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       #Post#: 405714--------------------------------------------------
       Rebirth
       By: Default User Date: February 19, 2016, 3:31 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Amidst a maelstrom of chaos and darkness; drifting through the
       depths on a breeze that held no warmth, aloft like a windswept
       feather, a massive pillar of earth and molten metal wanders
       through the reaches of the immaterial. Atop the fang-shaped
       colossal island; standing like a beacon of withering light in
       the damnable darkness, a single crystal cathedral holds resolute
       against the infinite night. There, in that temple of pristine
       order and clarity; nestled deep within the womb of infinite
       shadow, rests but one simple monument to its construction. A
       single laid stone with the engraving of a name long since worn
       away.
       The stone rests at the base of a low altar; dust and ichor cast
       aside by the darkness now all that call the place home, and atop
       the altar itself sits a bound book of inexorable power. The tome
       of creation; the history and future of all realities. There in
       those pages; bound by powers beyond comprehension or definition,
       stands the testament of all beings, all places, all
       possibilities, and within the infinitely expanding words
       unreadable by mortals, there lies power beyond compare. Every
       spell, every scientific achievement, every fantastical idea...
       Everything
       Since the beginning of time the book has been there. Before the
       gods, demons, angels; before men, beasts, and the infinite life
       forms above, between and beyond them, it has sat and collected.
       Before creation; until destruction, and until creation again,
       the book will eternally wait and decypher all the universes have
       to hold. Every blade of grass, shift in wind, drop in
       temperature will be accounted for. There in those pages nothing
       is sacred, nothing is secret... Nothing is safe...
       In this great temple; in a sea beyond time and space, alone and
       disconnected from all that could or would learn of it, the book
       exists to be forever unread. Upon the pages of the eternal tome
       one would find their birth, their death, their fears and hopes.
       Every last detail of life and death. The penultimate source of
       power.
       And finally... it's been found.
       Gabriel; once bound to the tome and bearer of its word, sits
       outside of the temple doors looking in through brightly lit
       stained glass. Memories of mortal churches twisting the image of
       the simple building into a massive towered cathedral before him.
       Shifting the ground underfoot to soft grass and even turning the
       breeze to a lovely summer one. Complete with the whispered songs
       of birds in the distance. The complicated creature; so old and
       still so young, an infinite number of identities spanning every
       era, generation, and time period to have been recounted or
       learned of, opens the large crystal doors with a heavy sigh, and
       steps into the awaiting hall.
       His eyes fall upon the glorious book that looms in the distance;
       moving to it as if he had always been beside it, and as he
       finally stares down upon its cover once more, the exhileration
       of whats to come fills him heart and soul. His eyes tear up at
       the idea of losing so much; his life, friends, family, and yet
       his heart yearns for the return of his solidarity. To be free of
       guilt, regret, confusion and sadness. He lifts the book with a
       soft sigh, and with perfect grace of mind and body, the seal is
       loosened, and a single page is tugged from within the books
       recesses. No sound or movement identifies the tearing of the
       page, but as Gabriel pulls the torn sheet from inside the book,
       his exhileration turns into cold resolve.
       He drops the heavy tome back onto the altar; casting it aside as
       he was soon to cast every last thing he knew aside, and with
       page in hand, he marches to the back of the cathedral and draws
       out a blood red feather quill. He dips the quill in ink that
       seemingly appears out of thin air, and when the black liquid
       touches the edge of the paper, everything hesitates. Stuttering
       like time were a record caught skipping, all of reality begins
       hopping back and forth by a mere nanosecond, as the lightly
       touched sheet awaits further correction to its contents. The
       contents of page one... The beginning.
       In a blink; with but one word written, everything... began.
       There had never been a book, a cathedral, an ocean of darkness
       beyond reality. Gabriel had never been, his family had never
       been, his friends had never been. Nothing was all encompassing
       until that moment. There were no words; no thoughts, no
       concepts. There was only the beginning... and in the beginning,
       there was but one spark of light in darkness; one blooming spot
       of life in the endless nothingness. From that heart pumped all
       of creation; like blood flowing into the veins of the universe,
       of reality. From that star; that nexus of beginnings, came
       everything. Chaos followed order, life followed death, time was
       given definition, and possibilities were once again endless.
