around my body, feeding on the blood from my scratches that adorns my stomach, my back, legs and arms.  I sit up and look around, feeling disoriented.  I've been down this trail so many times before, but I feel confused and have no idea where I'm at.  I stand up and a large volume of blood-red tinted semen pours out of me, down my inner thighs and legs and burns where I've been torn up.  My inner organs and cervix feel bruised and I take a few moments to breathe deeply so that I don't get sick.  I look around for my shoes, but they're missing and the clothes that I was wearing are irreparably torn up, so I leave them there and continue heading down the mountain.  I know somewhere along the trail there is a large pond that I can bathe in.  The sun is shining in between the heavy foliage and I look up at it while walking down the trail and try to formulate a sentence, but my mind has gone blank.  "There is no... there is... no..."  After about twenty minutes of walking I spot the pond and make my way down carefully to its banks.  I look into the water and take a deep look at my reflection.  The light is gone from my eyes.  I can both see deeply into my soul and also right past it.  The woman that I was, that I will be, that I could have been is gone and is replaced by a husk.  There's no one home anymore.  Perhaps there never was anyone home to begin with.
"There is no cure Annie..."
I say it to myself.  For the first time since I've woken up, I can formulate a sentence.  I've internalized all of it, every negative thing that a person can think about themselves and have made it a part of me.  I sit on the edge of the bank and scoop up some water from the center of my reflection and rub it on my inner thighs and legs before moving onto the cuts and scrapes on my abdomen.  After cleaning off the blood and cum from my front side, I try to reach my back but I ache too much to twist around too far and decide to wade out into the water, rest on my back and push against the edge with my feet.  I float towards the center of the pond, where the sun is shining and the mixture of the cold water on my back and the warm sun on my belly feels nice.  I'm thoughtless and I feel free and I think to myself that this must be what death is like, weightless, without any pressure, just floating with the current.  I stay like this for an uncountable amount of time before the sounds of a group of people off in the distance break my concentration.
"Annie, are you okay?"
"Annie can you hear us?"

 

It's been a month and I am walking through the forest trail again.  It's dark.  I've brought with me a second change of clothes in a small bag and a large dagger.  I feel conflicted.  I don't know whether or not I want to let this thing fuck me or if I should kill it.  On the one hand, it was the most honest interaction that I have ever had with a male.  I realize that the Beast runs through the hearts of all men, and I see their thinly veiled attempts at keeping it hidden or conquering what is inside of them.  The world has never been equal.  It's never been about men and women, it has always been about predator and prey.  We pretend that it's all on equal grounds, but one sex will always be stronger, more logical, more cold blooded.
When I was with the Beast, a part of me felt that this was simply the natural order of things.  That for who I was and what I had done, that it's where I belonged and the extinguishment of my identity that followed the act was something that I had been searching most of my life for.  I wasn't a woman.  I wasn't even a human.  I was nothing but the ever flowing, ever changing current of time.
And yet, the other part of me thinks of the brutal acts committed by the Beast, the rapes, the beatings, the blind objectification.  The world is set up to gratify the whims of men and women are nothing more than meat on the market.  I think of the wars waged in the name of the Beast, the destruction of tenderness and of femininity in the wake of a sick society of which there is no cure.  I think of my naivety in my youth, thinking that people were interested in who I am and not knowing that I was a temporary subject of the meat market, not understanding why I found myself being used by the Beast.  I think of my sisters, my daughters, my friends and mothers - all subject to the same treatment.  It's a man's world.  There's no denying it.  There is no running from it.  And I don't know whether I should accept it, to take this role or to do my part in destroying the Beast.  How did it even know my name?...
There's a clearing on the trail and I stop and set down my bag and inspect the blade of the dagger in the moonlight.  I let the light reflect off of it.  It looks beautiful.  I picked it out just for this purpose...
There's a rustling behind me in the brush and then the familiar sound of heavy footsteps.  I grip the dagger's handle firmly in my hand.  I've made my decision and there's no turning back now.

You came for blood (Tarantino)
You kill me love (Al Pacino)
The way you lie to me tell me that it feels
Just like it used to
Love versus lust
Never enough (How will we know)
Take off the glove (Let it free you)
And when you ride with the devil and your
Soul blows out the window
Lay in the dust

And I'll take this bitter truth
Always was your tool
Never once for me always for you
Like a lock without a key
Just another causality
Losing who I am for who I'll be

If I was not enough
Then you were too much

Under the gun (Need a prayer now)
Suffocate my lungs (Losing faith now)
In my movie watching myself die before
The end scene
Lay me to rest
Numb with the drugs (Lose my way now)
Stay on the run (It's a shake down)
When you ride w the devil in ya soul
Blow out the window
Lay in the dust

And I'll take this bitter truth
Always was your tool
Never once for me always for you
Like a lock without a key
Just another causality
Losing who I am for who I'll be

If I was not enough
Then you were too much

 

[Loba]

Quote

FOMO - A relatable archaic tale, also an old dream of mine:

I thought I felt the sun
I thought I saw your face
But I'll never see the world
Behind the star gates

There used to be an old handmade shack behind the forest trail at the high school I went to when I was a kid that everyone would congregate in to smoke cigarettes and weed, and this dream takes place in that shack.  I had taken up permanent residence in it, sequestered myself off from the world, and inside it was a large white mansion with practically nothing inside of it other than a white room, a metal spiraled staircase that went up to a single, plain, large bedroom with wooden floors and a bed that overlooked the ocean.  It looked like a shack from the outside, but it was actually a portal to a completely different world inside and I claimed it as my own private space and did my best not to allow anyone to enter.  At the bottom of the staircase, in the large white room, many vines were growing up the walls and weeds were starting to take root.  I would spend most of my time carving sconces that had no lights into the walls of the mansion, just making the same carving motions over and over again, day after day.  I had planned to add light to the walls, that the whole interior would be filled up after I had completed my single-minded, repetitive task.  I had finished all of the sconces on the bottom of the mansion and was working my way up the staircase.
Occasionally people would try to enter into the shack from the side of the real world, and I would push on the door to keep them from entering, calling out, "Just go away!"  Sometimes a group of people would manage to open the doors and I would fly down from the banister and blow a wave of toxic air onto them and the flesh from their bones would melt right off, leaving nothing but a bunch of bare skeletons.

I thought I felt the sun
I thought I saw your face
As I walked in the dark of the moon
But I'll never see the world
Behind the star gates
Locked away light years from you

This time, a man made of black smoke entered my sanctuary.  Because he was made of smoke, he was able to go right through the door.  He seemed to be made of multiple consciousnesses and as he spoke, a new face would replace the old one, creating a hushed, echoed sound, where the replaced face was the loudest, followed by the whispers of the ones that were overlayed behind it.  Like turning the pages of a book.  I was working on a sconce on the side of the wall, close to my bedroom.  I was almost done with the staircase and had planned to make these pores all around the outside of my room, but to leave the room as bare as possible.  The smoke-man was very curious about my place, and I could hear from him, verbally and telepathically, as his curiosity swept across every inch of my home, "What's this-this-this?  What's this-this-this?  Interesting-esting-ing..."
I flew down in a panicked fury and tried to dissolve his body, but being made of smoke, there was no flesh to dissolve.  I pleaded with him to turn around as he slowly made his way up the staircase, inspecting everything with an overbearing curiosity.  I would try to force him back, and he would go right through me.  Realizing that I couldn't get rid of him, and feeling worried that he would reach my room, I flew back to the top of the stairs, went into my room and inverted the contents of all of it into my heart.  After I did this, there was a large hole where the room used to be.  I was floating above the ocean from where I had just stood and took off, straight forward across the body of water as quickly as I could.  I looked behind me and could see that my mansion on this side of reality was in the shape of a gigantic conch shell, the size of a very large mountain, and all around the porcelain white surface of the shell were little indentations that I had carved out there as well, so that I could also add more light to the outside of it.

I thought I felt the sun
I thought I saw your face
As I walked in the dark of the moon
But I'll never see the world
Behind the star gates
Locked away light years from you

I remember skimming across the water as I flew at a breakneck speed.  There wasn't any land for miles and miles.  Eventually I spotted an island that had a very tall wooden fence all cross the outside of it, and a short little elf-like man guarding the entrance.  I didn't want to deal with him, so I walked around the shore of the island looking to see if I could find a way inside.  When I circled the island and found no way in, I turned into a white wolf and dug into the sand and pulled myself in to the other side from under the thin hole I'd dug.  What was on the other side was rows and rows of tiny little Victorian-style houses, adorned with ivy, sitting on top of cute, perfectly manured little lawns, rows and rows of them, one after the other.  The little neighborhood looked so perfect, I thought for a while that I could set up shop here instead and that perhaps no one would bother me, but upon further inspection, the ivy was fake, the lawn was made of plastic and the houses were build from cheap plywood.  This gave me an uneasy feeling, like you get when you see something crossing the uncanny valley line, and I turned into a wolf again and dug back under the fence and when I did this, I didn't find myself on the island, but a beautiful pine forest in the middle of winter time.
It was so pristine, there was untouched snow everywhere.  I stayed in my wolf-form, and walked up a mountain and took it all in.  The stunning, perfect, quiet beauty of the forest.  This must certainly be what I was looking for all along.  As I made my way up the slanted trail, I noticed a cabin off to my right.  It was a two-level a-frame cabin with one giant window.  It looked a bit worn down, but not too much.  I went inside and looked around.  Everything inside was in perfect order and looked as though someone lived there.  They had great taste in design, the kitchen was very modern.  Off to the left of the kitchen was a meditation room that looked over the giant window, that looked over the front yard of the forest.  There was a shelf that went along the middle of the room that had a lot of nick-nacks on it, and the entire floor was adorned with a huge mediation cushion, a lot of pillows, and blankets.  There were also two skeletons sitting in this room, still wearing their clothes.  I took it to mean that the owners of the place had passed on and that I could use the cabin for a while, so I took them outside and rested them against the side of the cabin next to a pile of chopped logs, went back in and meditated on the cushion for two entire seasons without moving.  The snow melted, grass grew, there were deer and squirrels and bugs in the air, the sun rose and set and rose again.

I thought I felt the sun
I thought I saw your face
As I walked in the dark of the moon
But I'll never see the world
Behind the star gates
Locked away light years from you

After two seasons of this, I realized that this wasn't where I was supposed to be, but I did feel more peaceful and wise after all those months of meditation.  I turned into a wolf again, left the cabin and went back down the mountain.  The trees were green, the weather was lovely and I could hear all sorts of birds chirping and the buzzing sounds of insects.  I found the entrance to the gated community and dug another hole under the fence, found myself back in uncanny valley and took a look around to see if anything had changed.  Nothing.  No one seemed to be living here, either.  I walked from one side of the community to the other, dug a second hole and found myself on the other side of the fence, but back on the island.  I took a deep breath and jettisoned across the ocean water, back towards my mountain-shell.  I figured that it had been enough time, and that the smoke-man was most likely gone.  This was the only place that I had set up for myself that felt right and I didn't want to abandon it.  Nothing else had the same feel to it, it didn't feel like it belonged to me.  I spent what seemed to be a longer time getting back there than it took to leave and when I arrived, I noticed that there were thick tendrils of black smoke coming out from the hole where I had taken my room with me, which was still located for safe keeping within my heart.  I could sense a panic and agitation coming from what was inside, but I was worried that I would be overcome by this black smoke if I went inside and soared around the mountain-shell trying to figure out another way to get in.
As I was moving across it's surface, I realized that I wanted to take this smoke, which looked like of like tendrils of calligraphy ink, and to place them in each of the sconces that I had carved on the outside of the mountain.  It would be a shell, with millions of these filled with the black-ink-like substance.  There was no underlying reasoning for it, I just wanted to know what his smoke would look like if it covered the surface of the mountain in this way.  I felt as though it would have an aesthetically pleasing quality to it and that it could make a statement, but by the time I was able to fly around the entire shell, my energy ran out and I began to fall down towards the ocean.

I'll never see the world
Behind the star gates

With the last of my energy, I opened my heart to my room and bubbled myself inside of it, and it crashed into the water and sank slowly.  In that moment, I knew that this would be the end.  I would sink, and die from the lack of food or oxygen, and felt a semblance of wicked irony that at the last minute, that I knew what I wanted to do with this smoke and that I would have welcomed the man into my home if only I had been inspired at the right time.  But this isn't what happened.  Instead I was sinking, right below my mountain, right below the hole that I had made in it, right below the dark tendrils reaching out to signify their own loss, and I sat on the edge of my bed, in my plain little wooden room and put my head in my hands and watched as the water outside of my window grew darker and darker as I sunk deeper and deeper before I hit the ocean floor with a thud.

You caused the rain, I brought you pain
But you're the only one that could save me
You caused the rain, I brought you pain
But you're the only one that could save me
Oh save me, please save me
You caused the rain, I brought you pain
But you're the only one that could save me
Oh save me

Sometimes I hit you with a dial tone
You're right but then I say you're wrong
Sometimes I drink too much caffeine
Or go to sleep like I'm Delpo Movin

There's a light, there's a light in your window
There's a light, there's a light in your window
There's a light, there's a light in your window
There's a light, there's a light in your window

Sometimes I leave you come along
Sometimes there's skeletons in my bones
And that I drink way too much
Come home I'll hit you with the sucker punch

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Loba

[Loba]

Quote

"Eat it, Annie" - Another detailed dream in my small collection of dreams that my memory decided to hold onto, for whatever reason.  I think that they must in some sense be relationship ideals, working through death experiences and coming to understand aspects of my sexuality.  I've given it some thought, I don't want a relationship, I don't know what I was on about for the past week or so.  Just being weird.  I still don't really trust them as a feasible option for me, and I'm kind of liking the idea of being a writer who comes up with interesting stories, but never shows their face or any indication of who they are and is left completely to the imagination.  Also, I still strongly feel as though I have a soul family and a soul partner that I will meet on the other side - I would like to build my life purpose around conscious dying, so that when the time comes I am in good shape for it, karmically.  For this lifetime, I'm just going to get out what it is I want, what I've been repressing so that when I am ready for it in another plane of existence, that there isn't a lot of garbage to work through.  I have made a choice, and because it is my own, I no longer feel bitter or resentful anymore - it's my choice, what is there to feel badly about? - and I feel a bit embarrassed for having any strong emotions about it in the first place, but we can't always help what we feel; I also feel hopeful for the next chapter that my soul will take.
So here's my story.

There's a spiderweb where we used to live
By the front door, and I'm wondering if
An itsy bitsy part of me got lost in it

I remember that I had been wandering around a rich neighborhood for a long while and it was starting to get dark.  I didn't have any memory of who I was, and felt just randomly placed in this spot for some reason.  I had spent hours wandering around, but couldn't get past certain points in the neighborhood because I was corralled from going any farther by what looked to be an intense, black void.  There simply wasn't anywhere to go.  I would follow the street lights and sing from my heart into the darkness - which would create a light that emanated from my heart - to see if I could glean something from it but it seemed to be an absolutely impenetrable nothingness and there wasn't anything I could do.
I noticed an open window in the basement to one of these large houses and squeezed into it and passed a small, dingy room, and then walked up some stairs into a really ornate kitchen and diningroom with a long table that had all sorts of beautiful china plates set out with all sorts of really delicious food.  A lot of sweets, pastries, and things like this.  There were bowls that had tiny, well designed little stuffed animals in them as well, they almost looked like plush replicas of the real thing.  I took large amounts of the food and kept eating, walking around the table and trying everything.  I felt so hungry, and although I could taste the food, it didn't satiate me at all, so I kept eating and eating.  I had an olive coloured bag with me, and put a lot of food and a few stuffed animals into it - a wolf and a fox.  I could hear the sound of someone coming in through the front door, and so I opened the window in the dining room, jumped out and flew away.

When I got outside, it was dark out and I followed the street lights back down towards the bottom of the hill, where the houses were much smaller and wandered around for the entire night, trying to find my way out of this maze of houses.  I was completely lost, and still corralled into the area by a darkness that didn't seem to have anything going past it.  I would walk down a street, only to find myself moving closer towards this blackness, until the light behind me was the only thing keeping me from getting lost in the dark and so I would turn around and try a different street.
While waiting by a stop sign, trying to decide how I was going to handle this situation - not having a place to go, not remembering who I was, not being able to move any farther - I was starting to come to terms with the fact that I was dead and that this was a bardo state that I was stuck in - a young man called out to me and asked me if I was alright.  He said he noticed me walking by this same spot many times throughout the night and wanted to know if I was okay.  I told him that I wasn't familiar with the area and didn't know where I was at.  I told him that I couldn't move any farther than the neighborhood on this hill because there was nothing beyond it, it was like the rest of the entire world had been erased.  He told me that he would take me back to his house and that we would decide on what to do from there.  I asked him if he was able to move beyond the hill and if there was anything there and he said, "Of course.  There's a whole city here.  I don't know why you can't access it, but I will take you to my place and we can figure it out."  So I followed him back up the hill.  He decided to walk the whole way, but I grew tired of walking, tucked my feet up and floated the rest of the way beside him.  We didn't really say very much to one another, but I found myself inspecting his face a lot.  He was good looking.  I liked him, and I liked that he was helping me.
When we got back to the top of the hill, back into the neighborhood that I had been in, I noticed that there was the house I had stolen from ahead of us.  I wanted to take him there and for him to try all of the foods that I'd found, so I floated ahead and took him by the hand and rushed him to the still open basement window.

And between the broken wings
All of the I love you's and the empty things
Somewhere in those silky strings
An itsy bitsy piece of me got lost

We both crawled through and the first thing we saw was the dingy room that I had passed on my first round.  I took a look inside and noticed a thin old mattress and some lace white sheets on a cheap metal bed frame and a small window at the top with some thin beige curtains that were discoloured by the sun.  The sun was starting to rise and I could see a band of light off on the horizon starting to form.
I decided I wanted to have sex with this person, and asked them to come into the room with me, which he agreed to do.  We sat under the window and kissed and I removed his clothes for him and took mine off as well.  As I straddled him, the door slammed behind me and I went to go open it, but it was stuck.  I looked at him and he said, "This isn't your home."
"I know, but I just wanted to show you some things, please...
"This isn't your home..."  He repeated.
In a fury, I walked over to the bed, laid in it and began to languish around in the sheets, while water started to flood the floor.  I grew moss and lily pads in the water and they sprung up the wall, along my body and the bed as the water continued to rise.  He sat there on the floor, under the window, unmoving.  When the water reached his chest, I swam over to him, sat on him and looked at him in the face.
"Please...!"
"This isn't your home..."  I kissed him.  He reciprocated.  I pounded the wall behind him with my fists.  He didn't budge.  I bit him on the neck and snarled.  He didn't move an inch.  When the water finally reached his nostrils, the door buckled and blew open and the water rushed out in a giant wave, with me riding it.  I scrambled to get my footing and then ran out, down the hallway on all fours.  I could hear him crashing behind me, running after me.
At the end of the hallway was a massive indoor waterfall that had a wooden bridge that crossed over it.  At the bottom of the drop, there were all sorts of ferns growing in between rocks, and a body of water that was almost the size of a lake.  I scrambled across the wooden bridge - it was quite slick - digging my nails into the wood for extra traction.  The material of the bridge changed into a slippery stainless steel material and I flattened myself down in the middle to keep from sliding over the edge.  In an instant, he tackled me and I went sliding a ways down the line.
He repeated to me, "This isn't your home.  It's MY home!"

I wish it wasn't on my way
I wish I didn't have to see it everyday
Maybe it's the way it's supposed to be
This old house keeps haunting me
Maybe it's all a sign I need
To a light the spark

I immediately realized the error of my ways and tried to apologize, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!  I didn't know!"  He grabbed me by the waist and stuck it in me.
"This is what you wanted, right?  You can't lie to me, I can read your mind..."  I tried to scramble away, but I couldn't get my footing on the surface of the bridge and kept toppling over my own limbs.  I looked to my right and saw that the waterfall was inching closer towards us.  He kept me stuck there on him, unmoving for a few minutes until a torrent of water enveloped us in a mini hurricane that made the flooding of the room look pale in comparison.  He had in his chest what felt to be a black hole, or a magnetic force and I could feel my back being pinioned to and sucked into his heart cavity.  There was so much water coming down that I couldn't see past a few inches.  I wanted to run away from him, but in the moment he also provided a good buffer to the onslaught of rain falling down on us.

"This is my heart, my love, my soul... to think that a human such as yourself could ever flood me out of my own place of residency."  The water continued to fall all around us and I backed myself deeper under him so that I had an area of space with which to breath.  I wondered how he was able to handle the torrent coming down all around him.  We stayed this way for maybe ten minutes before the rain began to lighten.  I sensed for the right time to move, and when his attention wavered slightly, I turned the material of the bridge back into wood, dug my claws in, unstuck myself from him and took off running at full speed.  I kept going without looking back until I found a doorway and shut it behind me and locked it.  I could hear his nails digging and pawing at the door, his snarls and hot breath on the other side.  I ran through a series of rooms, where each door lead to an entirely different themed space, and if I would use the same door again, it lead to another spot.  There was no consistency and I couldn't map my way around the house to know where I was going, I just hoped that one of these doors didn't open up to find him on the other side.