       Though it would take an eternity; from the first star to the
       first plant, to the first sentient being and source of
       creativity: From the first atom to the first cell, light would
       spread outward into the darkness and once more take its place to
       create balance.
       ............
       Beneath the veil of a large oak tree; wrapped in cloaks of brown
       and grey, and reading a historical piece of parchment to
       himself, a young man of a mere twenty four years, seeks the
       wisdom of his elders. His eyes scan page after page as he loses
       grip with reality and dives headlong into the stories of the
       ancients. Of mythical creatures and fantastic journeys. His mind
       races onward and upward through the clouds as he reads and hides
       from the day's blinding sun, but somewhere beyond the excitement
       of the moment, he knows he had better things to be doing. His
       place as a monk was never a choice; having been given to them as
       a sign of faith and humility by his former family, he had been
       forced into the service of the heavens, and the only reason he
       hadn't left were the scrolls.
       The young man; Adam as he was known by the other brothers of
       heaven, had a gift for memorizing whatever interested him. The
       monks wanted for him and never rushed him; though the master of
       the temple nearby had wished to try on more than one occasion,
       but Adam never seemed open to exploring their actual way of
       life. Of their ritualistic service to some being they could not
       see. Their constant prayers and silent meditation. Adam refused
       to believe what he could not touch or witness himself, and only
       in his imagination did he dare to wonder if what they spoke of
       was real. He hid when training was being done; shyed away from
       the ceremonial prayers and rites, and only dove into faith when
       it suited his exploration of some ancient scroll.
       His body; from head to toe, was etched with the runic carvings
       and writing of his brotherhood. The rites of passage as a boy,
       for a man, and as a monk were all written into his flesh with
       ink and torn flesh. He was one of the servants of heavenly order
       in body, but there under that tree, he was just Adam, a young
       man lost to the idea of adventure and fantasy...
       There under that oak tree... It all began
       #Post#: 405799--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Rebirth
       By: Ευ&amp
       ;amp;amp;amp;#945; Date: February 21, 2016, 4:21 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       There exists a part of a building, enclosed by white walls,
       white floors and a white ceiling and in this white room, there
       is a paragon. She is the epitome of perfection but she is also a
       figment of the imagination, a work of art splattered on the
       wall, always in an advanced state of disarray - a melting girl,
       with picturesque cerulean eyes and a plump, turned lip. It’s
       atmosphere is a little damp and the air is stale but that could
       be quickly changed; maybe with a scented candle but what candle
       could do the obscure artwork any justice without seeming out of
       place, in such a room? If you look for too long, your field of
       vision would appear paralytic and you’ll begin to lose
       perception of reality, of time and space, the artwork and the
       disturbed girl would not be the only problem you have. She is a
       plague that will forever haunt your mind, a distant memory
       poking and probing when you need silence to swallow you whole,
       but she is also subtle. A paradox in her own right.
       She is called Daya Anfal.
       The mind, and the artist behind the piece lays in a pale roseate
       tub in a summery acre in the heart of a -paradise- garden, laced
       with fruit trees and fragrant plants. The sauna, endowed with a
       light mist was a place of pleasure, the place where,
       nonetheless, Eva had learnt that pleasure could stab and sting,
       could puncture and burn. Paving the walk to the sauna, are
       ceramic tiles, and above, a wide pavillion, providing shade.
       When the woman’s body rises, like a phoenix coming alive from
       ashes, she places her hands on two stone statues, sitting at
       either side of her naked body, spouting from their angelic
       mouths, water.
       As she walks along the pathway, she reaches for her light azure
       robe, hanging from a flimsy branch, to veil her body with,
       though the sheer material didn’t provide any cloaking of her
       slender waist, her long, satin thighs, or her plump breasts,
       cushioned atop of a ribcage, all too visible under the light
       layer of skin protecting it. Eva was a frail woman, with eyes
       too large for a hollow face, and hair too thick and too dark to
       frame her ivory skin. She felt her flesh was no longer fit to be
       touched, having barely survived the grip of death. In all her
       adult life, not a single breath was drawn without pain and her
       lungs throttled her out of existence many a times, but she
       always demanded to live, so she could prevail in creating the
       very things she worshiped. Her profound love and intimacy with
       paper was demented to say the least but she refused to be
       stripped of it.