One of the spaces was a long metal corridor that overlooked a gigantic library.  There were large wires that pulsated with energy along the floor and I took it that this was the hallway that contained the life force of the house, that all the different rotating rooms were connected through this place.  There was a large wooden door at the very end of the corridor and I gingerly stepped over the gigantic cords, trying not to cause any damage to them.  When I got to the end and opened the door, there was an ornate red and mustard coloured bedroom, with a large king sized bed that had a plush red velvet comforter on it.  In the front of the room was a smaller room that housed a pretty bathroom that had a large mirror and walk in bathtub.  I took a quick look at myself in the mirror and inspected my image.  I am a human... I thought to myself.  So, then what is he?
I heard the sound of footsteps walking across the metal wires and went to quickly shut the door behind me, but it was too late, he found his way into the room.  I tried to turn around to clamber back over the bed to get some distance between us but he was on top of me again in an instant.

So, here I am with the match in hand
Hard to believe we used to dance
Spun me around these promised lands
So perfectly (yeah)

I felt the familiar sensation of my body being magnetically pinioned against his chest.  I was curious and terrified to know what was inside of his heart, it was such a strong force.  He took his fingers and placed a very small croissant at the entrance of my mouth.  I pursed my lips.  He whispered to me, "Since you like eating my food so much, I want you to eat it Annie..."  Tears streamed down my face.  I kept my lips pursed.  "Go on.  Eat it."  I shook my head.  He took his other hand, placed it across my jaw and popped my mouth open and shoved it in.  "Now chew.  Then swallow..."  I chewed the little pastry and swallowed it.  It was actually very good.  He put his fingers into my mouth and told me to suck on them, so I did.  I was curious to know if his fingers tasted humanly, or if, being something else entirely, if his skin tasted weird.  There was no flavour other than some slight residue from the pastry.  I felt guilty and ashamed for expecting help from this creature, only to have him break into his own home after stealing from him.

He pulled me all the way up onto the bed and spooned me, but didn't do anything to me other than feel all across my body with his hands, and chewed on my earlobes and neck a little bit.  I felt passive in his arms and let him enjoy himself.  I focused on the magnetic sensation coming from his chest that had hooked me into him.  It felt like I was continuously moving inwards, but ultimately going nowhere at all, like I was a key that was being inserted into his lock.  I realized that this is what I wanted, I was just taken by surprise at the turn of events and didn't expect any of what was happening.  I asked him if he knew who I was.  He said he didn't know.  I asked him if he knew where I was.  He told me that I must have died and that this was an interim place for the souls of mankind to go before moving on.  That I must have gotten stuck there for some reason.  He told me that his kind lived here and came from and were made from the material that the dark partitions were made from, that the magnetism in his chest was the life force of the darkness that gave him animation.  He told me that he had a proclivity for lost human souls, that he set out a table every night to try and bring them to his home and that he would help them move on to wherever they needed to go when he found them.  He told me that he always wondered what it would be like to sleep with a human soul, to play with their precious little fragile spirits and was excited when I had made the decision to sleep with him.  He said he wanted to feed my mind and soul with valuable knowledge and stuff my belly with his food, and that he wanted to satiate his desires on the fragility of the human essence.  To take me almost to the end, to the edge of darkness, and then resuscitate me at the last minute again and again and again.  He said he was a strange entity, that most of his kind paid no mind to humans, they simply passed on from one realm to the other relatively unseen and unnoticed - but that he had a particular drive for them and had been hunting for human souls for quite a while, with only a few finding their way to him.  He had such a fascination with their fleeting lives, how they would move from one life to the next within such a short period of time, only to realize the grandiosity of their souls at the very end of the line - to do this over and over again.

I wrapped his arm around me and pushed myself as close as I could into him and fell asleep.  I made the decision to myself that I would break the cycle of life and death and stay in this place with him for a while, until he had enough of what he was looking for, and I was brave enough to take on another life, assuming that I would ever decide to do that again.

I wish it wasn't on my way
I wish I didn't have to see it everyday
Maybe it's the way it's supposed to be
This old house keeps haunting me
Maybe it's all a sign I need
To a light the spark

When I woke up, he was still resting beside me.  I left the bedroom and walked down the corridor.  I noticed that all the wires were inactive.  The house must be inert when he sleeps.  It took a little while to find my way back down to the hallway with the indoor waterfall, and when I did I wandered back down into the room that I flooded in the basement and moved the beige curtains took a look out of the window.  I could see the looming darkness off in the distance, and wondered what it was that creatures like this were made from.  After experiencing the energy in his heart, and seeing the dark partition off in the distance, it became so clear to me that they were one and the same.  He was this darkness.  He hadn't just made an entire home for me to find my way into, but he had encircled around me so that nothing was left but the neighborhood.  My soul was in stasis here, unable to leave.  I felt intimidated, but also thrilled.  I knew I would be safe here, but I knew that the thing that he was wasn't entirely safe in itself.

I left the basement, made my way back into the red and mustard coloured bedroom, crawled back into the bed and wrapped his sleeping form around me.  Heavy sleeper, I thought.  Because I had no history to fall back on, and didn't know where I was going either, where I had landed felt as good of a place as any.  I fell asleep in the arms of a demon in love, into the big black darkness, I let all of myself go and the substance within him that pulled every bit of me into its abyss and I was locked in.

I found my home.

Maybe it's the way it's supposed to be
This old house keeps haunting me
Maybe it's all a sign I need
To light the spark

You let your feet run wild
Time has come as we all, oh, go down
Yeah but for the fall, ooh, my
Do you dare to look him right in the eyes? Yeah

Oh, 'cause they will run you down, down 'til the dark
Yes and they will run you down, down 'til you fall
And they will run you down, down 'til you go
Yeah, so you can't crawl no more

 

[Loba]

Quote

"The Black Monolith"

This is a day without
A trace of reason
No matter where you turn

One day, a black monolith appeared in the ocean and disrupted the fabric of human civilization.  It was the size of a tall skyscraper and loomed over the city.  Every city, town, and culture had fallen to the hands of the monolith, that expelled an irresistible force to humans.  All of what once was was forgotten in an effort to get close to it, to press ones fingerprint at the highest point that a human could reach, and then their souls would slowly, over time be drained out, like a thin string of sand, barely noticeable, but always taking a bit of you with it.  Near the end of their lives they would be drug into its center, and completely unraveled.  It is said, that the higher up you got while pressing your finger to it, the greater the secrets of the universe were given to you as you unraveled into its infinite mystery.  The monolith was black, but had a radiating white force all around it that shone brightly on the water.
When I was a young girl, I had found my way to the scaffolding that was built around it, to allow those of a higher class to reach the top, while those of a lower class could only scramble around the bottom, and I had carefully pressed just the tip of my finger against the monolith.  Not enough to create a full connection, but enough that it had my life force and I too was one of the damned, destined to slowly be siphoned into its design, but at a much slower rate than most of the rest of civilization.

And the walls will fall
Affirming nothing
So what's it all about?

Because the string of life was a light, people in the city would take black colours and rub them on the finger that was expelling their essence.  It was difficult to find black paint, or even gasoline as everything that was black and liquid was used almost daily by the residents of the city.  You could tell when one was ready to be unraveled because they took on a very lifeless almost zombie-like state.  Every day, every hour, you could hear the screams of people as they whipped through the air, lead by their hand and you could witness them when they got to the monolith unfurling at the seams, like taking the peal off of an apple.  No one really wanted this, and once we had made contact with this thing, we knew we were prisoners, slaves, but the drive to become a part of it, to know all that you could at the end of the line, overrode nearly every human's line of reasoning.
I would spend my nights wandering around the city, looking for pools of oil left over by cars to rub my finger into.  It caused the flow of life force to trickle out at a slower pace.  I would wander around the streets, admiring the light from the windows, from the buildings off in the distance.  The city at night had the appearance of a more simplistic painting, but in its basic colour scheme, it was still quite stunning.  I felt as though I was walking through a work of art.
On one of these nights, I found some oil and looked at it intently.  The moon was shining on it, and this gave it's blackness a brilliant rainbow colour.  I looked up at the moon and found its warm glow to be very appealing.  I wanted some of it, just a small piece to remind me of it's beauty during the day.  So I took the tendrils of light emanating from the windows of the city buildings, as if the light itself was a taffy-like substance, and wrapped it around my legs and arms and pulled myself up, ever so slowly, and inched my way up to the moon.  The stringiness of it would pull me back down and I would have to move quickly, wrap the excess around my limbs and keep going.  Eventually I made my way to the top and I was able to reach the moonlight.  I extended my arm out, and took a small piece of it's warm, yellow glowing light and placed it into my hoodie's front pocket.  It was soft and malleable, like cookie dough.  I unbound myself from the glowing strings of the windows and tumbled down back towards the street below me.

Call on a bright star
Or play your hand as an intellect
Wounds always speak too loud

I wandered around the city for the entire night until morning rose and decided to walk out towards the beach.  There was a park there with a bench that I could sit on, that overlooked the monolith.  When the sun rose or set at a certain point, it would be placed perfectly over it, and I loved to look at it and question my life choices as the occasional screaming living corpse was foist into it's abyss. 
It was winter, and I liked that the gentle light of the moon kept my hands warm.  When I got to the beach, I noticed that there was a man sitting there who looked to be about my age - I was 23 at the time of having this dream.  He was tall, very thin, with a large hooked nose, brown skin and jet black hair.  I walked over to him and sat on the park bench next to him and watched the sun come up.  One thing about this dream is that the sun rose and set in the same spot, just across the ocean water.  So anyways, I sat with him and watched the morning sun rise over the water.  The park had an expanse of green grass, and bare winter trees, and then an extended beach down towards the water.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that he was playing with a shape of some sort.  He wasn't touching it with his fingers, it floated just above his hands, and he was maneuvering the rotating triangles inside of it.  The triangles seemed to go on forever inside of this thing, but I noticed that much of the detail was lost beyond the first few layers.  He didn't have a thing string emanating from either of his hands, either.  He was a free person.  Very rare.  I had never actually come across anyone that wasn't bound to the monolith.  I found him to be fascinating and observed him, the shape he was playing with, and the structure of his face for a long while out of the corner of my eye.  We didn't say anything to one another, but for both of us, it was a comfortable and laid back presence.  I felt somewhat self conscious about my own string, my own attachment and wished that I was free in the way that he was.  I was feeling tired and decided to go get a coffee at the Starbucks that was located just to the right side of the park.  I got up and left him there.

Get along for awhile
See the sin in the sea
How the innocent are bound to the damned
What is, just is, I know
So we're trapped by answers
Love haunts to the end

When I got to the coffee shop, I noticed that the worker there was a person who would soon be dragged in.  She looked tired and haggard, as if most of who she was had been sucked out of her and she was performing the same tasks over and over again in a very mechanical way.  Very little life left in her eyes.  When I got to the front of the line, I ordered a coffee and looked at the sweets and pastries that they were selling, but decided not to buy any.  I noticed that she had a lot of black dust on her fingertip, where her essence was being sucked out and assumed that she had been desperately trying to slow the progression of what was happening to her.  I knew that I was still young, and had time, but felt very uneasy knowing that this, too, would be my fate, as well as the fate of practically everyone else left on the planet.  I thanked her, took my coffee and went back outside and walked over towards the man sitting on the bench.
The shape he was working with was much larger this time, and it was floating about 6 feet off the ground, rotating in perfect symmetry.  I still couldn't see all the detail within it and wondered if I put the moon's light that I had in my pocket as far as I could go into it, if it would rotate like a taffy pulling machine and eventually allow all of the pieces to be seen.  I felt hesitant.  One the one hand, I was using the light as a comfort object, something to keep my hands warm, and I had worked pretty hard to get it, but on another hand, it also felt like it belonged in this contraption.  That I could help him with whatever he was making by contributing a bit of myself to it, and I felt that because he was a free man that whatever he was working on must be something extremely special.  So I set my coffee down on the ground beside the bench and took the bit of light that I had in my pocket, reached upwards towards the rotating shapes and stuck in inside.  Immediately, the light began to twist and pull and thin out along the details, illuminating them as it went all the way through.  The object itself shone very brightly.  All it took was a little bit of the moon's light.  

Are we all to ride
The edge of nothing?
Shake hands if I deny

I looked over to see what his expression was.  He was smiling.  I felt glad.  He looked at me for the first time and said, "Watch this..."  I looked back over towards the floating, rotating object and saw him raise it high above the air and expand it so that it was about seven or eight feet across.  I watched it glide over towards the ocean, and he placed it just above the top of the monolith.  The sun had almost risen to the top of the monolith as well, and when the sun's light hit the object, it shone through all the whirling parts and everything before me became fractalized and glowed.  It was very beautiful.  For a time, sitting next to this free man, looking at the thing that we had made together, while occasional souls whirled past us, screaming, hurling into the abyss, I felt like my life had meaning.  That everything was in alignment and I could accept my future.
Soon after, I heard a crashing come from the coffee shop and saw the barista that I had just met moments before being hurdling by her hand to her doom.  Or maybe it wasn't her doom?  Maybe it was the start of an entirely different mode of existence?  No one that was living actually knew what the souls were taught, or what they came to understand right before being brutally unraveled.  But it felt like the alignment was for her, for me, and for everyone who existed in these end times.

And if they don't know
Their heart is stopping
Cause everyone is right

Quote

The next day, after having this dream, I was working on a collage.  I'd been taking a lot of Adderall and was feeling inspired to do artwork nearly every day.  Looking back on it, the collage itself was kind of dorky - I still have it - but that's not the point.  The point is, this song came on the radio and it fit so perfectly with my dream, the shape on the album cover was so similar to what I'd seen in the dream, that I laid down on my shag rug in absolute awe of the lyrics.  They hit me like a ton of bricks.  It felt like I had come across them, that they were made for me at just the right moment in time.  I had purple paint on my finger tips.  I took them and placed them on the collage, as a symbolic gesture, an ode to what others had done with the monolith, and when this particular quote was spoken - it shook me to the core.

From the moment that we're born
Till we're old and tired out
Do we ever know people?

I think about these words often, even now.  We spend our whole lives working and living among people, their lives are as frail and as glued to the monolith as our own.  But do we ever really see them?  How can we see them?  To what extent, if you spend your whole life coming to try to understand another person - how much of it goes missed, completely under the radar?  In a way, we are islands to ourselves, in a sea of other people.  And the only thing that really connects us all together is that it's going to someday end, outside of our control.  Do we ever truly love one another, or do we love the images, the ideas and ideals that we place over others?

 

I heard the news today
That you're not mine to keep
Don't struggle too much now
While I kill you in your sleep
What is lust if it's not beating by yourself?
I won't be gentle to the body on the shelf

It's only water, it's only fire, it's only love
It's only slaughter, we're only liars, it's only blood
They're only thoughts that
I'm having thoughts safe within my head
You're only crying, you're only dying, you're only dead

 

[Loba]

 

Tina is such an accurate mood.  Taking an interim from more formal posts for a week or two...
I've been sick for the past few days with a cold, so while in bed I've been working on my demon-guy fantasy - how I want it to play out for my bardo scene.  Sometimes when life gets stressful or lonely, I like to fall back into a little world for a while, right before bed and right when I wake up and expand upon it.

What I've got so far - in the astral plane, when human souls are being returned back to their place of origin, some of them get caught in the gravity of this planet.  It is made of dark material/miasma, but functions similarly to the human realm - except that things are more easily manifest here - the beings here often hunt for their own food in the astral, beings/animals made of light.  They are taken, ground or chopped and made into good foods that don't spoil.  Everything is put together using a kind of collective imagination, there are still streets to walk down - no cars, plants and things such as this - cities and neighborhoods, but it isn't as thick of a realm as planet earth and things are a bit more malleable.

So anyways, some get caught in the gravity of this planet on the way back to their own dimension, and are usually treated as a normal, but uneventful phenomenon.  They aren't really seen, aren't given much help, and most do eventually find their way back on the right path to where they need to go.  These beings look just like humans, except they all have black hair, ice blue eyes that cover the entire eye with a small, thin pupil and are 6.5-8 feet tall.  A large portion of their society is based on eating the flesh from creatures of light, so they are able to turn into large black wolves and hunt in the astral plane in packs.  They're made from the same substance that brings disarray to the human world, evil, strife and whatnot, but in themselves are a very compassionate and balanced society.  They aren't evil, they just happen to be born from the other stuff.  They live forever, and stop growing at around 30.  Every year, the miasma makes about three our four new souls and the society cares for them into adulthood.  They don't have children of their own.

It's very much a male is a male and a female is a female society - they are energetically balanced, with men often growing a few thousand years before the women, and the women taking on a more submissive role.  Men hunt, provide, women supplicate and fawn over them.  Shit like that.  Very cis.  They have an energetic center in their chests that allows them to soul bond, women bring it outwards into the men, and like a key and lock, it takes a few years at times to get it just right, it eventually clicks.  It's a social, but mostly partner-based society.  A large portion of what activates and helps their society is this pair-binding function.  They don't have things such as war, famine, greed, over population, none of this.

So, about my partner - my imaginary after-death bardo boo.  His name is Matt.  And he is peculiar.  He doesn't like members of his own species, and he doesn't know why.  He likes human souls.  A lot.  He is 7 feet tall, with a stunning angular face.  He's an excellent hunter and amassed a large portion of wealth over a period of a thousand years being a world famous chef - who would use the ingredients that he caught and hunted himself and owned a chain of restaurants for a while.  He had tried getting along with women of his own kid, even sleeping with them, but the gravity in the center of him never went off - he just wasn't into it.  Before he had let his business go, he noticed a human female soul wandering around and offered to help her find her way back to her own realm.  He brought her to his home and took note that food made from the light was also very healthy for a human soul.  They could eat the same things.  He realized that he had a soft spot for them, and when he retired from the restaurant business, he began to actively seek out lost human souls and would help them get back to their homes.  In this process he realized he was attracted to the human women.  He wasn't a creep, though, and didn't do anything with them or insinuate that he was attracted to them.

Friends of his would question him on why he hadn't found a partner yet, it was beginning to get a little unusual.  He finally came clean and told them about his fetish for human women.  This wasn't even heard of among their kind.  He was just some rare anomaly.  They tried to explain to him that humans were a lower species, that they came from a more dense planet, that the destiny of their lives and souls were completely different.  They were meant to reincarnate over and over again until they completed some sort of cycle, while these beings were made from the energy of darkness and lived forever - and the darkness - within reason, consumes the light.  This is why they were so balanced, not taking more than they should of anything, living by the natural laws of energetic balance.  They wanted to know, can a human even love the way that we can?  Do they bond to their partners the way we do?  We aren't compatible, it wasn't a possibility.  They tried to set him up with different women, none of which he showed any interest in.

He explained that he loved their fragility, their imbalance, their fleeting little lives, he loved how innocent and starstruck they looked when they arrived here by accident and that it made him feel good to help them find their way back.  No one could understand it.  He accepted it.  He would just live his life alone, he couldn't change who he was.  He was viewed with respect and pity at the same time.  Respect for the work he accomplished, the money he made, the skills he had, but pitied for being cursed to be in love with creatures that were incompatible.  But then the events from "Eat it, Annie" happened and the right human fell into his lap.  He learned that humans could bond in the same way that he could, that as long as there was a genuine connection there, that everything was compatible.  When I slept, my soul siphoned off information as to who I was before I had died.

I was a human woman, who had a hard life.  I was lonely.  I also felt incompatible with the world, weird, strange, and that nothing that I did fit or worked right.  I had spent my whole life wanting something in life that I knew didn't exist, being who and what I was, and after my family passed away - I committed suicide.  He could see it, and feel it all.  Taking the pills.  Having seizures on the floor before passing out and my soul leaving my body.  But when my soul passed through the tunnel in the astral realm, it wasn't tilted towards where he lived, like the others - it had been moved there, a trajectory had been made.  My soul was dropped here for a reason.

He felt as though God had handed him a human of his own.  He had his own little human to care for and to protect and we had bonded in a normal manner.  The key fit the lock.  He knew that his friends and others of his own kind that knew of him would be aware of this gravitational pull in his chest - meaning that an integral part of who he was was activated, and he knew they would smell a human on him and he wondered what their reactions would be.  His species was completely neutral to humans, and so there was nothing to worry about, but being creatures of long standing tradition and a sense of general energetic balance, this was something not heard of or understood at all.  He felt protective, knowing that I came from a place where life was more difficult, he wanted to hunt and to make food, to manage the home, to keep me there like a little pet.

I would stay there with him forever - sent there by God to offer some relief to a lonely alien monster - to learn about what his species knew of the cosmos, of reality, and I would accept his home and his food and his way of living graciously.  His friends and acquaintances had come to accept it.  They viewed it as a one-time anomaly and made the decision that to have a human at all was preferable to being alone, but they couldn't understand it.  The dynamic was quite skewed.  He was much older, by thousands of years and had the wisdom and the meditative patience that those from the human world had never seen before.  The amassed wisdom and balance that these creatures of darkness had managed to obtain was something to envy.  Not many beings made from the darkness were able to create civilizations, let alone ones that were based on communal effort, tradition, work ethic and empathy.  These creatures had a lot of empathy and love for their own kind, and struck a balance with the light, where they never hunted more than their share - and he had more empathy and compassion than even most of his own kind.  To share in what he knew with a soft, vulnerable human is what made him feel like a male.  To him, human souls were small and doll like - he liked the power imbalance and of being able to share the novelty of his life with something completely out of the ordinary.  He knew of God, and of God's goodness, but hadn't expected that a soul would be brought to him, just for him.  He felt very grateful.  Creatures of the darkness were not often bestowed as many gifts as those that were light oriented - no matter how generous or neutral they were.

That's all I got.  I'm trying to expand on the traditions of these people, how things are manifest into their world, what a soul-bond entails between one of them and a human and how that works, the type of animals that they hunt and the cuisine that they make, what they look like as wolves, how exactly Matt helps the souls of humans - I don't know exactly how he got them on the right track to go back to where they belong, they don't use cars - so what sort of transportation they take, yadda yadda.  After a few months, I'll have a fully detailed little world to fall back on for maximum cope.  I like this one, this one is actually fun.  And 'cause in this fantasy I'm like - fucken dead, I'm all hot again, so I don't feel like a total troll.  It's a win-win.  I hope my soul does get whisked away to some other place after death, to be with some dark demon man.  They say everyone has their match - maybe mine is not part of this dimension?

[Loba]

Still feeling quite sick today.  Putting off going to the store until tomorrow so that I don't spread my illness around.  Super snotty, super coughy.  Sneezy wheezy.  Hope it's not Covid.  Been thinking a bit about opinions this morning.  I know I have a lot of them, but I also realize that most opinions are bullshit.  They're just kind of humanly end-all be-all door stoppers to keep a sense of reality afloat.  
"I feel this way about this, or that way about that."
Generally though, life is extremely nuanced and it's damned near impossible to have a world-view that encompasses all the view points.  I notice that I tend to stop at, "I like thing, I don't like thing."  And not to go much further into it, and think that maybe I should spend more time expanding on my worldviews.  I had a friend who used to follow me around on this website years ago who chose the name, "I like thing" for this very reason.  I miss him.  Hope he is doing well.
I've been expanding on my little world while resting in my bed, as there really isn't much else to do while resting.  I've hit a road block on a few things, but I have the hunting down, it's kind of hard for me to imagine the specifics of it - I'm not very good at the gritty technical details when it comes to world building.

So, how these creatures hunt.  Their world is held together by yin energy, the darkness, a miasma.  They live pretty much forever, and deaths are almost unheard of.  The entire planet is composed of this energy, but through a collective imaginative effort, they are able to manifest an actual planet, complete with medium sized cities, farmland, forests - and such things.  It's a mid-tier density level planet in the beginning portions of the astral realm.  There are still bodies, and structures and things of this nature, but it is seen to be illusory and are held together for the simple reason of having cohesion and a sense of civilization.  These creatures would be considered a step or two above the human realm, which is very dense, it is hard to manifest things into it, and the illusory nature of reality is not so readily apparent.
While hunting, these creatures create hunting parties.  Different aptitudes and body types will go to a hunting building, put in their name and specifics and wait in a line until an entire hunting party is established.  You get to choose the type of creature to wish to take down as well.  They work together to take down animals in the same formation that wolf packs use.  When a party is created, they are moved into a room together and dissolve the boundaries of their semi-physical reality to return to the dark miasma from which they come.  Like removing the boundaries of time and space, but in a select area.  While in this space, being made from the same material as the darkness, they turn into these very dark smoke-like creatures that can run along the top and sides of the darkness, as if it was a solid.  Within the miasma, all sorts of creatures exist.  Some of them are beings made of pure light that travel long distances in between the different points of light, like little whales in their own right swimming through a vast black ocean of nothingness.
When one is spotted - there are a few different species - they lack detail and are generally the silver-white outlines of creatures and are easily seen on contrast to the night - they are hunted down to the point of exhaustion and then the "wolf" in front goes in for the kill, grabs it by the neck, gives it a few quick shakes and the deed is done.  Then the entire hunting party collectively creates consensus reality again and find themselves back in the hunting room, where they work together de-flesh the animal, to take the parts that they need, put them in bags and take them home to make food out of.  Light is sustenance for them.  They only hunt creatures of the light that are migrating from different light points, and the society is built so that the numbers and patterns of the different animals hunted are taken into account.  They never take more than their share - and have worked hard to create a balanced society.  Despite being made from the same substance that "evil" is made from, it is still able to, it it's own right, create a well-meaning hard-working society of entities.  This just isn't as common of an occurrence.  It is quite an anomaly to have a well-structured society of dark-oriented beings.
But they have found that if they don't take too much, focus their immeasurably long lives on balance, that the light permits a reasonable number of sacrifices.  Consciousness needs to expand and it doesn't care what your orientation is - light or dark.  Those that are on the dark side need to consume light in order to function, but light does not need to consume dark.  They have plants, vegetables and things of this nature, but they come from the planet, which is made from the dark miasma and so hunting is an essential part of this culture.

My boo Matt likes to be in the front of the pack alignment when he hunts and likes to be the one to go in for the kill.  He enjoys when the little creatures squeal their last little breaths as he shakes the life out of them in between his sharp teeth.  I mean, despite enjoying humans, he is a demon after all, and demons do like to hunt.  It's what they do.  The reason why his species is neutral towards humans, why they don't attack or harm human souls while on their way back to source is because humans are a grey area.  We aren't all light or all dark, we're both and we are given the free will to choose one or the other.  No human lives its entire life completely in the light or the darkness.  Because of this, humans are not viewed as food.  When moving up through the astral plane, there is a tunnel that human souls go through, and occasionally, maybe one out of 20 million, accidentally get re-routed to this dark planet.  They're viewed as a neutral phenomena, and because they aren't food nor contribute to maintaining the structure of the society, if a human soul lands on this planet, they are generally left alone to their own devices.  This species of demon is extremely neutral and don't want to shift the delicate balance of their culture by getting involved in anything.  After a period of time, God, or sometimes other beings will come to retrieve the human's soul and will reroute it back to where it is destined to go.
Matt started to actively search for them, after stumbling across a confused girl - after helping her, letting her stay with him, sharing a bit of his culture and knowledge with her, he began to fancy them.  She did end up being retrieved by members of her soul group, and after this experience he decided he would help more. 
After being one of the top hunters and an accomplish multi-restaurant owner for over a thousand years, he let that go, became depressed and spent the next 500 years in his mansion at the top of one of the richest hills in the city.  He would occasionally go hunting for large game, enough to bring home a decent amount so that he didn't have to hunt very often.  He would still search for human souls, he would corral them in the neighborhood with a black smoke made from his consciousness and then would bring them to his home until they were gathered up by whomever was destined to come for them.  He had a decent social life, many women who were interested in him and a career that he loved - but when he realized that the lock would not activate in his chest he became very depressed.  A huge portion of growing, of creating, of living, was to open up this vortex.  If you can't do it, what's the point of anything else?  So he left it all behind, and would occasionally help the rare human who landed there, but for the most part spent his time alone - sans a few close friends who would check up on him.  He had two friends that he did see on a weekly basis, a couple, Wyatt and Maya.  He had given Wyatt all his businesses when he retired.  They liked to hunt together, and Maya was a beaming socialite who often tried to set him up with new friends that she found.  He hated every minute of it, but went along with it to make her happy.  Despite all of it, he was a good friend and a decent demon-creature with a big fuzzy heart.  He would go to dinner with Wyatt, Maya and whoever she would bring along with her, or at times he would bring them all back to his home and he would show off his cooking skills.  Usually at the end of the night, he would wish them all well and send them on their way but occasionally someone who seemed like they could possibly be a good match, he would invite them to stay for a night.  But it never worked out.  The energy center, that was supposed to activate under the conditions of being able to fall in love, just never happened for him.  He became increasingly more depressed.  A huge part of being alive, of being this sort of entity, was having that portion of yourself open.  It's what all of the prior work that was done was for.  Their culture, traditions and civilization was built upon opening this lock and key system, which was a huge contributor in helping to build and maintain the cohesive structure of their reality.  They learned early on, that if you don't have love, you don't have a functioning society.

But bringing humans home, he felt delighted around them.  They were so small compared to him.  Generally a foot or two shorter.  When moving from one ethereal plane to another, human souls remained relatively young, usually between the ages of 6-20.  They didn't have the memories or residue of their previous lives, as this was stripped away from them during the process of death.  Occasionally he could access the Akashic records to find information on the life that the human had lived prior to coming there, but this did not happen very often.  He built his understanding of the human world and their lives around what he did learn from these chance encounters and came to the conclusion that human life was dense, harsh, and unconnected and he related to the human condition.  Humans didn't have a lock and key system, they would never come to understand love the way his kind could, and yet so many of them spent their little, short lives looking for this intangible thing, most of them passing away with only a few short tastes of what it could really be and was.  He felt that they were precious in their lack of balance, how they consumed everything in sight without having any understanding into the balance of the universe.  He found it interesting that beings of darkness were more loving and aware than these creatures with free will and a grey area in their nature.  Some of them could be very beautiful and sweet and some of them commit the most horrible of crimes.  They were destined to return to earth time and time again until they had cleared their karma and were eligible to move onto the next level of development.  They weren't held down by structure and tradition and culture quite in the same way that he was, they were in their own way, more free and he admired this about them.
When they found their way to his home, due to not having any memories, they didn't have the darkness in them that they had accumulated on earth and so he attributed their harmful actions more to the density of the planet/dimension that they came from, and the lack of seeing the entire structure of reality and the consequences that came from the lack of balance with natural harmony.  He would teach these things to them, would have them try his people's food, and would show them how to manifest certain things into their reality.  Reality in this dimension was a bit more lucid, but you still had to follow some rules.  After a day to a month had passed, either God or the human's soul family would create a portal/passage way that allowed the soul to transcend.  He had no idea if they retained his lessons or not, but teaching them about his life and his people during the short time that they were there was the only thing that gave him joy in his celibate, dry life. 

That's all I got for now.  I'll think on it today and tomorrow I will write on the lock and key system.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Loba

[Loba]

I've expanded much more on the world, my characters - but seeing as I am not really the best writer, I don't know if I will have an easy time translating what's in my head to the world that I've built.  I've been thinking about their personalities, how they interact with the world and have been trying to bring a bit more depth to them.  We'll see how it writes, I have a few days worth of material to go through.  First, the lock and key system, then try to integrate that into the narrative I've been working on.  Worldbuilding is hard.  I love my characters so much now, they're a lot of fun.  Matt's my favourite, he's like everything I would want in a guy, but imaginary - which actually makes things way easier because you can pick the story up again when you want to or put it aside when you want to and you can't do that within a real connection.  It's real enough, they're "alive" in my imagination, just like I am alive within God's.

So the lock and key system is what helps keep consensus reality for my made-up demon species.  It's a pair-bonding system, but it also works similarly to yin-yang, in that it continually rotates and is also an analogy for masculine containment.  There is an energetic component in men, like a black hole or a vortex, that draws the soul of a woman forward into it when it is activated.  Being more attuned to cosmic flow, most of them have a general sense of understanding of who is and who is not compatible.  There are no "soul mates" or "twin flames", as there can be many different ones who are compatible, it all depends on who you meet at the right time.  But once activated, you create that connection consciously, and once a cord is formed it can't ever be disconnected.  On the very rare occasions that a cord was cut, these were the moments in which these creatures did end up killing themselves, because when that part of them is cut, it becomes inert and there is no way to grow it back again.  Without that connection, a large portion of who they are is lost.  They're a telepathic species and they rely on the love contained in order to grow, to continue to understand the world and to have a sense of companionship.  The reason that they have this at all is the only reason why a yin-oriented species is able to work together and so much of their culture is based on facilitating these connections, keeping them maintained and flowing properly.

It starts with the man.  If he sees that something is compatible, and this happens subconsciously, then it will begin to open up and to flow in a rotating pattern that draws feminine energy into it.  If a woman is receptive, then her energy will merge with it, continuously being drawn out of her - and this is the "cord" - that string that connects, and it merges and twists with the energetic vortex in his chest.  A woman can facilitate this by sort of submitting into it, moving her energy forward so that it rests within him.  The more she does this, the better she is at it, at letting go and allowing her energy to flow into his, the stronger the connection.  If she isn't interested in him, then the movement in his chest will stop, but generally most of these demons are able to simply know, or are able to find compatibility with a great many, and so most of them do not struggle to find life partners.  They don't have the concept of "everyone has someone made for them", they have the reality of being able to create a strong, telepathic connection with a wide range of people, but whittle it down to, and build upon something strong and unbreakable with one person.

This is called the "lock and key system", and it can happen during sex, cuddling, generally you just need to be close to the person's chest.  When this happens, you gain access to their thoughts, emotions, and at times, their life's history, but not always.  Partners are generally in sync and don't need a lot of verbal communication.  This allows them to run a household much easier.  They also don't have children to attend to, as their population is regulated by three to four new souls being born from the yin miasma.

The events from - "Eat it Annie - extrapolated"

Matt - for whatever reason, he could not get his to activate.  He liked humans, but didn't think that they worked in the same way his kind did, so he just lived a life half alive - inert for the most part, and lost his passion.  His activated completely by chance.  He noticed a human soul come crashing down close to where he lived, and he put up a partition of miasma all around the area until he could find the spot the soul was located.  He set out some food, as he often does, he finds that most of the souls are ravenous and that food made from the light is extremely nourishing to a high density soul which is generally kept away from, or unable to access light during it's time on earth.  He went to go find this soul, while it - I - found my way to the house and tried his food before running away when he came home.  He noticed that things were eaten from and went back out to find me.  He saw me move across the same area quite a few times before deciding when to approach me, and wanted to bring me back to his home.
When we broke into his own house - I brought him into a small sleep room that he kept in the basement that was pretty much never used.  I decided I wanted to sleep with him - a quick decision to make, I wasn't sure why, I just did - and brought him into the room.  He had wanted to know what it was like to be with a human for a long time, but wasn't quite sure of what to do with one.  When close to him, I had pressed my chest against his and he noticed something moving within it - and tried to remain still in order to keep it from opening, but when I flooded the room and ran out, he lost control of himself and chased me and caught me on the waterfall bridge.  This is when I noticed the sensation coming from him and inspected into what exactly I was feeling.

I was able to get away from him and ran down the hallway into another room.  He ran after me, turning into his wolf form and unable to control the demon inside of him, snarled and snapped at the door.  The house works in an odd way, most of the rooms both exist and don't exist at the same time, they are connected by one hallway that has wires on the floor, it oversees a large library and at the end of the hallway is his master bedroom.  When opening this door - there is a waiting space, two doorways - one that contains the room, the other that contains the hallway, and the third is the bedroom at the very end - and depending on what the person opening the doorway is thinking/manifesting, this brings a possibility of about 200 different rooms - so each time you open the door, a completely new room would be there.  So I did this a few times before getting to the end of the rotation, and finding my way into the wire-room, where I walked to the edge of that, went into his bedroom and was caught there by him.  Having full awareness of where everything was in the house, he was just a step behind me and I didn't know it.

He caught me, pinned me onto the bed and then felt me up and spooned me for a while.  He'd already gone way too far and didn't want to do anything towards me that he would later regret - anything more than he'd already done, so he held me there and we went to sleep.  That part of him was awake and I could feel it drawing me into it - but I didn't understand what it was for.  Waking up to this himself, he wasn't quite in his right mind.  Generally he was a respectful creature, but at the same time, something that was not supposed to be opened, opened and he didn't want to let me out of his grasp.  It all happened very quickly and was completely unplanned.  I was warming up to him, I had wanted to get to know him sexually, at least, I was just taken by surprise when I saw that there was a lightening-quick predator underneath all of this - but I didn't feel that part of him was relegated for me, and so I felt safe, even after he had chased me all over the place and pinned me to him twice.
When I woke up, I made my way down to the wire-room and noticed that when he slept, it was inert, and so I was able to walk through the door, into the interim-room, and back to the waterfall area and then into the unkempt sleep-room in the basement.  I looked out the window there and was able to see, now that I had a taste for what was activated inside of him, I could match it to the material that was used to corral me in the neighborhood, that masked the rest of the city from me - and I could see that this was made from him as well.  I went back up to the room and wrapped myself in him, and inspected the sensation coming from his chest - and feeling "safe" and "okay" with whatever had happened, I surrendered into it and an aspect of me was moved into that space - and this created a cord, a permanent lock and key.  I didn't know that this is what had happened - it was very instinctual - that this is what I should be doing, it feels right and good to have this part of me move into this heart-space.  I fell asleep cradled into him.

"After the events from "Eat it Annie" - 

He woke up at some point in the middle of the night to find that he still had this human girl that he was spooning and felt something being pulled into his chest, rotating like the substance from a galaxy.  It was the essence of my soul, merging into his.  A cord was there!  What the hell!  He laid there, trying to keep his breathing steady and to not move so that I wouldn't wake up.
"What do I do now?  What the fuck is going on?  Oh shit, oh shit, what do I do?  What do I do?  How did this happen?"
He tried to peel his limbs back to move away from me, but when he moved his arm from under my head, I woke up.  I turned around groggily and wrapped my arms and legs around him.  I was never so forthright in life, but in death, I had no memories to fall back on and there was a lack of filter in restraining from the things that felt right to do in the moment - it felt like both moving with the human-like instincts of "I want this" with the universal flow of what was going to happen anyways.  Everything was unfolding as it should, but neither of us knew this or knew why.  It was this awkward teeter-totter of either being too close to him too quickly, or him too close to me.  I was half-asleep and he was wide awake, with a million questions. 
"Humans and demons don't cord.  They don't mate.  How did this happen?  I mean... can I?  Could I...?  She's right here.  Where's that bravery you had earlier?  No, no, no, just stay still and go back to sleep.  You can figure this out in the morning."  Matt swallowed heavily.  "Fuck..."
I fell asleep wrapped up around him, chest to chest.  It was very clear to him that there was something moving.  It was right there.  There was no denying it.  When I fell asleep again, he was given access through the Akashic records to my life's history as a human.  This wasn't something that happened very often and he treasured the moments when he could learn more about humans and their culture.  But this time it was different.  It was as though he was there in person as a passive observer to everything that had happened in my life.  He witnessed a young girl being born into the world, going through her school years, different friends and boyfriends, trying different foods and traveling to new places, he experienced her mental illness, isolation, a chronic sense of loss, family that had passed on, a feeling of not knowing quite where to go or what to do, and that finally gave way to a night where the girl swallowed pills.  She didn't die right away, she seized on the floor, foaming like a rabid dog, holding onto her stomach before passing out.  Her pulse slowly faded away, and she died right in the middle of her humanly life.  He saw her soul leave her body - it was a golden orb - and instead of moving along the same tunnel that every other human had done, her path was shifted to land here.  It wasn't like when a soul moves along its path and gets caught in the gravity and sort of shakily lands in the wrong spot, it had made its own path, not anywhere near the tunnel that other human souls took.  It was put here by some outside force.

When the vision ended and he found himself brought back to his room, he wrapped his arms around me.
"I'll keep this human..."  He thought.  "There's no where to send her back to, she was brought here.  Clearly."  He sniffed.  "Fuck."
He felt a bit secondhandedly traumatized by living my life.  After a few hours of staring at his ceiling, he finally fell asleep.

He woke up the next morning feeling more mentally clear and reinvigorated.  He wanted to go hunting, to take the edge off a bit and to bring me something home to cook up.  Whenever he felt stressed or needed to take the time to think, he would visit his friend Wyatt and they would go hunting together, and he would bring the kill home and cook it.  Cooking was his passion - aside from humans - it's what allowed him to think, to express himself and to meditate.  Wyatt was born at the same time as him about 2,500 years ago.  Being raised together, they became best friends with a strong and brotherly bond.
I was still sleeping.  His took his nails and scratched them all along my back.  "Wake up."  I lifted my head and nuzzled his face.  Without the weight of my previous life I was affectionate, innocent and free.  He made the decision not to tell me about my previous life and not to let me know what he knew about me.

This is getting too long, so tomorrow I will go into the hunting scene with Wyatt - to explain how this works in more detail, along with Matt's discussion about what has happened with his lifelong friend, finally to end on the note of him coming back home, and sharing wisdom about the sky - where humans come from and go, and how the light works pertaining to migratory patterns of light-oriented animals and how their society is built around this light-hub, how they use it to fuel themselves and their planet.