       Taking a seat on a wooden bench just after the entryway, she
       reaches for a cigarette, lighting it up and placing it between
       her pale lips to inhale sharply, the familiar blend of benzene,
       formaldehyde, and hydrogen cyanide intoxicating her, taking her
       on a journey in her own mind - where she sees mythical beings,
       where she sees creatures, made of wood that could talk, she sees
       plantlife as bright as the sun above her head and she craves to
       touch these things, these things that only appeared in her mind
       and when it comes to an end, along with her cigarette, she feels
       a wave of nostalgia lingering on her tongue, leaving a
       bittersweet taste to bloom against her tastebuds. She once read
       somewhere that a cigarette is a unit of time; how far is the
       next town? Four cigarettes away. How long until you’re done? One
       cigarette.
       It was always like this, the waiting, the metamorphosis, and the
       brief lapse of whimsical endeavors passing by each other like
       proverbial ships in the night -all in her little mind- then the
       repugnant resolve she would feel afterwards when faced with
       cold, harsh reality; sometimes for hours; other times, for
       weeks, mixed with a permanent state of depression. She makes her
       way out of her safe haven, and begins along a path, letting her
       mind navigate her. After an hours long walk, she becomes
       obsessed with the ground beneath her, not looking up from it,
       even for a second. There was nothing interesting about the way
       her bare feet dug into the dirt beneath her, but the young,
       burdened soul seemed to find some thought-provoking aspect about
       it; maybe it was to pass time, maybe it was because she was
       parched, maybe she was just crazy.
       “I’m. . a ghost when I walk in, holy spirit when I walk out. .”
       She begins to sing, her burnt skin catching her peripheral
       vision, and suddenly she is tormented by the thought that she
       is, inexplicably, not as pretty as she has seemed to be. Eva is
       so engrossed in her skin, she doesn’t notice the oak tree beside
       her, nor the man sitting beneath it - she simply continues
       looking at her raised arm, examining it and trying to remember
       what it looked like before the transformation.
       “There is a face beneath this mask, but it isn't me. I'm no more
       that face than I am the muscles beneath it, or the bones beneath
       that.”
       She talks to herself, quoting an author she didn't quite
       remember the name of in that moment, but not caring much for it
       either.
       She wasn’t herself.
       Eva wasn't herself.
       #Post#: 406014--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Rebirth
       By: Default User Date: February 29, 2016, 3:48 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Adam lifts his head for but a moment; breaking away from a
       particularly interesting tale about a noble warrior uniting an
       entire land under a single banner, and as he does, he is
       absolutely shocked at what he sees. The nearby altars,
       monuments, shrines, and temples are always open and home to many
       who come seeking heaven, but never had Adam witnessed what now
       stood before him. So enthralled by the vision near his place of
       seclusion, he almost forgets about the book across his lap and
       loses his page in an absent-minded attempt to move. His hands
       grasp the thick binding of the book with a silent glare, as he
       breaks off his stare and quickly hides the book back in the
       hollow of the tree. If he were caught reading outside the temple
       he would surely be banished. It was forbidden to read the words
       of fiction and lore of old if not pertaining to the heavens and
       his worship. Such was his biggest failure as a monk.
       When the book is tucked away; safe and invisible to the prying
       eyes of passer-bys, Adam stands up and bows low at the waist.
       Before him the woman; startlingly radiant in the midday
       moonlight and sunlight, is so distracted by herself that the
       young monk is seemingly ignored. He watches her feet as she
       moves slowly away from him; cautious not to catch her eye or be
       seen as a simple pervert, but when he can no longer bear the
       idea of missing another glance at her before the apparition
       would no doubt vanish, he lifts his head ever so slightly.