[Loba]

I'm trying so hard not to Mary-Sue my characters.  It's annoying, I have their personalities fully fleshed out in my mind, their struggles, their drives, but I can't seem to translate this into words.  The amount of detail I can think on when it comes to putting this would equate to pages and pages of information, but then when it comes to writing it out I can't seem to hack it.  It amazes me how genuine, quality writers are able to do this and I envy their skills.  Maybe the solution is to use this as a rough draft and expand on it, but I don't know that I ever will.  So, onto the hunting scene, my favorite scene to imagine so far.

Matt walked to his friend's house, which was farther down the hill.  Wyatt made just as much money as Matt had, now that he owned the restaurants, but wanted to save up everything he had.  Wyatt was a taller demon, standing at about 8 feet, with long straight black hair that went down to his waist, a large hooked nose and high cheek bones, thin lips and a lightweight, wiry body frame.  When he and Matt would go hunting, Matt took the center formation, with two other men flanking on either side to drive the prey, and Wyatt along with two other long distance runners, that were long and lanky, would arch ahead of the prey and then run towards it, so that when they made a full circle, the animal was completely cornered.  Wyatt being in the middle in the font, and Matt right behind, depending on whichever direction the prey would run in would determine who made the kill.  Matt's favourite thing was killing the creature.  If he needed to, he would run and grab them from the top and sever their spine with his teeth, but he mostly loved running along the underside of the creature, grabbing it by the jugular and ripping into it, holding it there in his jaws until it suffocated - and he was able to drink the precious milk of light that came gushing out of it's wounds, lapping copious amounts of it on his tongue into his eager mouth.

Matt thought about the events that took place earlier that morning before he left for his friend's house.  He woke me up and brought us both into the bathroom together to take a bath.  They didn't use showers, and didn't have toilets, either as the body was able to use everything that it ate and drank.  Bodies themselves, being partially ethereal, didn't excrete waste, but you did have an endocrine system, and you also have a signature scent on you; you collected smells from your environment as well.  Demons have a very good sense of smell and would often take baths, especially before hunting or after sex to hide their activities from others.  A large portion of your immediate history could be smelled on you by others and it was considered kosher not to bring that history into the room with you, so they bathed often, many times twice a day.  Matt drew the bath, the water would rise from the bottom of a large porcelain tub that you would walk into.  Demon culture views bathing as an important task, and so the tubs are much larger and deeper than the ones humans have.  All of their soaps, shampoos and conditioners are made from the various parts of animals of the light that they capture and harvest as well as adding some plant/flower material for scent.  They didn't need to brush their teeth, as germs don't exist in this plane, but in order to remove scent and food residue they had a type of oily mouth wash which pulled everything from your gums and tongue.  He showed me which substances were which, and how to draw the bath.  The lettering on the bottles was very unique, like a mixture of Sanskrit and runes.  He helped me bathe, washed my hair for me and rinsed everything out by collecting water into a large bucket and pouring it over my head, and then cleaned himself off.  He didn't want to smell like a human when he went to visit Wyatt, or to go hunting.  He still wasn't sure how he was going to explain himself to his friend.

After we bathed, he gave me a towel to dry off, and a lovely white dress with some underwear to wear.  He told me that his people didn't have clothes that fit creatures of my size and so he had a few things made for when humans would stay with him, but that he would have some clothes especially made for me in the future, depending on what my preferences were.  I liked the dress, though.  It was simple, lacey and feminine.  He told me to wait in his room, and he left to bring back a tray full of some different types of food and some drink and when he got back he set them on the nightstand next to the bed and asked me to wait here in the room until he got back.  He told me that he generally went hunting once a week with a friend of his and today happened to be the day for this, that he wanted to bring something home that was fresh to cook for us to eat.  He told me to rest in the bed until he got back, and that human souls generally have a period of needing extra sleep as they adjusted to their new semi-ethereal bodies, their lack of memory, and that generally a partial-death experience was taxing on the soul and this required a transitional period.  He asked me to please not go into any other part of the house as there were certain rooms that contained things within them that wouldn't make sense to a human mind without some prior education, that I could get stuck in a room.  I agreed to his terms, curled back up into the bed to take another nap - he was right, I was tired again already - and he left for Wyatt's place.

Matt finally made it to Wyatt's, which only took about a half an hour to get there if one was just casually walking, and knocked on the door.  His friend, who was expecting him, as they had a weekly schedule, opened the door.  He looked down at his shorter friend and immediately noticed that his lock was activated, but he couldn't smell anyone on Matt.
"Matt!  Hi buddy, it's good to see you.  Your lock.  It's open!  When did this happen?"
"Uh, I uh... just last night man... that's something I was hoping to discuss with you.  I was hoping we could go for a hunt first and then have a few drinks and I'll tell you about it then..."
Matt wasn't sure how his friend was going to take it.  He wasn't sure how anyone was going to take it.  Something like this had never happened before.  His entire species, tradition and culture was predicated upon maintaining balance with the light, on working with certain migratory patterns of prey animals and of bonding - specifically, to someone of your own kind to maintain the collective reality and it had always been this way, for as long as they were able to create a functioning society.  Not only did nothing change within it, but outliers were not heard of, ever.  Maintaining a sense of neutrality towards other species on their incarnational and after-death cycles was essential.  Some yin-oriented species liked to tip things in their favour by damaging or interfering with the lives of denser species, but they had learned early on how to create a system that allowed for a renewable energy source without needing to take more than they needed or to prey on other sentient life-forms and this was something that they were proud of and was for the most part effortlessly maintained.  And what Matt had done was basically throw all of that out the window, possibly damaging the balance that his people worked so hard to create.  He genuinely had no idea of what the ramifications of his actions would be.  He knew that it was an accident, for both parties, but he took full responsibility for allowing himself to be blindsided by lust and allowing the situation to cultivate.  And yet, another part of him felt that he had paid his dues to his society.  He played the part his whole life.  He had planned to have an ordinary life, just like anyone else.  He worked hard to build himself up to becoming one of the best chefs in the world and one of the best hunters on top of that.  He had tried with women to make it work.  He really did.  But he just couldn't hack it.  Why should he suffer for having been created differently, after having done so many things that were right?  He played the fucking role, time and time again, followed every rule as straight as an arrow.  Why shouldn't he have just this one thing - for him - just this one time?  He had no answers, just a million questions, one after the other piling on top of each other.  And this is why he needed to go hunting.  He needed to clear his mind, to do something that he knew he was good at, that allowed him to be the demon that he was, the predator, the hunter, the killer.

"Yeah, sure, of course.  Let me get my things and we can head out."
Something was off about Matt.  He didn't seem happy, he seemed lost in thought and confused.  Wyatt went back inside to get some meat bags, handed a few to Matt and they both left for one of the many hunting buildings that were scattered around the city.  They both decided to walk.  Matt didn't say a word the whole way there.  When they got to the building, they went inside, entered in their information and the animal that they wanted to hunt onto a piece of paper and put it into a box that kept track of various hunting parties.  When a party was gathered, they would be taken into a room where they would collapse reality down to yin-miasma in the right location and chase down their prey.  They both sat in the waiting room for about an hour until four more men of the right body shape were gathered and the six of them were ushered into the hunting room.

The hunting room was a white room that had some butchering knives, a table, a few bags to put the meat in, and some paper to wrap the meat up into sections.  The six men gathered into a circle and meditated, until reality collapsed around them and there was nothing left but the miasma.  When they opened their eyes they turned into their wolf-forms - completely invisible in the darkness, sans their blue eyes that glowed like a cat's.  Everyone knew what running position to take and they moved into the correct formation.  Matt had two runners on either side of him to help drive the prey, and Wyatt had two long distance runners, also flanking either side of him.  Wyatt had the physique of a cheetah while Matt was lean, but a bit shorter, more muscle, a bit more stout.  They knew exactly where the prey was located.  Demons, being connected to the miasma, were able to sense, once in it, everything that moved through this material and could pinpoint with exact accuracy where their targets were.  Wyatt ran ahead of Matt, so that when Matt drove the prey, the prey would be cornered in a circular pattern on six sides, front and back.  They located the prey ahead of them.  It was similar to the pigs that we have here on earth, but light creatures had no distinguishable features about them other than taking the form of something that was an animal, that glowed a pearly white and was easily spotted in the complete darkness of void.

The flankers spread out so that they ran along side of the pig, with Matt right behind, and Wyatt and his flankers way in front, although the prey didn't know this.  The flankers would keep the animal from veering off in another direction.  When the hunt started, the wolves would begin to make an Ooo-wooo-wooo-wooo-wooo sound that sounds like a group of throat singers.  This startled the prey and allowed them to know where the other ones were in the pitch darkness.  They prey would not be able to see the wolves, as they blended in with the black, and it would hear and echo of these sounds coming in all directions.  Matt continued to drive the animal until he could hear Wyatt's party in front of him making the same noise.  The pig would try to run in another direction, only to be met by a flanker driving it back straight forward.  It had nowhere to run.  In front of it was Wyatt, and in back was Matt.  Depending on which direction it ran, the boys would decide who went in for the kill.  It kept running in Wyatt's direction, which allowed Matt to go in for the kill.  He hadn't been running at full speed, he then sped up until he was alongside of the pig, opened his mouth and ripped into it's neck from underneath it, and halted the creature, pinning it down.  As he dug into it's throat it let out loud, guttural "Weee-weee-weeeee's!"
"Bleed delicious creature..."  Matt thought as he tightened his jaws as strongly as he could around the animal's neck.  "Give me your milk..."  His tongue lapped up large volumes of blood that gushed out of the open wounds and drippled down his muzzle into the vast aether below.  The animal screamed and struggled, bits of phlegm and sputum coming out of it's mouth as it gave its last cries.  A few minutes passed and the animal suffocated.  Matt let go of his grip, turned back into a man and wiped the glowing white blood that was dripping from his face.

The hunting party put their hands on the animal, together in a circle and meditated on the hunting room again, and all of them, pig included, were materialized there.  Matt, being the one who made the kill was given first dibs on what parts he wanted to take.  He brought the animal up onto the butchering table and took some ribs, the heart, a buttock and the ears.  He liked to bake the ears and nibble on them throughout the day as a little treat.  As he put the parts into wrapped paper and tucked them into a bag, Wyatt went to work on his portion, choosing parts that would be good for some soups he wanted to make for the restaurants that he ran.  The two boys thanked the other four men and left them to dissect the rest of the pig.

Wyatt and Matt made their way back to Wyatt's home, when they got inside, they placed their bags in a cooling cellar and Matt sat down, still silent.  Wyatt made some drinks for them, which were made from the blood of a light animal, and fermented bark that became alcoholic with age that came from a type of forest tree.  When the two substances combined they would fizzle and turn an unappealing grey colour, but the men of this culture loved this type of drink especially after a hunt.  It was often custom to come home and have something to celebrate.  Wyatt poured the contents into a large pitcher and handed Matt a mug and set one down for himself.
"Pour as much as you like."  He said.  "You've been off today.  Something is wrong, is that what you wanted to discuss with me?"
"Yeah..."  Matt whispered, taking the pitcher and helping himself to an entire mug.  "We might need a few pitchers tonight Wyatt.  I don't think you're going to like what I'm about to tell you..."
"Try me."
"Okay... well sit down for this.  It's... a human..."

Edited August 23, 2022 by Loba

[Loba]

Back to my story -
I have a few chapters written that I will post over the next few days, but currently I'm on a short break with it because I'm not quite sure where I want to go with this and I need to give it some direction.  But by the time I am caught up on posting the chapters, I might be reinvigorated again.  The more I write, the greater appreciation I have for people who are actually genuinely good at this craft.  It isn't easy.  I'm at the level of a bad fanfiction writer.  I'm trying to add more depth and dimension to my characters; this is my first time writing a story like this and I'm a total noob, but I'm having a lot of fun with it.  It's supposed to be my personal little after-suicide world. 
I have hopes that in some way, we get to create what happens next in our story and so I wanted to write about a possibility for myself that allows me to not only world-build, but to create the prototype for a relationship that I would have been okay with if I were younger.  Writing this gives me a second chance to work through some of what happened to me when I was in my early 20's and to re-write the script into something more pleasant and controlled.  As I write it, I am noticing that it is healing a lot of my relationship wounds and allowing me to explore a side of myself that I haven't had the chance to do, that ultimately I don't want to do in the real world, but that I'm having a lot of fun doing in a strictly fantasy setting.

------

"Try me."

"Okay... well sit down for this.  It's... a human..."

Wyatt sat down, poured himself a drink and looked at Matt blankly.  "A human what?"  He asked, taking a long, slow sip off of his mug.

"I brought a human home, you know, sometimes I like to help them out for a little while until they get sent back on their path..."  Matt explained to Wyatt, taking nervous intermittent swigs from his own drink.  "And this human I found, well, she seemed interested and - things transpired, and... I didn't stop it.  You know, I uh, I just kind of lost control and I don't know how it happened but I woke up next to her and a cord was there.  I wasn't thinking straight, you know?  It-it just happened.  And then, I got to see her entire life flash before my eyes and it was so fucking distressing and brutal, and it left a bad taste in my mouth, man - and... she, she wasn't even in the tunnel after she died, you know?  So, so maybe she was sent here for a reason, and maybe I could keep this one, you know...  I don't know man, I don't know..."  Matt looked at his friend, eager for an answer.

"How is that possible?  I have never heard of this happening, maybe you've made a mistake?  Is there anyone else you've been around that could have opened it?"  Wyatt inspected his friend's face closely while Matt took large gulps to calm his nerves.

"No, it was her.  I can tell.  I feel it."  Getting to the end of his first mug, he poured himself a second.

Wyatt shook his head.  "Matt, how did you get yourself into this mess?  When you left all your restaurants and you handed them off to me, I always thought you'd come back.  I thought, maybe you just needed some time to get yourself together.  You're one of the best chefs in the world.  You have a talent.  No one else can do what you do.  And then you just left, like it was nothing.  And I've been running everything in your absence for all these years without you.  Five hundred years, man."  Matt stared at his drink, unable to look at his friend.  "And when you told me that you started getting involved with humans, I knew it went against our neutrality, but I didn't say anything because I thought it was just a phase.  I thought you'd get over your obsession with these creatures, and find a nice girl and settle down.  Maya and I have been trying to find you a decent woman.  You've let these compulsions get out of hand and now you've fucked yourself over.  If you stay with a human, you're screwed.  If you uncord, you're screwed.  What do you think is going to happen when people smell a human on you?  They may not even know what one is, but they're going to know something is off.  And what about the human?  Their souls never stay here.  What's going to happen to you if they send her back to her light source to reincarnate?  And if she stays here, how are you going to explain yourself?  She'll never even be able to leave your house.  No one has ever fucking done this - what if they force you to uncord?  You've gone against everything that we are, and you've ruined yourself, your life, your fucking future."

Wyatt, finished with his mug went to refill it and noticed that the pitcher was empty and so he went to prepare a second one.  He got up and walked to the kitchen, leaving his friend to sit with his thoughts for a few minutes while he made a fresh batch of the greyish brew that their people loved to drink so much.  He carefully measured out the appropriate amount of light blood and alcoholic bark extract, mixing the two together until it bubbled and fizzed in the container.  Wyatt took a spoon, sipped a bit of the drink to test it and brought the new pitcher back to the table.  Matt had quickly downed his second helping in his friend's absence and was ready for a third.  Everything that was happening to him was so unexpected and confusing, that he just wanted to come home later that evening with the meat, cook something nice and enjoy his new partner's company, maybe even try to initiate a sexual encounter.  But Wyatt had made some good points.

"Well, you know, I've been thinking about this and uh, like I said, she wasn't in the tunnel.  Maybe... maybe no one is coming for her, what then?  What if, what if she's supposed to be here?  And, you know, in life - when she was alive, she wanted the same things that I do.  I saw it.  I felt it.  We're the same.  The creator made us all with the idea of unification.  Maybe, you know, maybe things aren't supposed to stay the same way forever?  Maybe things are supposed to veer off and unify in different ways?  Wyatt, I mean fuck dude, it's been five hundred years, what was I supposed to do?  Just remain alone until then?  And when the fuck is unification going to happen?  Consciousness just keeps expanding, I don't see it fully coming together anytime soon.  You know me, man.  I've tried.  I couldn't get my lock to open, and now it is, you know?  I don't think that all of society is going to collapse because of one fucking human."  Matt, halfway done with his third mug was starting to get drunk, and he felt agitated.  He knew both of them made sense, but he wanted to be the one who was right.  

"Have you slept with her yet?"  Wyatt inquired.

"I'm not sure, you know?  Some things happened in my basement.  Maybe kinda, but not really...  I was thinking I'd go on a hunt with you, clear my mind, talk about this shit, maybe go home and make some fucking food and then try and see where I get with her, you know?"  Matt took a sip, then ran his hands through his hair.  "I mean, she's my partner now, you know, it should be fucking fine..."

"Matt, I don't know what to tell you.  I don't think this is going to end well for you.  What else do you want me to say?"  Wyatt knew his friend had made up his mind and he knew that once he made a decision about something, it was almost impossible to change it.  There was nothing more to be said.

"I don't know, man.  But you know what, fuck this shit, I'm going home... and I'm going to do what I feel is right for me."  Matt stood up, went to the cooling cellar and pulled out the bag of meat portions that he had hunted from earlier that day.  "Thanks for the drinks."

"Of course..."  Wyatt took note of his friend's mental state.  It wasn't a usual thing for him to have a strong opinion on anything, or to fight for something, but on the rare occasion that he did, he never backed down.  He was generally a quiet, thoughtful and observant person and the fact that something like this happened was out of character in some respects.  But then again, his friend had been acting strange for a long time.  He had gradually become more reclusive, putting more time and energy into understanding human beings, compulsively bringing them into his home to help guide them.  Wyatt knew Matt liked them, fetishized them, and that he helped them as a means of getting close to the types of women that he found attractive, but he didn't ever think that something could come from it.  All of this was a complete shock to him and he was worried for his closest friend, who seemed to him, to be getting involved with things that could destroy everything that he had built himself up to be.  He knew that if Matt became sexually active with a human that there would be no chance of him ever having a normal life, but maybe that's what he wanted?  Wyatt felt a bit resentful.  The two of them were a team.  They worked side by side for over a thousand years, and it still greatly hurt him to know that Matt just up and left, as if everything that they made for themselves meant nothing to him.  He knew his friend was going to go home to try it, and would probably succeed, and that it could cost him everything.

Matt made his way to the door, but before opening it to leave, he called out to Wyatt.
"I want you to come see me tomorrow.  Meet her.  We'll make something for dinner."
"Okay."
"Bring Maya."
"Okay..."

He slammed the door behind him and walked down the steps to the sidewalk.  He just wanted to get home, to make some food and to think about what he was going to do with his life from now on.  Everything changed for him; in an instant he was given everything he wanted, but he wasn't sure of what the cost was going to be.  A deep part of him hated himself for being different and a deeper part of him resented society for trying to force him to be normal.  He was afraid of what could happen if people found out.  He wasn't sure if they would make an exception to their neutrality to damage his connection with his human in some way, or if their neutrality extended to his relationship.  He wanted to be open about himself, to be able to feel safe enough to let his partner outside, to share the city with her.
He was well known, his three previously owned restaurants were permanent long standing fixtures of the city.  What would he do when people found out?  Eventually they would - they would see that his lock was open and he wouldn't have a partner to show for it.  How would he explain this when they asked him about it?
Matt put the bag handles into his mouth and turned into a wolf and raced down the street.  In this form it would only take him maybe five minutes to get home from Wyatt's.  As he ran back up the hill, he would sometimes pass by happy couples minding their own business and think to himself bitterly, "Fuck you bitches."  He ran past another happy couple.  "And fuck you, too, cu***."  He kept going, with the bag of meat bobbing up and down and side to side in his mouth.
Matt made his way back home, turned into a man and hopped up the steps, then unlocked the door and immediately walked into his kitchen.  He threw the bag of meat onto the counter with such force that it knocked over the wooden block that contained all of his chef's knives, and they scattered all over the floor.

"FUCK!"
He gripped the counter with one hand and smashed his palm repeatedly into the counter with the other.
"Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!"

Didn't I warn you not to?
Didn't I warn you good?
Maybe we couldn't help it
Maybe we never should

Didn't I say it slowly?
Didn't I make it clear?
Is it unfair to ask you?
Why it is you're still here?

You cut your teeth on the lack of answers, singing
Come back home and it don't feel the same
Well I've bled words onto a page for you
And you never knew my name

Didn't I make it harder?
Didn't I leave you that?
Was it too much to ask you?
Why it is you still care?

You cut your teeth on the lack of answers, singing
Come back home and it don't feel the same
Well I've bled words onto a page for you
And you never knew my name

Edited September 1, 2022 by Loba

[Loba]

I've been trying to think of some inspiration for Matt's look, and the general soul behind the personality, the energy and the essence that I want to convey with him.  He kind of looks like the guy from Sandman, but with a much gentler, softer face, messier hair and dresses more casually.  Usually just a black button-up shirt and some jeans with dress shoes.  His eyes are also a tad bit larger and are shaped and coloured like a cats eye.  He doesn't look like an Edward Cullen look-a-like, but the semblance and perfect facial symmetry is similar.  The energy, however, is not.  He isn't just a "pretty face", I want him to be a multi-layered character with struggles and faults, such as depression, some social anxiety/blindness and mild neurosis, as someone who struggles with women and with understanding their own sexuality - and to be relatable, especially for anyone who is dating someone that is different - be it race, sexual orientation or ability.

Carmy from The Bear = Matt's soul - I love his energy, his voice and what he strives for.  If I could put the troubles that my character goes through into a similarly well written narrative as Carmy's monologue here, then that would be my Matt in a nutshell.  I've drawn from a few different sources of inspiration, but these two - looks and personality, make up the bulk of it all.  The struggle that Carmy faces to fix his dead brother's restaurant is the same struggle that Matt faces when trying to come to understand himself in the heart of demon tradition and in trying to fix the humans around him.

Sandman's face + Carmy's voice and personality = A good chunk of Matt's essence

Matt is a badass, and is very capable of accomplishing all of the things that he sets his mind on.  He's at the very top of his game with everything that he works towards - but he's also a very strange guy who doesn't always fit in with other demons socially.  He's a good person who takes care of the innocent, strives to keep his compulsions in check and tries his best to be a good friend.  He has become a social recluse due to his chronic depression, and Wyatt and Maya are the only ones who stand by him after he has pushed everyone else away and has given up on everything that he worked towards.  But he finds some relief with a human partner, and everything in his life begins to change for the better.  He begins to see himself not as just some weird outlier, but a demon man who is capable of great love and who deserves to be happy.

--------

Matt sighed.  He wasn't usually so emotional, but Wyatt had said some things he didn't want to hear.  He walked around the kitchen and picked up his knives, then wiped them off and saved the ones that he would use for later, setting them back onto the counter according to size.  He took out the pig's heart and put the rest of the meat in his cooling cellar, then unwrapped the heart from the paper it was in and began to slice it into small, fine pieces before putting them into a clay pan.  His stove had four pits in it, where fire was started through manifestation.  The clay pans would magically float above the fire pits and could be spun and rotated or moved higher and lower depending on the temperature needed to cook the food.  Matt took a clove of what his people considered to be like a garlic and chopped it up into very thin slices and placed it into another pan to cook separately.  He cooked the garlic at a higher temperature, and the meat at a lower temperature before adding them together.  When this was done, he took it off the pan, put it onto a plate and then portioned the meat onto thin slices of dough before folding them into little triangles and adding them to another pan.  When these were done, he sprinkled some various spices over the top.  He took two plates, added a type of vegetable that had the texture of seaweed, but contained a rich, brothy flavour and put the triangle meat-pastries over the top of this.  The heart of the light pig was still glowing white, and one could see the contents of the pastries shining from the inside, like little jewels.

Matt put both plates onto a tray and carried them to his room.  He sat the tray down on the nightstand next to the one he had placed for me earlier this morning and took note that I had finished all of my food and drink that day.  Hands now free, he went to turn on the bedroom light and this woke me up.
"Hey..."  He said.  "I'm home.  I was, uh, wondering if you could come with me to the rooftop tonight and we could eat this food together.  I thought maybe I could show you some things, you know?"  I agreed to do this.  I was happy to see him back.  "Okay, cool, I'll take this."  He grabbed the tray.  "And you bring the blanket."  I got out of bed and grabbed his blanket and wrapped it around myself before following him out the door.  "Oh, I wanted to let you know.  The wire room here, there's a metal panel that can cover it."  He pressed a button on the side of the door and the room that contained all the wires that held the other rooms together was covered over with a single metal sheet.  We walked to the end of this and he placed a hand over the interim room that allowed him to summon various spaces in his home and brought forth a winding staircase that went to the top of the house.  At the end of it was a large window that could be pushed open that you could walk through to get onto the roof.

We walked outside and sat on the roof.  It was a completely flat surface.  Some portions of the house slanted upwards, but the part that you could walk out onto was safe.  We sat down next to one another and he handed me my plate of food, and then he took a portion of the blanket and wrapped it around himself.  We both looked up at the nights sky.  I noticed in the dark, that the food was slightly glowing from inside of the pastry and was curious to know what it tasted like.  "Eat with your hands."  Matt said.  "That's how you build a connection to the food."  I took a triangle and a bit of the vegetable that it was sitting on and ate them together.  The flavours were rich, brothy and savoury.  There was a sweetness to the meat that was hard to pinpoint.

"So, you're a cook?"  I asked.
"I was.  I uh, I ran three restaurants but that was a long time ago.  I'm a simple man you know, I like to cook, I like to hunt and I'm a good businessman."  Matt spoke in between his bites of food.
"What were they called?"
"Matt's Place.  My friend runs them now.  You'll meet him and his wife tomorrow."
"Oh."  I took a look around the neighborhood and the city lights off in the distance.  The partition that Matt put up was no longer there and I could see the rest of the sprawling city.  Their skyscrapers were especially lit up.
He pointed out various areas in the city to me to show where they were located.  "Broadview."  He said, chewing on another bite, motioning towards a hill.  "Heartford."  He pointed in another direction.  "Mington."
"This is really good Matt.  Thank you..."

"Yeah!"  He smiled.  He had tiny little demon fangs.  Cute.  "So I uh, I wanted to show you some things while we're up here.  I thought you should know about where you come from, you know?"  I nodded and looked him in the eyes.  Demons had cat-like eyes that glowed in the dark.  There was no white in their eyes, just a solid cerulean blue with various little stripes that moved into the center of the black pupil.  "So uhm, right behind you there, you see that band shooting across the sky?  It has what look like little stars moving in it?  That's what you are.  Well, were.  When humans die they move along that tunnel and they keep going past a few layers of density within reality.  Their light source is a few densities away from ours, you know?"  I nodded, taking in everything he was saying.  "And that other band, the one that's farther away, that's where humans return to - they have a planet called Earth - it's in the densest layer of reality.  We're right behind you guys.  So, uh, sometimes you guys fall out of that tunnel and get stuck here - for a while, but someone always comes back for you..."  He looked down at his finished plate of food.  "When a human lands here it never remembers anything about its past, you know?  Once the body dies, your story is fresh and you get a new one.  You keep returning to your planet until you finish a cycle of some sort.  We don't know what that is or what the reasoning is for why your souls develop this way.  We try to stay out of it, you know?  But it's very unusual for a soul to be structured like this.  Demons like us, we get one story and we live it out, day after day, but you guys, you get a start fresh after a period of time, you know?  The weight of reality doesn't stick to you..."  

I looked up in wonderment at the two bands.  They stretched from one end of the sky to the other, and the tunnel looked like a thin aurora borealis.  "Do I go back there?"  I asked him.
"No."  Matt said strongly.  "No..."  Softer this time.  "You stay here.  With me."
"Why?"
"I don't know if you can, your key opened my lock.  A part of your soul is moving within mine.  How could it leave?"
"I wish I could remember what it was like to be a human.  I don't remember anything..."
"No.  You don't.  You know, sometimes not knowing things is a blessing.  It's better this way."  He thought back on what he had learned about my suicide and didn't want to spoil my fresh start with the knowledge of my past life.  "You know..."  He changed the subject.  "On the other side of the sky, you see the circle of light right up there?  You can't miss it."  I nodded as he pointed out to me what looked to be a large moon.  "That's our energy source.  You have yours that you come from and reincarnate back into, and we have ours that we built our world around.  We use this light to keep our species going.  There are three orientations you can be born into.  Light, dark and grey - and we're dark.  That doesn't mean we're bad guys, though, you know?  Dark is just the chaotic element to reality.  Yin.  We come from the main source, The Mother, she gave birth to all of us and made our planet next to this source so we could live from it and grow.  There are different species of animals that migrate through yin energy, but rely on yang to feed from and we follow these patterns and keep track of when and where to hunt so that we maintain a balance with our energy source."

Everything he was telling me was fascinating, but I still felt uneasy.  Despite not having any memories of my past life, I still had the emotional imprint of what had happened and this was giving me a chronic sense of negative feeling.  I liked Matt, quite a lot, and I was happy to be a part of his life, but I felt naïve.  Like I had been just placed there, without any previous understanding into who or what I was and I didn't know anything about these people, their customs or how I would fit in with them.  My future felt unsettled in many respects.  I didn't know what else to tell him and didn't have anything to say in regards to what he had told me about his people.  So I set my plate down and crawled into his lap to place my chest against his so that I could feel our connection.  It was the only thing that gave me a sense of ease.  I buried a portion of my face in his chest, one eye near his neck and peered out with a single eye off into the sky - to watch the band of souls travel across one point in the sky to the other.  Matt put his arms around me and looked at the energy source from the other side of the sky and thought about his own problems - how society would handle his new connection, how he would bring me out into the world, and thought about what Wyatt had told him earlier that night.  The one thing that held everything together was this cord between us, and to us both, it was the only thing that mattered.

"Annie..." He whispered.  "I wanted to apologize for, uh, for what happened in the basement the other night.  I, uh, I wasn't thinking straight.  You know?"
"Why did you let me break into your own house?  Also, why do you have a waterfall in your basement?"
"It's where I used to keep fish for my restaurants...  and I was just curious to see what you were on about, is all.  Do you forgive me?"  I nodded.  "Good, I'm glad to fucking hear it, let's go back inside.  I'm gunna do things to you."  I climbed off of him and he grabbed the two plates.  I took the blanket and we went back downstairs to his bedroom.

I'll be falling down
You be watching by my side (By my side)
I just need a helping hand, I just need you in my life (In my life)
Clouds keep turning black
Baby please just call me back
You keep living in my mind
Feel your soul inside (Yeah inside)
Falling into pieces, I'm so alone

Edited September 1, 2022 by Loba

[Loba]

 

I like making friends with demons
You need special eyes to see 'em
Have you got your Shinigami eyes on?

Are you ready to die?
Got my Shinigami eyes on
Everything is fine
Got my Shinigami eyes on you

When we got to his room, he put our plates on the nightstand and I set the blanket at the end of the bed before sitting back down to straddle his lap.  I kissed him and ran my tongue across his tiny little demon fangs.  We were finally on the same page.  He wasn't overbearing and crazed and I wasn't too forthcoming and awkward in the wrong moment.  He slid a hand under my white dress and nicked my underwear with a claw on both sides and tore them off of me.
"I don't have too many pairs of these for you to wear.  Best not do that too often..."  He mused.  "Lift your arms, please."  I did, and he removed my dress for me.  We kissed for a while longer and I let him run his hands down my back and across my legs before I started to unbutton his black shirt.  I removed it for him and leaned him down into me on the bed and we stayed like this for a while, kissing and staring into one another's eyes.  I couldn't get over how beautiful a demon's eyes were.  I wrapped my legs around him and hooked my big toes into his jeans and tugged on them a bit to passively indicate that I wanted them off.  He stood up, got out of bed and removed them for me before walking over to the nightstand to turn off the light.  I followed his glowing eyes as he made his way back to me, before coming over to rest on top of me ever so slightly.

"Are you ready?"  He asked.
"Yeah."  I said, wrapping my arms around him.  He slid it into me.  It wasn't painful, but there was some healthy friction there.  Once in, I lifted my legs up around his back as high as I could get them and pressed my forehead into his.  The cord between us that my soul that was continuously sifting into his heart was generally as thin as a thread, but in this moment it became as thick as a shoe string and the vortex in his chest was spinning in a circular motion a lot quicker than it normally did.  This night meant a lot to him, but, but not knowing about his struggles, I was unaware of the level of emotion he was feeling about the events taking place.  All I knew is that I could feel my cord being siphoned off and I surrendered into it.

I looked deeply into his glowing blue eyes as he moved inside of me.  We were both very quiet.  I could feel him trying to regulate his breathing.  His eyes were magnetic.  I began to focus on just one eye.  The lines connecting the pupil with the iris began to move forward, like being in an infinity mirror and I was entranced.  It felt as though I was being pulled into a different reality, one where everything was eternal.  I was drawn forward.  Just beyond me, it seemed like they contained the secrets of the universe, of time and space itself, and the walls of consensus reality collapsed around me.  There was nothing but me and the walls of his pupil, with the black hole that retained his stony stare looking right into me.  They seemed to be getting more dilated the longer I looked into them.  They held a genuine magnetism that pinned me there.

His eyes, along with the moving cord, and the feeling of him inside of me combined - there was something extremely pleasant about all of this.  Suddenly, it felt like there was another presence inside of his pupil.  And then, almost immediately, there was!  It was The Mother, reflected in his eye, a great, round, primordial black hole of infinite chaotic feminine energy.  The womb that birthed all of demon-kind.  This particular species was the closest she had created that moved in the direction of the creator's Love.  All of her previous creations had gotten lost in the chaos of her true nature and became evil or devoured themselves alive, and so she took special liberties to make sure that her favourite people were happy and well cared for, but she also tended not to get too involved in their affairs.  This was a rare circumstance.  She was heavy and thick and almost overbearing to look at, but I couldn't look away, I was transfixed. 
The Mother loved all of her creations very deeply and had noticed that one of her sons was extremely lonely.  She happened to be the gravitational force that pulled my soul away from the tunnel at the time of death and put me here in this world to make her unusual little child happy.  She picked me out, from the time of my birth until my untimely death as a gift for her baby and had made her presence known to be a witness to her child's divine consummation and to offer her blessing to the both of us.

"Oh little human-human-human..."  Her voice sung.  It rang like an echo and was as sweet as honey.  "Do you love one of my babies-babies-babies?"

"Yes..."  I whispered, staring deeply into Matt.  He didn't know there was a presence in his eye and thought I was speaking to him.

"Can you care for my baby-baby-baby?"

"Yes..."

"Will you care for my baby-baby-baby?"

"Yes..."

"Good girl-girl-girl..."  The Mother crooned.  "Good girl-girl-girl..."
"Good girl."  I could hear Matt's voice crescendo behind hers.
"Good girl-girl-girl..."
"Good girl."
"Good girl-girl-girl..." Matt's pupil continued to grow as the presence became stronger and stronger.  It looked like it would fill up his entire eye, there was just a thin line of glowing blue remaining.  I didn't know what would happen if the black hole took over his entire eye.  My cord was being sucked out of me at a great speed, and the sensation of him inside of me was beginning to give way to an energy in the center of my body that if he continued like this, would spread from the center all the way to my hands and toes in great pleasurable waves.  But this didn't happen.  He abruptly looked away before The Mother completely overtook his eye, and he buried his head in the crook of my neck, speeding up his pace for a few moments before shuddering.  I felt a sense of liquid warmth buried deep within me, and he was done.  He stayed there for a few minutes, the both of us tangled up, before turning to look back into my face.  I noticed that the pupils in both of his eyes were back to a normal size and the divine presence was gone.  His eyes looked soft, and underneath that, relieved.  He had never, in his entire life, had a satisfying, mutually connected sexual experience.  This was the first time.

He kissed me on the forehead, pulled out and rolled over onto his back.  "Come here.  Cuddle up."  He said.  I reached down, grabbed the blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it over the both of us before curling up into his arms.  I rested my head on his chest and closed my eyes.  Matt quickly fell asleep and had his first decent night's rest in a long while.  I stayed awake for another hour, listening to the sound of his breathing and feeling my head move as his chest rose and fell and concentrated on the sense of warmth that he had put into me.  I didn't quite know what to think of the events that transpired.  Not having any previous memories to fall back on, I didn't know what could constitute a strange event from a normal one.  Matt knew everything about me, and loved me very deeply and I was beginning to see his appeal and to feel the same way.  I finally fell asleep, while the two of us were unaware of the divinity that had befallen on us both.

 

I woke up the next morning to find that Matt was already awake.  He had put his old jeans back on and was buttoning up his black shirt.  He handed me my dress and told me he would fetch another pair of underwear.  He left the room to retrieve one from the guest room where he allowed stray humans to stay.  I stood up to put on my dress and immediately felt some of his liquid from last night run down my leg.  "Oh, uh oh..."  I thought, blushed and wiped it off on the sheet before putting my dress back on.  He walked into the room and handed me a fresh pair and I put them on.

"It's already mid-day.  We overslept."  Matt said.  "Wyatt and Maya should be here in a few hours, you know.  Let's get busy, we'll, uh, we'll take a bath later this evening, alright?"  I nodded.  Generally demons take baths after intercourse because they have such a strong sense of smell, this is a social courtesy, but Matt wanted to passive-aggressively stick it to Wyatt for the previous night's comments and to let him know that he succeeded in what he wanted to do.  "Let me show you my kitchen.  I'm going to get everything set up and you can wait in the dining space, ok?"  I nodded at looked at the ground.  "What's the matter, are you nervous?  Don't be nervous..."  He bent down to look me in the face and then gently scratched the top of my head with his claws.  "Come on."  He opened his bedroom door, hit the button by the wire room and the metal panel moved across to cover everything.  We walked across it and he put a hand on the interim door to manifest his kitchen and dining room.

When the door was opened, I took note of the space.  It was a large room with a wooden floor, a stone fireplace, two high-back chairs with a table in between them, and across from this was a long couch with another table in front of it.  Behind the couch was a large window that looked over the entire hill and beautiful red curtains.  The room was connected to his kitchen.  In his kitchen, he had a rack to hold all of his pans, a stove, an oven, a bunch of cabinets that held various spices and cooking tools in it, and at the end of his kitchen was the door to his small cooling cellar, which he kept all of his meat and produce in.  The floor was made of uniquely shaped grey stone slabs that were fit into all kinds of interesting designs.  Matt showed me what was in his cabinets, all of the types of food that he had in the cellar and what their names were and told me how they tasted.  He showed me how demons manifested fire and how the clay pans levitated inside of the stove pits.  Once he had shown me everything, he gave me permission to either stay with him or to go into the dining space.  I opted to sit down on the couch and look outside of the window while he collected his pans, knives, silverware, plates, bowls, trays, and thought about what he wanted to make.  He knew Wyatt would probably bring something with him to cook.

I looked out of the window.  It was midday, but their planet stayed in perpetual near-darkness, as the light from the energy source was not enough to offer full visibility.  This is why their eyes operated like a cat's.  The plants that grew were also very light in colour, as they didn't need enough sunlight.  They didn't come in a variety of many different colours.  Mostly different shades of white and light brown to grey.  The cities were very bright, enough to offer plenty of visibility.  I stared out at the tall skyscrapers off in the distance.  It almost looked like a carnival waiting for me, sitting just past the residential area.  The residential areas had a lot of posts that contained balls of warm, soft yellow light to guide people along the sidewalks.  I rested there, transfixed for some time until Matt came out of the kitchen and told me that Wyatt and Maya had arrived.  He asked me to wait there and went into the interim room where he manifested the entryway hall.

He opened the door and greeted his friends.  Wyatt had some meat wrapped in a paper, tucked in a bag, and Maya was over dressed for the occasion.  She was smaller than both of them, standing at about 6.5 feet, with long black hair that went down to her ankles and bangs that almost covered her hooded eyes.  She often wore red lipstick and painted her long, sharp nails with the same colour.  She had on a long red dress and wore a fur jacket from a light animal that glowed in the limited visibility.
"Hello Matt!"  She beamed.  "We're here!"
Wyatt and Matt nodded at one another.  He let them both in and as they walked down the hallway, Wyatt noticed a strong smell on him and he squinted his eyes in disapproval.  He had never smelled a human, didn't know what they were like, but he knew that was not the scent of another demon on his friend.  "Matt..."  Maya inquired.  "I noticed your lock was open.  Wyatt told me that it was a human who did this, is that true?"
"Uh, yeah..."  Matt placed a hand on the interim room and manifested the door to the dining space and kitchen.  "She's in here.  Please try to be pleasant with her."
"But of course."  Maya said.  "I've never seen a human before.  How fascinating."  Matt opened the door and they all walked in.

I looked over from the window to see three demons enter the room.  Wyatt took a quick look at me, sniffed the air, and walked into the kitchen without saying a single word, while Maya came over to me, grabbed my face in her hand, bent down and smelled one side of my neck, and then the other.  She noticed the cord coming from my chest and could see that it matched Matt's lock.  "I can't believe it.  You really did it, Matt... are they all this little?"  She continued to hold my face in her hands and studied my features.  I looked into her eyes.  They held the same energy that Matt's had.  I could see the demon mother's essence running through them both.
"Yeah.  They are."  He responded.  "Um, I'm gunna go help Wyatt in the kitchen, get this shit started."  When they spoke about me, they spoke in a language that I didn't understand.  It sounded rough and Germanic.  Usually Matt would speak to me telepathically, but when around one another, they used their native tongue.  Matt walked into the kitchen.  I could still see him, and watched as Wyatt took some meat out of a bag and placed it on the counter.

Maya sat next to me on the couch and smiled.  I couldn't read her very well and didn't know what she thought of me.  "What's it like for you... a little creature like you to have all that running out of your chest?"  She looked down at the cord.  I couldn't look at her face any longer.  There was something about the eyes of these other demons that weren't like Matt's.  They all held the same structure, but they felt distant and unloving to me, and yet wise, with a level of previous experience that I didn't have.  I couldn't hold a candle next to one of these beings.  I felt as small as a pet dog in their presence.
"It feels..."  I said slowly, thinking on my words.  "It feels... good.  Warm.  Connected.  Like I'll keep moving forward forever and it feels... final."  I looked Maya in the eyes on my last statement to emphasize on its permanence.  

In the kitchen, Wyatt and Matt had set everything up and were cooking and preparing the meal that we would all eat together.  I looked over at them.  They worked so efficiently together, and each demon knew what the other would do and how they would move, that their cooking looked more like a dance.
"I want you to come back to the kitchen."  Wyatt said in their native tongue, placing a slab of meat on a rotating clay pan.  Matt was silent.  He chopped some vegetables and placed them into another pan before placing it on the stove.  "But you can't come back smelling like that.  We could have you work in the back, on the roasts.  No one would see you.  No one would know.  You could have a fresh start man."  Matt stayed silent, stirring the vegetables with a glowing sauce made from the thickened blood of a light deer.  He swallowed.  He wasn't sure of what he wanted to do.  "If it works out, I'll give you back the main one."  Broadview.  The Broadview location was on a hill in the city on the main street of Locust and it overlooked the water.  It had a train that ran through it and an aquarium that spanned all along the front of the building, atop the ceiling and through the train's tunnel.  Matt used to breed light fish in his waterfall for this feature of the restaurant.  He continued to stir the sauce into the vegetables, looking intently straight ahead at the pan, without saying a single word.

"So what was it like for you, being with one of us?"  Maya asked me.  I turned back around to look at her.
"I don't know what you mean..."  I admitted.
"Sex."  She stated plainly.  "Did you enjoy yourself?  I can smell him on you."
I bit my lip and thought about the presence of The Mother in Matt's eye.  I drew in a slow breath.  "It was...sweet.  I am... happy.  And I think he is, too.  But... there was someone in his eye... I don't know who.  She told me he was her baby and to take good care of him."
The playful, teasing tone and mood that Maya had displayed changed on a dime.  "You met our mother?  How did-"

"The food's ready."  Before Maya could finish her sentence, Matt and Wyatt came in with two trays of food, each containing a plated meal and a glass with a drink on it.  "Can I sit here, Maya?"  Matt asked.
"Of course!"  She exclaimed, quickly getting up to sit at one of the high backed chairs across the room, next to Wyatt.  Matt set the tray down on the table and took one and handed it to me.  He showed me what the food was.  The dinner contained a large semi-rare slab of light pig roast that was marinated in it's own juices, and a starchy type of vegetable that was cooked in the sauce of a light deer, everything was seasoned perfectly.  The drink was from the fruit of a small tree that demons farmed, and tasted a lot like pear juice and was a light brown colour.  I noticed that for this meal, there were utensils.  He took his own plate and dug in.

I looked over at Maya for a moment, who had not looked away from me for a single second since I told her about The Mother, before darting away from her to stare nervously at my food.  Wyatt on the other hand was actively avoiding looking at me at all, and quietly dug into his meal without saying a word.  Maya took a petite little bite off of her plate and then looked over at Matt and asked in her language so that I couldn't understand them, "Matt, what is it about humans that you like so much?"

Matt stopped to think on this for a few minutes before speaking out loud as well as telepathically communicating to me, so that I could understand his words, "I like that they're like books, you know?  Um, they don't come with just one story.  They contain thousands.  They aren't, they aren't just oriented to the light or the dark, they have free will.  The creator made them for a special purpose and if we spent more time studying the different souls that come our way, we would know what that reason was.  And I wanna know, you know?  They're fragile and fleeting and there's something genuine about that."  He nodded thoughtfully to himself before taking another bite of food and then finishing off his statement.  "And you know, Maya, they're soft.  They don't feel like a demon.  They're warm.  And small..."  Speaking of them, reminiscing of the night that he had with his own human, Matt seemed noticeably more open and warm than he usually was and Maya could see this being a window of relief into her long-suffering friend's sadness.

Maya gave a small smile and then went back to her own meal.  We sat around until we finished everything and then Wyatt stood up and told his partner that he was ready to go home.  He thanked Matt for inviting them over, but didn't give me a single glance, and then walked over to the interim room and opened the door and then went through it.  Maya followed him, but realized that she forgot her fur coat and came back to get it.  When she returned she noticed Matt looking down at the floor, lost in his own thoughts, and I was staring out of the window at the cityscape below, reminiscing on the remaining emotions left over from my previous life and not knowing where to place them.  She took note that although we were connected through love, we were still worlds apart in our own way.  Maya genuinely wanted to see her friend succeed.

"Matt..."  She said.
"Yes Maya..."  Matt whispered, not looking up.
"I forgot my coat... and, I just wanted to tell you that I think you should come back and work for Wyatt.  He would be so happy to see you and I think that it would do you some good."
"Thank you, Maya..."  Still staring at the floor.
"And Matt?"
"Yes, Maya?"
"I want you to know, if you explained things to people the way that you did to me, I don't think that any harm is going to come of this.  I think you underestimate people and that they can be more open minded than you might realize..."  She thought of The Mother, and that if The Mother had gotten involved that there must be some reason outside of what was readily apparent to any of them.  "I hope that the rest of your evening is pleasant, Matt.  I will speak to you again very soon."
"Thank you, Maya..."  He looked up at her and they locked eyes, both with small smiles on their faces.  Maya gave a quick bow and then left the room.  She was already devising mental plans to get the both of us out into society and Matt back into the kitchens where he belonged.
We sat in silence for a long while until Matt stood up to gather the dishes.  He looked over at me, staring into the city.  I was clearly still quite lost and he wasn't sure if he should tell me about what had happened during my time on Earth, but something in him was questioning if keeping my past a secret was the right move to make.  He brought the dishes into the kitchen, washed them, came back into the dining space and manifested a fire in the fireplace, then sat back down with me and we both looked out of the window together.

Ever since I was a kid
On the backs of my two eyelids
I hid two Teleprompters there
Transmitting words from who knows where
Walkie-talkie on a mission
Roger, roger will I listen
Or will I just pass it along
No form of a sing-a-long
When muse annoys, devoid and null
I feel a tingle in my skull
Like ticker tape the words appear
There's a parade between my ears
I preach self-love I know it's true
It's easier to say than do
I send the messages to you
But now I need to hear them too
I am beautiful I am powerful I am strong and I am loveable
I am beautiful I am powerful I am strong and I am loveable

[Loba]

After the dinner, Matt and I had a few days alone without company to spend time getting to know one another.  He made for me three meals a day, a new dish each time, and showed me two new rooms in his home.  One of which was his massive two-story library that the wire room overlooked, and the other was the guest room that he allowed humans to stay in.  His library was painted a light green and had two large plush chairs to sit on in one corner with a little table between them, and a wooden staircase that went up to the second floor.  All of his books looked very old, and were leatherbound.  They didn't have covers on them, and most were inscribed with the golden lettering that his people used.  I asked him what they were for, and he told me that he collected cooking books and history books as well as various alchemical and manifestation secrets.  

The guest room was a small light yellow room that had a very comfortable looking full sized bed in it, and wooden floors with a dark yellow circular woven rug in the center, a dresser, a closet and a brick fireplace at the end of the bed.  All of the clothes that he lent to human women were kept in here and he took them out of the dresser and put them in his own room to give to me to wear.  Most of them were plain, lace white dresses and underwear and a pair of white buckle sandals.  

After meeting The Mother the first time we had sex, I was afraid to initiate another encounter with him, and he never tried to push himself off on me, instead deciding to allow me to come to him when I felt ready.  Sometimes I would crave getting close to him, especially at night, but I was nervous that his pupils would dilate and that The Mother would come and pull me into her gravity during intercourse.  I was afraid that if she did this that I would be lost and would not escape.  So I held onto my desire for him and kept my body at a distance, although our minds and hearts were on the same page.  I could sense something was off, still having an emotional imprint of my previous life and I felt depressed and lost.

One day, Maya came to visit us in the early afternoon and she brought with her one of her black jackets and told me to try it on.  The sleeves were too long and it was quite baggy on my smaller frame.  She suggested to Matt that the four of us take one of the food trains that ran through the city during the evening so that I could see what the city looked like, and so that the both of us could get out of the house.  She told Matt that the train went right through his restaurant on Broadview and that he could show me what it looked like on the inside through the window, and that the food trains had little rooms in them where the guests would sit, so there wouldn't be too many strangers looking at us.  Maya made a point that it would be a good opportunity to test the waters and see how a small portion of society would react to us.  She mentioned to Matt that this is why she brought the jacket.  It had a hood and it would cover my much lighter hair and obscure some of my features until we were seated at our table.  He agreed to her proposition and she told him that she would return with Wyatt later that evening.

We took a bath together so that when we went out the other demons would have a harder time smelling my human-ness.  I noticed that Matt never combed his black hair, he just ran his hands through it and so he always had a kind of disheveled look to him.  The two of us got dressed and spent the rest of the day in his dining space and kitchen.  I looked out of the window, excited to get an in person tour of the city while Matt made us a small lunch and organized his kitchen space.  When evening struck, Maya and Wyatt both came to the door and Matt let them into the hallway to wait while he went back to get me.
"They're here."  He said.  "Are you ready to go?"
"Yes, I am."  I replied, hopping off of the couch and following him to the interim room, where we met up with the other two.  Wyatt still wasn't looking at me.  He looked over to his friend and mentioned that he was glad he took a bath this time, so that we wouldn't smell.  I buttoned up Maya's jacket that she lent me and pulled the hood over my head and we all walked outside.

When we got outside the three of them turned into large black wolves.  Matt's fur looked as disheveled as his hair did when he was a man, while Wyatt was elegant, long and sleek and Maya's fur was feathered and so shiny that every bit of light that was outside reflected off of her.
"We don't have transportation in the same way that humans do, you know."  Matt told me.  "We , uh, we have trains that go throughout the city, but if you're in a residential area, you gotta run to get there.  But we go fast.  I want you to climb onto my back and hold tightly onto my neck.  If you need to dig in with your feet, that's fine, I can take it, ok?"  I nodded and climbed onto his back and wrapped my arms around his neck and dug both of my feet into his sides.  "Okay, let's roll."  And off we went.  

As we ran through the neighborhood, I noticed that the streets were set up in a very orderly fashion, all of them in neat numbered rows.  There were no lawns, no front or backyards, just houses with stoops and a very wide sidewalk in the middle that was split in two, one for demons walking around in their man-form and another for demons running into the city in wolf-form.  There were light posts after each house that allowed the demons to see in the darkness and I thought they looked beautiful as we zipped by them.  Matt, Wyatt and Maya were able to run at about 45 miles per hour and I had a hard time holding onto him, especially when he would make a sharp turn.  We made our way into the outskirts of the city, where the train station was located and the three demons turned back into men.  There were rows of about ten different tracks and a series of well-lit bridges that went over the tracks, with stairways down to each station.  Each station had a ticket booth, a vending machine with food in it, and a few covered benches to sit on while you waited for your train.  There was a scrolling sign above the booth that gave the expected arrival time.

Matt took my hand as we made our way across the bridge.  We walked past four stairways before arriving on the fifth and made our way down to the station.  Matt sat with me on one of the benches at the very end, out of the way of other people, while Maya and Wyatt went to buy four tickets.  We waited around for about ten minutes before a red train adorned in fancy golden letters all across its side stopped for us and a few other guests.  We waited until they got on the train before Matt stood up, took two tickets from Wyatt and entered the train first with me behind him, and then Wyatt, followed by Maya.  He looked down at the number on the ticket and matched it to a number written across one of the stalls and opened the door and ushered me in.
"You sit by the window."  He said.  The interior of the train was a brighter red, bordered in gold with golden letters written in their language and intricate designs showing wolf packs in the middle of a hunt.  It reminded me of the colour theme of his room, which was a deep red and mustard colour and I wondered if they used this colour scheme a lot in their culture.  The booths had comfortable, well stuffed seats and a wooden table to place food on and had just enough space for a party of four.  No one had noticed us when we took our seats, thanks to Maya's hooded jacket.  Maya sat across from me, and Wyatt from Matt.

"We'll be in the city at the next stop and once we're on Locust they should start taking food orders.  This should give you about twenty minutes to decide on what you want to order."  Maya told me, smiling at me with her eyes.  "There's a menu in a pocket placed just below the window."  I took a look and spotted two folded menus and handed one to Matt, while Maya took out hers and handed one to Wyatt.
"What's the name of your city?"  I asked Maya.
"Van Bien."
"Van Bien?"  I repeated.
"Mmhmm."  She replied.  "It's the largest city we have here.  We don't have an overpopulation problem like humans do.  There's only about five million demons altogether."  She informed me.  "We have three cities on our planet, no towns, just some farmland located right outside of these cities and we leave the rest of the planet alone.  We're smaller than Earth, only about a fifth it's size."  I nodded and felt Matt's hand on my leg and looked at him.
"I'm gunna order for you, okay?"  He said.  "I think I know what you might like."  I nodded again and took a look at the menu.  It was written in their unusual lettering.  There's no way I would even know what to order even if I could read the menu, so I set it down and looked out of the window.  The train started moving and I saw a whirlwind of lights and buildings flash by me.

"So, Matt..."  Wyatt spoke up, speaking in their language so that I couldn't understand him.  "Have you been thinking about what I told you, pertaining to coming back to the Broadview location?"
"I don't know man."  He admitted.  "I'm still thinking about it.  Give it some time, you know?  I still don't know what I'm gunna do about this human, ok?"  Wyatt let it go and glanced through his menu.  

It didn't take long before we were traveling through the city of Van Bien.  The skyscrapers were two times as large as the ones on Earth and were covered in multi-colored lights and moving advertisement billboards and signs.  It looked a lot like downtown Tokyo.  There were trains that went along the streets, and also ones that spiraled through the buildings above us.  We got to Locust and a waitress knocked on the door to our stall before entering to take down our orders.  I made sure to face the window when she came in so that she couldn't see me, while Matt ordered for the both of us.  She left and Matt leaned in to me and whispered, "The next stop is my place.  Keep your eyes peeled, ok?"
"Okay!"  I looked out of the window in excitement.  We got to his place on Broadview and the first thing I noticed was a fancy white building with an ivy like plant growing all along its exterior, and then on the inside it had an aquarium in the front display windows that were connected from the ceiling to the train tunnel.  There were various schools of different species of light fish swimming all around, in between glowing rocks and flowing aquatic plants.  I could see just beyond the water, at the booths in the restaurant where people were seated.  In the aquarium display there were painted mermaid statues perched on the rocks that had light hair like mine and human-shaped eyes.  The train stopped here for a few minutes before continuing on it's path.  "Matt, this is amazing!"  He smiled and leaned forward to look me in the eyes.  One thing I noticed about demons is that eye contact is very important to them.

The train continued on its way for another twenty minutes before the waitress came back with our food.  This time she noticed that something was off about me.  I had accidently looked in her direction and she saw my strange eyes, my small frame and light coloured hair peaking out of the hooded jacket.
"What is that?"  She asked, eyes darting back and forth between everyone there, before resting on the cord that Matt and I shared.  "What is that?  What's going on?"  The woman seemed confused and somewhat alarmed.  Matt snarled defensively.  Maya kicked him under the table and spoke up for the both of us.
"That's a human being.  Please just let it go.  They have The Mother's blessing."  She insisted.  "I know this looks unusual to you, but trust me, there is nothing wrong.  Everything is okay.  I promise you."
"The Mother?"  The waitress exclaimed.  "What is a human being?"  Matt and Wyatt were both looking at Maya, fully attuned to this new tidbit of information.
"A human being comes from the band of souls in sky.  The Mother brought her here.  We don't know why."  The waitress nodded, not understanding what was going on, and set our food down on the able with wide eyes that remained fixated on me.  She was speechless and left the stall without saying a single word.
When she left, Matt looked over at me.  "How did you meet our mother?"
"She... was in your eye... the night we had... sex..."  I looked down at my food.  It was a soup of some sort that had a large glowing egg in a bowl next to it.
"I would like to discuss this with you when we get home, would that be okay?"
"Yes."

Matt told me about the soup I was about to eat.  It was a light brown colour, and had various mild coloured straw-like vegetables in it.  He showed me how to crack the egg over the soup.  The yolk was a rich golden colour and the egg white was a glowing cream.  He stirred it up for me, and the mixed egg gave the whole soup a metallic bronze colour.  I took a sip.  It was very light, but creamy and the vegetables that were in it didn't have much flavour.  They absorbed most of the flavours of the soup, but offered an interesting texture.  They were hollow on the inside and easy to chew.
"You like it?"  He asked.
"I love it.  Thank you."
Matt decided that he would tell me about my previous life when we got home.  That we needed to combine stories to figure out what was going on.  He had been questioning if leaving me out in the dark when it came to what he knew, if this was an ethical thing to do and began to lean towards finding some sort of explanation for me, especially after seeing that the emotional residue of what had happened had not washed away.  Demons were an honest species and he didn't like the idea of keeping things a secret.

We rode the train all the way around Broadview while Matt and Maya showed me various features of the city.  Wyatt spent the whole time with his nose in a book.  The ride lasted altogether about two hours before it circled back around to the train station that we started at.  Matt reached over to press a button that indicated to the driver that guests wanted to stop and we all got off.  I took Matts hand and kept my face to the ground, just in case the waitress happened to be walking down the isle.  Luckily she never showed up again.  We walked down the steps of the train to the ground and back over the bridge before the three demons turned into wolves, ready to run back into the neighborhood.  Matt bent down enough so I could climb on his back and we were off again in a flash, running in the direction of Matt's home.  Somewhere along the way there Maya and Wyatt separated from us to go their own way.  Both of them called out, "Later Matt!"  Before turning down a different street.  We finally got home and he opened the door and brought me to his room to discuss some things.

I removed Maya's coat and sat next to him on his bed.  "What did you want to talk about?"  I asked him.
"It's about The Mother, you know... how exactly did you meet her?"
"Well, she appeared in your eye when we were having sex.  It was like your eye turned into a room that kept going on forever and she was at the end of it, and then your pupil started to grow and it nearly filled up your whole eye."  I explained to him.  "And she told me to take care of you, that you were her baby."  Matt took my hand while we both sat at the edge of the bed and spent a few minutes processing what I had said.  The Mother rarely made herself known to demons once they were born, but her presence was always there, helping to guide her people.  Despite never meeting her, Matt always felt connected to her energy.  His people were unified under this connected energy.  It was unusual for The Mother to interfere in the lives of her people, and it had never once been known for her to interfere in the life and death cycle of a human being.  He thought about what he had witnessed when I passed away, how I was completely removed from the trajectory of the soul tunnel altogether, how it felt that a gravitational pull had forced my soul to move in a new direction and he equated this to The Mother's interference.  But he didn't know why.  He decided it was time to tell me about my history.

"I, I need to speak with you about something, ok?  And I don't know how you're gunna take it."  He sounded anxious.
I looked at him with a serious expression.  "Okay... tell me, what is it?"
"It's about your previous life...  I know all about it.  The whole story.  That night when I found you, I was given access to your records and I got to live out your life with you from start to finish and I, uh, it was, it wasn't an easy life.  And I feel that maybe, that maybe, that's why you're having such a hard time adjusting here is because you're still connected to it in some way, you know?"  I looked down at the floor, taking in everything that he was telling me.  "I watched you grow up, from a little girl into a woman.  And you, you didn't fit in there.  You loved nature and animals and drawing... and writing.  You had a family.  A mother, and a father and a brother.  But you were sick, in the head, you know?  For a long time.  And in the body as well, you were absolutely fucked.  And, well, your family died and they left you there all alone and you, uh, you took some pills and you died, too.  It was in the middle of your life.  You were lonely.  You were sick.  You were scared...  You thought it would be an easy death, you know?  But it wasn't.  You vomited everything up, but it was too late.  When you died, you left your body and I think that The Mother sent you here.  It was like you were pushed off course right into my world, you know?"  I started to cry with big, thick tears trickling down my face.  "I'm so sorry, Annie.  I uh, I wanted to tell you, but I thought you deserved a fresh start.  I thought, you know, this world is so orderly and I know how to fucking live, and I'm exact and precise and I thought that if you stayed here with me that I could fix everything for you, and that you wouldn't need to struggle ever again.  I want to take care of you... can you let me do that?  What I'm trying to say is that I know how."  Matt looked into my face, but I couldn't look at him.  I was afraid that The Mother would appear in his eyes, so I kept staring downwards.  He reached over to grab my face and moved it so he could look at me.  I shut my eyes.  "Oh, fuck.  You can't even look at me, can you?"  I shook my head.

"I'm sorry... I can't..."  I continued to cry.  Everything that he told me fit in so perfectly with how I was feeling about myself.  I couldn't remember anything, but I could place what he was saying with how I felt and knew that it was true.
"Look, why don't you lay down on the bed, ok?"  He suggested.  "You don't have to open your eyes,  I'll be here with you.  It's going to be alright, you know?"  I laid down and curled up while he grabbed a blanket and put it around us both before spooning me.  I cried for a long time.  He would occasionally reach over and take the tip of his nose, press it against my cheek and run it along my tearstains, but for the most part he just lay there and let me mourn my previous life.  I finally fell asleep and when I did my cord moved closer into his.  This gave him a sense of relief as he wasn't sure where he stood.  I was afraid of The Mother's presence, but I trusted him completely and knew that he was a good man and despite being frightened, my soul still wanted to reach into him in some way. 
He stayed awake and contemplated on what his next steps would be - if he would go back to the kitchen to work with Wyatt, and how he would manage keeping me here at the same time.  He thought about The Mother's actions and wondered what her plans were for us, if there were even any at all.  He listened to the slow breathing accompanying my sleeping and wished that he could have done something, anything, to ease the blow.
"Fuck..."

I didn't want to know
I just didn't want to know
Best to keep things in the shallow end
'Cause I never quite learned how to swim

Call an optimist, she's turning blue
Such a lovely color for you
Call an optimist, she's turning blue
Such a perfect color for your eyes
Call an optimist, she's turning blue
Such a lovely color for you
Call an optimist, she's turning blue
While I just sit and stare at you

[Loba]

Where will I go
When you don't need me anymore
Filled with questions
As you waltz right out the door
I am beaten, cast aside and dragged through dirt
You are needed, you are needed
We are the only ones who know where we belong
We are the only ones who know
We are the only ones who know where we belong

I awoke the next morning to find that Matt had stayed up the whole night with me.  This news warmed my heart.  "Good morning..."  He whispered, nuzzling my cheek with the tip of his nose.  "How did you sleep?"
"Fine..."  I realized that I couldn't avoid looking at him and that at some point I was going to have to face my fear.  I didn't want him to get the impression that I didn't love him, as I was starting to develop very strong emotions for this man.  So I turned around, took his face into my hands and looked him right in the eyes.  And it was just his presence there.  Nothing strange or unusual or frightening at all.  Just the person that I loved.  I sighed in relief.  "Thank you for telling me, that probably wasn't an easy decision to make."  I couldn't hold it against him for waiting.  We had only known one another for about a week and it wasn't as though he kept my secrets from me for a long time.  I knew that he was just confused and was looking out for my best interests.
"No..."  He admitted.  "It wasn't."  He took his hand and rubbed it along my inner thigh as I stared into him.  "You're afraid of The Mother."  He stated.  "Look, um, The Mother isn't going to hurt you, you know?  I don't know why she got involved with your life, but there's nothing that she can do to hurt you.  The Mother is just an orientation of energy, she's my mom... she made me.  If she made herself known to you, then there's a good reason for it, and uh, I think that we should try to keep our minds open and try to figure out what those reasons might be.  It might bring you some closure.  Even if you meet her again, she isn't gunna do something bad to you.  You don't need to be afraid of her.  And you don't need to be afraid of me."
"Okay... maybe you're right."
"I know I'm right."

Matt took his hand off my thigh and slid it over my underwear, gently rubbing before lifting the fabric and sliding a finger into me.  We hadn't done anything for a few days and he was feeling hungry.  He dipped another finger in, quickly flitting them in and out, before pulling them both out and rubbing them over the little bead, distributing moisture onto it.  A human woman was a novelty to him.  He had a few encounters with demon women and they weren't soft, warm and wet like a human female.  He continued gently rubbing for a few minutes before dipping his fingers back in, and repeated this a few times until I came.  I mewled.  "You like that..."  Matt stared at me with a mischievous look on his face.  He removed his hand and held his fingers in front of me and snipped them both together a few times like a pair of scissors, the slick wetness separating in thin, clear strings, before sliding them into his mouth.  "Do you want to try again?"  He asked, pulling himself on top of me, while nibbling on my neck.  "Please say yes."

"Yeah, let's do it."  I had wanted to sleep with him again after our first night together, but I was afraid and had been holding myself back.  Matt's reassurance brought me some much needed courage.  He lifted my dress off of my body and then moved his mouth down to one of my breasts, gently teasing the nipple in between his sharp little teeth before running his tongue along it in circles until it was taught, and then he gave the other one the same treatment.  He did this for a few rotations before moving down to my legs.  He opened them and glazed a finger across the bead before darting his tongue inside of me, just to get a taste.  Warm.  Mild.  He could smell my pheromones...  Matt then decided that he didn't want to spend too much time on foreplay.  He was too horny.  He ran his tongue across me one more time before getting up.

He had fallen asleep in his clothes, and so he had to undo his button-up shirt and remove his jeans.  I hadn't actually seen Matt erect before - as we had slept with one another in total darkness, or he was flaccid when we bathed together - and I was very curious to know what it looked like.  When he took off his pants I made sure to get a good look.  It was a handsome size, not too big, not too small, not too thin, and not too thick.  He was uncut.  Demons don't circumcise their young, that's a human tradition.  He pulled the skin back and I saw the head peek out.  A blushing reddish purple.  He climbed back onto the bed, placed one hand on my waist and used the other hand to guide it in.  I watched with excitement and fascination as it slid deep into my eager body.  The great disappearing act.

He leaned on top of me, and I wrapped my arms and legs up high around him.  "Let's see what happens..."  He said, starting a slow and steady pace, hitting my cervix with force when he got to the end of his thrusts.  I held his gaze while I felt all of him and allowed my soul to mix into his.  Again, the cord thickened during our intercourse and I could feel it being pulled into him.  This created a nice rotation, where I was pulled into him as he was into me.

Staring deeply into his eye, it began to move forward just like it had done a few nights ago and I found myself gliding forward into a realm of pure infinity.  The lines of the walls were made of his blue iris and they raced past me, while the pupil at the center began to inch closer.  He continued to slam into my cervix and I felt the familiar well of energy in the center of my body start to collect.  "Let me know if you see her..."  The black hole in his eye grew larger, and then The Mother appeared, but she didn't say anything, she just continued to draw closer and closer until she almost filled his entire eye.
"I see her, Matt."  I informed him.
"What does she want?"  He asked.
"I don't know."  I replied.  "Don't blink.  Just keep going..."  I kept my gaze steady as his pupil gradually covered his entire eye, and as soon as this happened the well of energy in my body broke open and flooded me with wave after wave of intense, pleasurable sensations that started in my center and gravitated outwards to the very tips of my fingers and toes.  My walls began to pulsate in reaction to the orgasm, milking him as he kept his steady pace, hitting that spot over and over again, drawing it out as the waves continued to crash around me.  I cried out.  Generally I was very quiet, but I couldn't keep it in.  It was just too good.

I continued to look into his eye.  The Mother's presence, ever watchful, gifted me back all of my memories.  As the waves subsided, in an instant, everything that was lost was retained.  Soon after I came he sat up and grabbed my waist with both hands, then pulled my lower body up into his and sped up, pacing like a jackrabbit.  Hard and fast.  I could hear him moving in and out of my slick entrance as my body bobbed up and down on his hunger.  He gave a few sharp thrusts, fiercely slamming me down onto to it, arched forward in pleasure, gasped, and then I felt the familiar splash of delicious warm liquid as it coated my innermost recesses.  We sat there for a few seconds before I came to my senses.
"Matt!"  I exclaimed.  "I remember who I am!"  I tried to catch my breath as I crawled out from under him, spilling his liquid out onto the bedsheets as I sat up.  "I remember everything.  My entire life."
"What... do you mean?"  He looked over at me, panting.  His eye was back to normal.
"I saw her!  She filled up your entire eye and then I came and then... I remembered everything.  All of it.  She gave me back my memories."  I got up and ran to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror.  I didn't look anything like the person that I was on Earth.  I was young again.  I looked to be about nineteen, with big blue eyes, no glasses and long blonde hair that separated into perfect ringlets with bangs.  I was thin, with an elegant feminine body, small perky breasts with pink little nipples and pale white skin that was almost perfectly porcelain.  "I'm not the same person!"  I cried.

"Yes, you are."  Matt reassured, walking over to the mirror to look into it with me.  He came up behind me and draped his arms around my frame, and rested his chin on the top of my head.  "The dimension on Earth gives your soul a shell to live through - so you can maneuver in that density from start to finish.  It's a cover of the book that is You, but it isn't indicative of what you genuinely look like, you know?  Each new Earthly body looks different, but your soul, uh, it retains the same shape.  You've always looked like this each time you died, with your human body being like a suit to cover it.  You just don't remember all of the times you have died.  And human souls always look young.  You're probably not, though, you know, you guys end up living through hundreds of thousands of different lives.  The less dense of a reality you are on, the closer you get to how you really look, which is in, uh, it's in actuality just an orb of pure light energy.  And for me, it would be an orb of pure dark energy.  But due to being more dense, we take up a physical form.  Do you understand?"

"Kind of?"  I was in shock.  "Matt, I fucking died!  I'm dead!"
"I know."
"I can't believe this happened.  I mean, I wanted to die.  But I didn't think that this is what happens after you do.  What the fuck?"
"I uh, I don't know what to tell you.  Are you okay with this?  With me?  Is there anything I can do?"
"So, you have my memories, and I have my memories?"
"I-I guess so, yeah..."
"Holy shit."  I walked out of the bathroom and sat back down on the bed to process everything.  Matt took note that it was as if a light switch had instantaneously gone on in my eyes and in my mind.  Like there was an actual person there instead of a confused shell.  He sat down next to me and looked at me expectantly.  "Matt.  I need to tell you something about The Mother.  When she gave me back my memories, I knew exactly who she was.  We worship a form of her energy on Earth.  They call her Goddess Kali.  There might be a few different names for her, but this is the only one that comes to mind.  She's a powerful primordial feminine energy that encompasses death and time itself.  I used to pray to this goddess, and when I got sick she showed herself to me during a spiritual awakening.  Matt, I would know that energy anywhere.  It's like she had been following me my entire life and it felt like she dictated my life up until the point where I died.  I could feel her pull me out of my body, like a warm, dark hug and then carry me to your world.  It felt like, like I don't just have my memories back but that I understand what her presence in my life meant.  I think she picked me out and brought me here for you."

"Humans know of The Mother?"  He asked.
"Yeah, I mean kind of.  I don't think that they know that in different dimensional layers that there are other species of sentient people.  But the energy influences our world, too.  She probably has more connections to different worlds than you're even aware of."
"We wouldn't know, you know?"  Matt explained.  "We know of other souls, but our species is neutral.  We don't get involved in the affairs of other beings.  I had no idea that The Mother was that widespread.  So you think she, uh, she brought you here... for me?"
"I think so."
"So what do you wanna do?"
"I want... to... stay here... with you.  But... I need some time to process this, and so I might seem kind of distant for a few days."  I scooched over until I was resting next to him and placed my head on his shoulder.  "Is that okay?"

"Absolutely."  He leaned his head on mine.  "You know, since we're on about all of this, I uh, I wanted to let you know, I think I'm going to go back to working the kitchens.  Wyatt offered me a job at the main location to start with and if, it uh, if it works out you know, then I can take over.  But I need to figure out what I'm gunna do with you.  I can't just leave you in this room all day and you don't know how to work the rest of the house."  I smiled and nodded.  I was thrilled that he decided to make this choice for himself.  "If you need some space to uh, to think about your life I can give that to you.  This will give me a chance to figure some of my own shit out.  This is a lot to take in, you know?"
"I know... thank you, Matt."

"Anytime."  He leaned in to kiss me on the nose.  "I'm gunna make us some breakfast and then maybe we can spend the day in the library or something, ok?  I have some stuff I wanna research, you know, in light of what you've told me and maybe you can take that time to think about what's going on with you - what is going on with you, by the way?  Are you okay knowing all of this?"
I looked him square in the eyes.  "Honestly.  Yes.  It's better than trying to live here without any memories at all.  I could feel everything leftover from what happened on Earth, but I had nowhere to place my emotions.  And even though this is kind of traumatic it's still a better place to be then having absolutely nothing to go off of."
"I'm glad."  He looked away.
"Matt?"
"Yeah?"  He looked back at me again.
"I love you."
"Yeah."  He was smiling with his eyes.  "Me too."
We put our clothes back on, left the room and he made me one of the most amazing breakfasts I've ever tasted.

Been counting all your aces you ain't winning
Your phonebook full of numbers 'stead of names
All them vain decisions keep you jaded
You could have found the one but you won't change

So aren't you glad to meet me
I think you should
I'd be glad to meet me If I were you
Aren't you glad to meet me
I think you should
I'll make a real good soul out of you
Time ain't ticking slow
Yes you're overdue
Aren't you glad to meet me
I think you should
I mean i really think you should yeah

You keep on playing saying it's in your nature
Then you go on sulking blaming all but you
Won't admit you set your heart for failure
Should be glad I'm here awaking you

Edited September 4, 2022 by Loba

[Loba]

You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Any place is better
Starting from zero, got nothing to lose
Maybe we'll make something
Me, myself, I got nothing to prove

So I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast, I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I-I, had a feeling that I belonged
I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

This is part of an ongoing  (poorly written) story - please see the previous page to start.

I followed Matt into the kitchen and sat on the counter to watch him make our breakfast.  He took out some supplies from the cooling cellar.  Flour, light eggs, milk, cream and butter made from a light goat, baking powder, sugar, and mingfruit extract.  He set them all on the counter and got a few bowls, a whisk, some spoons, a spatula, and a clay pan.  I observed him whisk some cream in a bowl while I swung my feet back and forth at the edge of the countertop.

"So why did you leave your restaurants in the first place?"  I inquired.  He seemed to really love to cook and he was good at it.  I couldn't see why he would want to quit.
"It's a long story."  He said, adding some sugar and mingfruit extract to the cream before whisking it again.  "It's because of a girl.  Like you."
"A girl like me?"  I watched him take a taste of the whipped cream, and then add more extract.
"Yeah.  Um, like I said, it's a long story.  But, uh, I'll tell you...  So, demons are brought into the world with the purpose of having a special connection with someone, you know?"  He looked at me.  "A partner.  A lover.  But first, we build ourselves up.  We spend a long time cultivating ourselves before we bond to another person.  Everyone has a place in this society, and because we live forever we are given a lot of time to figure out what that is, and to develop it into something great.  And uh, I always wanted to do this.  Cook.  You know?  I figured that portion of my life out pretty early on.  I fucking love to hunt, and I fucking love to cook.  And I got good.  Really good.  Me and Wyatt.  Together.  We were a team."

I listened closely as he set aside the whipped cream and began to mix the other ingredients into a batter.  One by one, he poured each ingredient into the flour and stirred them together as he spoke to me.  "At first, I thought I was a normal guy, you know?  I had everything going for me.  My life was in order.  Wyatt eventually found Maya and I thought I would find someone in time, but it never happened.  And uh, I tried.  I tried to open my lock and I, uh, heh... I couldn't, I couldn't even get it up half the time.  I didn't know why.  I thought something in me was broken, you know?  Maya kept bringing me new women, and I'd play along.  I'd go on dates with them.  But nothing came of it."  He turned on the stove, greased the clay pan with butter, waited until it heated up and then poured four small round cakes onto it, and flipped them over every so often.  "I felt depressed, you know?  But I kept up appearances... for a while.  To make everyone happy, to fit in...  and then, um, on my way home one night I noticed a human girl wandering around the city and she looked so lost.  I couldn't just leave her there, so I brought her home with me.  Her name was Violet."

"Violet?"
"Yeah.  She, uh, she looked a lot like you...  A little older, a little taller, but very similar.  I never did get her history, though.  She stayed with me for about a month and I took care of her.  I fed her, clothed her, I taught her about my world... and my life... and... and I felt something, you know?  For fucking once.  I, uh, I think it's the frailty, you know?"  He took the first batch off the pan and made four more.  "It makes me feel good.  To be needed.  But then I got a revelation one night from the creator that she would be brought back to the band of souls in the sky and I was told to bring her up to my rooftop so that she could be collected and returned to her rightful home.  And I did...  I hugged her right before the light took her away...  She turned into an orb of light right in my arms and floated off into the sky.  Back to the band.  I uh, I watched her leave until I couldn't see her anymore and the next day I quit my job and gave everything to Wyatt."

I felt a tinge of jealousy learning that I wasn't Matt's very first love, but swallowed these emotions and continued to listen to his story.  It was fascinating to learn this about him, despite my possessiveness.  He poured four more cakes into the pan and began to cook them.  "I realized that they always return to where they're supposed to be going.  That, uh, that you can't connect with one the way that a demon connects with its own kind, you know?  So I gave up.  I helped more souls as I found them.  But they always left.  I kinda figured my love would always be a one-sided thing.  But then you came along, and it happened for me.  There's a cord connecting us.  And so now, I uh, I wanna go back to work.  And I want to hunt for you and take care of you.  I can live like a normal fucking person now, you know?"  He removed the last of the cooked cakes and set them on a plate with the others, and then took a spoon and put a line of cream in the middle of each one before rolling them up.  After he plated them, he poured two cups of juice and set them on a tray.  "Let's go to the library.  You wanted some time to think and I have some research I want to do."  I hopped off the counter and followed him back to the wire room, where we took a set of stairs down to the library.

When we got there, he brought the tray over to the table in the middle of the two plush chairs in the corner and we sat down to eat together.
"You don't have to feel jealous, you know?"  Matt said, taking a cake and biting into half of it.
"What, no, I'm not jealous!"  I lied.
"I could tell."  He replied, still chewing his food.  "We have a cord.  You can't hide that shit from me."
I swallowed heavily, and took a small bite off of one of the cakes.  It had a light, fluffy texture and a sweet flavour, while the cream in the middle was rich, buttery and fruity.  Mingfruit tastes similarly to fresh blueberry jam.  They were absolutely delicious.  "Okay, I am.  But I know that it's not a big deal..."  I admitted to him.  "I just wanted to be your first one."
"You are."  He stated plainly.  "Waking up to something that you desire for yourself isn't the same thing as actually cording with another person, you know?  One is still based on a fantasy and the other is, uh, it's a genuine connection.  We demons, we don't take these things lightly.  Once this happens, that's it.  It's done.  There is no other one.  It's just you."  He licked his fingers and took gigantic mouthfuls from his cakes.  He wanted to finish quickly so that he could get started with his research.  He was interested in learning more about The Mother's influence and to try to trace why this connection happened to us.  I let it go and worked on my own breakfast.  I found Matt to be a very understanding person.

Matt set his dishes down on the tray, got up and wandered through certain sections of the library, picking out a book here and there, and then placing it back when he was done.  He would pace back and forth from one isle to the next while he read, his eyes darting from side to side as he finished a page within twenty seconds.  Demons are able to absorb and remember everything that they read.  They're lightening fast learners and can get through a book in no time at all.
I sat in the chair and thought about my life.  All of my memories.  From the time I was little until the time I died.  I thought about what being alive felt like and I thought about how it felt to die from an overdose.  I thought about the fear that I had in my last moments and the sense of regret for what I had done and I remembered how I felt when I realized that there was no turning back.  I thought about how it felt to be lifted out of my body by The Mother, and how she held me closely to her before dropping me off here. 
I looked up at Matt.  He was running a hand through his messy hair and one of his little fangs had gotten caught on his lower lip while he was frenetically pacing from one side of the library to the other.  Snaggletooth.  He gave me a quick glance before returning to his book.  "I found something."  He announced.
"What is it?"  I asked.

"What's this symbol?"  He walked over and showed it to me.  It was a yin-yang.
"That's a yin-yang.  I don't know much about them.  They spin into one another... darkness moves into light, and light into darkness.  Masculine and feminine energies.  Balance.  That's all I know."
"Yin and yang!  I see, now."  Matt recognized these words and had a good understanding of how these energies worked together.  "I know all about that.  I didn't know you humans knew about energetic polarity...  Hey, that's like us, you know?  I move into you and you move into me.  Like a rotation, a circle."  I nodded, but didn't understand what he was getting at.  "So..."  He continued. "So, maybe that's the reason for all of this.  Maybe these two orientations are meant to come together?  Light and dark."  I started to see where he was coming from. 
"So you guys don't use this symbol?"  I asked him.
"No."  He shook his head.  "Maybe this is how things are unified, you know?  That light and dark is supposed to meet together, to blend... it's destiny.  What do you think?"
"This could be possible... seeing what The Mother has done for us... but I really don't know..."
"Fair enough.  We'll keep looking.  How are you doing?"
"Just thinking about my life.  I want to go over it, accept what happened and then move on."
"That sounds good."
"Matt, can you tell me anything more about The Mother?"

Matt set his book down on the table and sat in the chair next to me.  "Sure.  What do you want to know?"
"Anything that you can think of that I might not already know."
"Okay... well, let's see.  I was, I was, uh, born from her.  I don't really remember her...  Every year about four new souls are created from her energy.  She made this planet around this particular light source to offer her people sustenance.  When we, uh, started forming, we were just smoke in the miasma.  No bodies, just consciousness, you know?  But as more of us were born, we began to create a collective reality and we developed physical bodies.  They aren't physical in the same way that a human body is, they're created from a collective imagination.  Her energy runs through all of us, connecting us all together.  That's why eye contact is so important.  We can see The Mother's love for us.  We, um, we are the first race that she made from her love - the Womb of Life - that ended up creating a balanced society.  It's the reason that connection and partnership is so important here, it keeps reality solid, structured, and without it we would dissolve back into the miasma." 

I stared at him, wide-eyed, taking it all in.  "Her energy is chaotic and violent, and so most of her creations destroy themselves or they feed on light sources from grey-oriented planets such as yours and cause world-wide disasters for your people socially and culturally.  They, uh, they do it through memetics.  Part of the reason that humans are unable to move forward is due to the influence of her rogue offspring.  But The Mother herself, she is beautiful, untamable, like the lightening reflected off of a tornado, you know?  She's one of the deities that yin-oriented creations meet at the end of their lives, if they have a life span.  Being connected to her love, and having a body created from a unified consensus reality, we don't age and, uh, we don't die.  The exception to this rule are demons who were forcefully uncorded early on in our history.  If a demon loses the cord to its partner, then it will without a doubt go off somewhere to kill itself.  If you lose that, you don't get it back and the whole point of being alive for us is to have it, you know?"  I was starting to understand the gravity of what this connection between us meant to him.  Not being able to pair bond was a matter of life and death for them.  "The Mother gave us the lock and key system so that we, uh, we could share her love and maintain a sense of reality.  The creator made The Mother from love, and The Mother made us from love.  If a demon doesn't have this connection, then he loses a part of himself as well as a part of his society, his mental health and his vitality."

I nodded thoughtfully.  "We stay neutral, and this neutrality is what keeps us from becoming overwhelmed by her chaos. So instead, our darkness is reflected in the animals that we hunt.  We need to do it.  It's pure instinct.  We inherited a part of her ruthless nature, and hunting and killing what we eat is how we express this portion of ourselves.  We have to feed regularly from the light, that's why food is so important in our culture.  It's, uh, it's why I wanted to be a chef.  I wanted to share the light with others, and to satisfy them.  I wanted to use my killing nature for something good and to make things that helped other people feel good, you know?"  I reached over to take his hand into mine. 
"That's all I know about The Mother.  And, you know, apparently she is a part of your world, too, but that's news to me.  Is that enough?"

"Yes, thank you, I appreciate this information..."  I smiled at him.  "Are we done in here, Matt?"  I asked, not wanting to stay in the library anymore.
"Yeah.  Let's go take a bath.  We fucking stink."  He said while fondly reflecting on the morning we had.  "Then I wanna get ahold of Maya.  I think I have a solution.  She works from home.  She's an artist, you know?  I could bring you over to Wyatt's place in the morning before work.  They live a bit lower on the hill and so their house isn't a large as mine, and it isn't structured through manifestation.  You'll be safe there, you know?  And, I uh, I'm gunna talk to Wyatt about returning to the kitchen..."  We both got up, headed back into his room to have a bath and then he left me there for the afternoon to go visit Maya and Wyatt.  I stayed there with my thoughts to keep me company, while I traced my entire life from start to finish.  I thought about The Mother and the influence that she had on my life while alive.  Matt was right.  It really did feel like she brought us together through destiny.

"The Mother"

All along the Western front
People line up to receive
She got the power in her hand
To shock you like you won't believe
Saw her in the Amazon
With the voltage running through her skin
Standing there with nothing on
She gonna teach me how to swim

I said, "ooh, girl
Shock me like an electric eel
Baby girl
Turn me on with your electric feel"
I said, "ooh girl
Shock me like an electric eel
Baby girl
Turn me on with your electric feel"

All along the Eastern shore
Put your circuits in the sea
This is what the world is for
Making electricity
You can feel it in your mind
Oh, you can do it all the time
Plug it in, change the world
You are my electric girl

[Loba]

I guess it's a stereotypical day for someone like me
Without a nine-to-five job or an uni degree
To be caught up in the trappings of the industry
Show me the locked doors, I find another use for the key
And you'll see

I'm well aware of certain things that can destroy a man like me
But with that said give me one more, higher
Another one to take the sting away
I am happy on my own, so here I'll stay
Save your lovin' arms for a rainy day

Matt jumped down the steps from his front door in one giant leap before turning into his wolf form and raced off to Maya and Wyatt's.  He had a few different emotions churning around.  On the one hand he was very happy to have had our morning together.  I had taken the right initiative to maintain eye contact with him and to let him know that I loved him, and this made him feel special and energetically reinvigorated.  On the other hand, he understood that I was in pain emotionally and didn't know what he could do to fix this for me beyond giving me the extra space that I asked for.  He could see that my life was becoming a bit more resolved now that I had my memories back, but he wanted to see me happy and thriving and not stuck in the past.  He was filled with a renewed sense of purpose at the prospect of returning to work, and stopped for a moment to let out a loud, passionate, "Awooooo!" of joy before continuing on his way to his friend's house, taking long graceful strides as he made his way through the neighborhood streets.

When he got to Maya and Wyatt's he turned back into a man, quickly hopped up their steps and knocked on the door three times, with a wide eyed, eager expression plastered on his face.  Wyatt answered moments later.  "Matt!  Hey buddy.  It's a bit early in the week for hunting, what's up?"
"Hey, can I come in?  I wanted to have a chat with you, and, uh, maybe Maya if she's home..."  Wyatt moved away from the door and indicated with his hand that it was okay to come in.  Matt stepped inside and walked into their livingroom, which was filled with Maya's artwork depicting hunting scenes in golden calligraphy styled strokes and taxidermy busts of various light animals that Wyatt had commissioned.  Their livingroom had the common dark red and mustard colour scheme that demons used and their couch and two brown chairs were covered in woven blankets and scattered with little decorative pillows.  The floor was a dark wood and had a large hide from a light buffalo that rested in the middle of the room.  There were pictures and canvases everywhere that held Maya's completed and incomplete works of art on them.  The lighting of the room was very warm and the overall feel of the house gave off a comfortable, lived-in impression.
"What do you want to talk about, man?"  Wyatt asked.  He noticed that his friend seemed to be in good spirits today.  "You thirsty?  Want anything to drink?"
"No, I uh, I'm good."  Matt made his way over to the couch and sat down in between a bunch of blankets and pillows, tossing some of them aside.  "I wanted to let you know that I'm gunna take you up on your offer.  I'd like to come back to work."
Hearing this left Wyatt beaming.  "Really?  That's fantastic news, Matt."

 

When Matt left the house, I decided to take the time to go over my life once more and to try to get used to my new body.  I took the large framed mirror that he had on his dresser and propped it up on his bed, using one of the feather pillows to keep it steady.  I took the other pillow and held it close to my chest for comfort and stared at my reflection in the mirror for a long time.  Just a week ago I was a human being, a middle aged woman in an average looking body with an average looking face.  Now I look like a teenager again and absolutely nothing like I used to.  And yet Matt said this is the real me.  The form taken each time in between my life and death cycles.  I leaned in to inspect my face.  No pores, no blackheads, not even a single wrinkle.  My blonde hair was perfect.  Shiny, with soft, bouncy curls.  No body hair, flawless skin, a gazelle-like body, and a perfectly symmetrical angelic little face...

"If I looked like this while I was alive I probably wouldn't have killed myself."  I said jokingly.  I had always wanted to be a beautiful woman and I missed my youth when I lost it, but now that I was sitting here in this new form, it felt very foreign to me.  Like someone else was looking back from the mirror's reflection and it made me feel uneasy.  "My name is Annie..."  I reminded myself.  "And I died.  My name is Annie.  And I died.  My name is Annie.  And I'm dead.  Hello, new me..."  I pressed my forehead to the mirror.  "You will have to get used to seeing out of these eyes." 
I gripped the pillow tightly as a few stray tears escaped.  I repeated some of what Matt had told me the night before.  "You were born in Arizona.  You had a mother, a father, a brother.  You were sick.  Very sick.  If it wasn't from suicide, it would have been something else.  You were lost.  You had no choice.  And now you're here, in a completely different world with people that you don't understand and you have a new boyfriend.  And your soul is stuck within his.  Forever.  And he knows everything about you.  Every embarrassing moment, every flaw, every insecurity.  And he still loves you... you're loved.  Isn't that weird?"

 

Maya, upon hearing Matt's voice, came out of the couple's bedroom to greet him.  "Is that Matt?"  She was dressed in a white kimono and had braided her hair into spirals pinned on the sides of her head.  She wore black lipstick and matching nail polish.  "This is unexpected.  So how did Annie enjoy our little trip last night?"  She came over to sit next to him on the couch, moving some of the pillows to make a space for herself.
"You know, I'm not sure.  When I brought her home I told her about her past life and The Mother gave her all her memories back this morning.  We uh, we had sex again and she popped up in my eye while we were going at it, you know?"  Matt ran an anxious hand through his messy hair.  "She, uh, she wants some space to work through it..."
"Oh no..."  Maya placed a hand over her mouth.  "Is she okay?"
"Yeah, she is doing better, but I'm sure I'll find out more when I get home, you know?  I uh, I came here to discuss some things with you both."  Matt continued.
"He wants to come back to work!"  Wyatt interrupted.  "I can get you set up in a few days, man.  You can start in the back and we'll move you up to management in a few months.  If everything works out and you feel ready for it, then I'll hand everything back to you in six months tops.  We'll get a contract ready.  By the way, Sophia's the manager now, but I can relocate her to the Mington location.  She isn't doing well with Broadview, I think there's too much traffic."

"Fuck.  Sophia's still working there?"  Matt sniffed.  Sophia was one of Matt's very first sexual encounters.  She was a very beautiful demon woman with a tantalizingly perfect hourglass figure, but she had a terrible personality to go with it.  She really liked the idea of cording with Matt, especially because of his wealth and social status within the city.  When they tried to have sex he couldn't keep an erection and, feeling completely embarrassed about the whole ordeal, he decided to end the night early.  She took it personally and told everyone who worked in the restaurant that he wasn't well endowed and that he would never make another woman happy, and often publicly degraded him to cope with her own irritation that nothing ever panned out between the two of them.  Before Matt quit his job, he had admitted to a few colleagues that he had brought a human home and that he was caring for her.  Violet.  He mentioned that he was developing feelings for her.  Upon hearing this, in a fit of jealous rage, Sophia spread rumours throughout the three restaurants that he had a fetish for "gutter rats".  Matt was actually a very attractive prospect to a lot of demon women but not finding them sexually appealing, he rarely took notice and had a string of broken hearts that, for the most part, he was completely oblivious to.  He knew that when he went back to work, she would give him hell for being in the position to eventually take over her job.  "Fuck that bitch."  He muttered under his breath.

Wyatt chuckled.  "I know Matt."  Wyatt knew about Sophia's temperament.  "It's going to be okay, man.  It's just a few months with her."  Matt looked at the ground and sucked on his upper fang in irritation.
"Matt, I am so happy for you."  Maya piped up.  "What made you change your mind?"
"Well... I have someone now.  And I love her.  So... I feel fucking good, you know, Maya?"  The two of them smiled at one another.  Despite being Wyatt's wife, Maya absolutely adored Matt and wanted to see him happy.  Before she met Wyatt, she was very interested in Matt and they had gone on a date together but he didn't feel a connection so he introduced her to Wyatt, thinking that they would be a better match.  And he was right.  Weeks later, they had a cord between them.  She was always trying to find ways to bring him out of his shell and to help him facilitate a connection with someone.   After he had found a partner for her, she had wanted to return the favour.  Hearing this news was music to her ears.  "She's waiting at the house for me.  So I don't wanna stay here too long.  But I have a favour to ask of you."
"What's that?"
"My house isn't safe to leave a human alone in.  Could I, uh, could I bring her by in the morning before I head to work to stay with you, Maya?  I can't just leave her in my room all day.  It won't be forever.  It's just until I can figure something else out."
"Matt, of course!"  Maya exclaimed.  "I can teach her about demon culture while you're away.  We'll have a great time."
"I don't like the idea of a human staying in my home..."  Wyatt intervened.  "But if it will get you back into the kitchen, then this is fine.  Temporarily."  He added.  "Be sure to bathe before you come."
"Thanks Wyatt."  Matt reached out to shake his hand.  "I appreciate this so much, you know?  But I gotta get going now.  I just wanted to discuss this with you both and see if we could all get on the same page."  Matt stood up.  "I'll see you in a few days to go hunting, man, and maybe we can write up that contract afterwards.  Go over everything.  And then you can set a date on when you want me to start.  Sound good?"
"Yes.  And Matt?  I have something I made yesterday.  Light deer roasts with mingfruit jelly marinade.  I want you to take some of this and share it with your human.  We'll see who's the better cook now, man."  Wyatt gave a cheeky smile and left to get the roasts.  He returned a few minutes later with a bag that contained the wrapped up meat.  Matt thanked them both graciously and left the house with the bag of food in his hands.  Once outside, he put the bag handles in his mouth, transformed into a wolf and made his way back up the hill.

 

I went over my life in great detail, contemplating and speaking out loud in the mirror to my renewed image.  I thought about all of the spiritual awakenings that I had while alive and how they had left subtle clues for me that this would be my fate.  I had always felt that there was someone meant for me, just outside of reach and somewhere beyond the constrains of my designated reality. 
I wanted to speak to The Mother and to thank her for what she had done for me.  I addressed her directly, "Hi..."  I said sheepishly, looking at my reflection.  "I don't know if you can hear me, but I wanted to thank you for Matt.  He's a really wonderful person and I am so glad to have him.  I also wanted to thank you for giving me back my history..."  I held tightly onto the pillow and gently rocked from side to side.  I was feeling anxious to be communicating with her.  "I don't think I could have managed here without my memories."
"You have created a beautiful world.  Your people are very lovely...  I don't know much about their culture or their traditions, but their cities are stunning and their food is delicious.  Everyone on Earth equates demons to being these evil monsters.  I had no idea that they could be normal, loving and so understanding.  Just like human beings can.  If it weren't for Matt's eyes, I would forget that he is a demon and not a human!  We are so similar in a lot of ways..."  I continued.  "This connection between us feels right.  It feels natural and easy.  I'm happy, and so grateful that you picked me out to be with your wonderful son.  I just thought I should let you know that."  I didn't know what else to say to her and decided to end it on that note.  I curled up into Matt's red velvet blanket to take a long nap.
I had been oversleeping a lot in this new world.  A large part of it was due to the stress of these changes coming at me all at once.  There was so much to take in and I didn't know how to process it without getting a lot of extra rest. 

When Matt got home, he quietly moved the mirror back onto his dresser and then went to the kitchen to cook the light deer for us to have for dinner.  He let me sleep in peace for a few more hours until the early evening hit.  He came back into the room with a dinner tray and gently woke me up, asking me to sit with him on the rooftop again.  I agreed and we both curled up together to enjoy Wyatt's meal while watching the stars twinkle and the souls move through the band in the sky.  Matt told me about the discussion he had with his friends and his plans for me.  I let him know that I was coming to an active resolution with my history and passively mentioned to him that I thought he was the better cook.  Upon hearing this news, he took my face into his hand and rubbed a soft thumb across my cheek.
"Good girl..."

Say, say, my playmate
Won't you lay hands on me
Mirror my malady
Transfer my tragedy?

Got a curse I cannot lift
Shines when the sunset shifts
When the moon is round and full
Gotta bust that box, gotta gut that fish

My mind's aflame

We could jet in a stolen car
But I bet we wouldn't get too far
Before the transformation takes
And blood lust tanks and
Crave gets slaked

My mind has changed
My body's frame, but, God, I like it
My heart's aflame
My body's strained, but, God, I like it

Quote

 

A quick note - purpose of this project - 

I have a few more chapters on this to go - which I will post over the next few days, and then I'm taking a break on it for a few weeks.  I'm realizing the more I go that I'm not very good at fleshing out characters, or scenes, things of this nature and I don't know where to go with it.  So I need to think on it a bit more, where am I taking this?  This is literally my first story like, ever, ever.  It started off strong in my mind, some things were fun to imagine, like the hunting scene was pleasant, but I quickly lost track with what I want to do with it, and considering I don't work in a kitchen and I don't fucken cook, I don't know how to write those scenes out in the detail that I would want.  I did watch some cooking shows, the one where the buff guy comes into trash can kitchens and helps clean 'em up, and I used to watch my mum cook as a little kid and so I remember some things from her.   

Mostly, the point of this story is to provide some ease to some death anxiety that I have been feeling.  I get it.  It's not "great", laughable even, and it's not meant to be Shakespeare.  Sometimes, as I post this, I worry about people bullying me for expressing myself, so in leu of that, I feel the need to explain the point of this entire project.   It could be nothing, but I tend to have overactive sensors when it comes to seeing rejection in places where it might or might not be there.  And when it comes to projects like this that are so personal, so intrinsic to aspects of my psychology and sexuality, and offer insight into not only what I wish for myself, but my suicidality, then it hits closer to home than it normally would in any other setting.  Even if it's just a silly story, it actually means a lot to me to be taking the time to go over this.  To be rejected or mistreated for something that is so close to my heart, and something that I feel very vulnerable writing about causes me to be a bit more on guard.  And here's why:

It's meant to offer me some relief when I'm not exactly sure what is going to be happening to me in my day to day and to keep my mind busy on something that is at least mildly constructive/creative.  I have an autoimmune disease and an irregular heart and both flare up every couple of years and the past few weeks, ever since I had a cold, have been pretty bad - so this is my attempt to cope with these problems, while dealing with a disease that could take me out and I don't have a great gauge on when or where that is going to happen. 
What looks on the outside to just be a badly written, sometimes smutty story is actually my way of dealing with some previously abusive relationships, to be able to go back and mentally put in place something kinder and less fucked up than what I had to deal with in my youth.  It allows me to explore my sexuality in a healthy way, while being too sick to do it in the real world.  And this feels very healing to me, despite just being in a fantasy setting.  It also gives me a sense of hope that I will at least have some control in writing the setting for what is to come afterwards, it at least some form.  I'm just taking old awakening experiences that I have had and putting them together with the story to try to create something that is coherent with what I know about the afterlife already.

A few years ago, when I had one of my worst flare ups, I had this work of art that I was doing, a collage that I was making in the alchemical spirit of things - and it had a black mask that I had collaged over the sun, it looked like a deity.  I was in a strong fever at the time, and I had walked by it to go into the kitchen, and I felt a great sense of love radiating from this artwork.  Just out of the blue it hit me.  As if there was genuinely someone just beyond reality that had been watching out for me.  It wasn't from the artwork itself, but what felt to be an entity pushing through the face to communicate, and what it said was that it was a partner that knew me from the other side, it was worried about the fact that I was actively dying and had come with a message.  And the message was this, "You need to do things and to move towards things that you genuinely love in order to get closer to me, things that bring you a sense of joy, satisfaction and resolution.  This is a mutual curation process, as I build your world from the other side, so to do you build mine.  When you pass, I can catch your soul, like in a net - you're in a net right now."  Like a loop.  And then it disappeared after some time.  That always stuck with me, and I wanted to see what I could make in the spirit of that.  So this is my little world with that revelation in mind.

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I've been feeling sick with a tooth infection for the past few days, so I will continue posting my story for the next few days and then call it quits until I don't feel like I'm about to keel over.  I got some antibiotics for it, but it's a holiday weekend so I have to wait until tomorrow to get it taken care of, it's been a nightmare.  I feel it pulsating right into my nasal passage and my body feels absolutely awful.  It doesn't seem like the antibiotics are working, it's got me a little bit worried...  I had a filling fall out years ago that had to be refilled and some bacteria got in it and this one trouble spot keeps coming back with the same infection every year.  They might have to do a root canal, idk.  It's been a triple whammy - prolonged cold, followed by intense period followed by systemic tooth infection and all of that has activated some of my latent autoimmune issues over the past few days.  It stresses me out so much, that if I didn't have some place to crawl back into in my mind while I wait for a resolution to this, I would be beside myself with worry 24/7.

Later.

Don’t want to see you struggling
You know I want to help you out
The trouble that you know you’re in
The leash between love and doubt
You keep closing doors
So I can’t help you no more
Your thoughts, so confined
A maze of your own design

If I break your heart
Can you feel love any more
Do you feel love anymore
If I break your heart
Can you feel love anymore
Do you feel love anymore
Freedom is a state of mind

Don’t want to see you struggling
Don’t want to see you hit the ground
You might think it’s clever when
You hide from inside the crowd
I keep coming by
But you shut me out when I try
If I come around
Will it someday be found

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Loba
I feel so sick lately and this is making me feel so stressed out and sad. :( I just want to feel comfortable and safe instead of scared for my life. I hate this. *rolls up paper and shakes it in mouth* RawrrRRrrrRRRrr Rawr! >.< Nyeh.