       To his delight her eyes are elsewhere when he again watches her;
       moving like a lost child through the forest, aimlessly, casually
       walking in far less than what the monk had ever seen before, and
       without failing to notice her curves and the seductive form she
       holds, he lingers at the edge of her chin and neck. Waiting and
       hoping for but a single glimpse into her eyes before looking
       away. No women he had ever seen were so vibrant; so bold, and in
       his mind he saw her as a great princess from the legends he
       loved. Some lost mythical daughter of the gods... If only he
       could see her eyes...
       #Post#: 406067--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Rebirth
       By: Ευα Date: February 29
       , 2016, 4:00 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       One can depict six basic facial expressions and each could be
       portrayed in steadily increasing potency. Eva’s landscape, in
       that moment, if examined accurately, portrayed none. Her face
       was void of emotion, and the further into unknown territory she
       traversed, the more her physical articulation blurred,
       expressing nothing. When a few minutes later, a pair of eyes
       hover over her like that of a night owl, she tilts her slender
       neck to the side, making her gentle and delicate presence even
       more particular to the lands surrounding her, and the man
       scrutinising her. At last, her cerulean gaze meanders over the
       soft colours of the woodland’s landscape, the subtle light from
       above that peeked through ripped leaves casting beautiful
       shadows over the incandescent plants, her burnt skin a faint
       memory, forgotten for the time being.
       “Asenath, my mother, once asked me what I wanted to be when I
       grew up,” notwithstanding, she possessed in full, her -deceased-
       mother’s seriousness, “I was three. I told her I wanted age and
       experience.” And then, her first expression, the sides of her
       lips tug down, as the lines in her forehead crease; an
       inconceivable sadness that showed her bare soul, capable of
       arousing the same emotion in the man, considering, of course, he
       had a heart. Eva didn’t particularly address him. Anyone in her
       vicinity would be able to hear, but it seemed the two were
       alone.
       “My first sister, Bethel, had a horsey face, and a long neck. I
       always knew that neck would hang from a rope one day but, I
       didn’t think it’d be so soon.”
       There is a lack of connection in her thoughts, her memories, and
       her feelings. The thought of her sister's suicide being too
       difficult to deal with and tread back to, Eva disassociates
       herself with it, her main identity assuming control over her
       behaviour once more. She was the last of five sisters, and often
       times, she felt the weight of her lineage on her shoulders
       driving her into the dirt beneath her, to her own grave. For a
       time at least, before suffering the loss of self-respect, before
       the humiliating experience had broken the spring of her youth
       and replaced the pleasure she begot from the life and play of
       her art, by a sad sense of fealty and an inexorable
       consciousness of moral and ‘religious’ obligation, Eva drew for
       her own amusement. Art simply made her happy.
       The power of masking emotion out by painting could turn
       loneliness into content. The ordeal she had passed through had
       seemingly shattered her in health and when her blue eyes finally
       settle on the man, they are tired, her small pleasant features
       accentuated. She seemed like an angel, her skinny frame and wild
       hair adding to her allure.
       “Do you believe in God?”
       She tilts her head and bites her bottom lip unintentionally.
       The question didn't seem to fit the circumstance, but neither
       did the woman asking it.
       It didn't matter though, Eva was becoming herself.
       #Post#: 406104--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Rebirth
       By: Default User Date: February 29, 2016, 9:37 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Staring in near disbelief at the woman's words; random and
       incoherant to one outside of the memories associated to them,
       the monk lifted himself back to a pressureless standing position
       and accepted in full his curiousness. Withholding questions that
       bubbled on his tongue and ate at his mind, the young man
       witnessed an array of emotions he had never before known. Such
       sorrow and sadness as to make the earth herself weep, and the
       sky shed its beautiful blue for a far darker tone. He thought
       over her demeanor and expressions; recounting tales of those
       lost to their own mind: The delusional and deranged as he was
       taught to know them, and when she finally turned to look upon
       Adam with a weary expression, he hesitated.
       He had never known another outside of the shrine maidens; the
       monks and ritual masters, and never before had any of the
       outsiders spoken to him. As if in agreement with his
       trepidation, her words fell like an unnerving wave over him. She
       knew who he was; where they were, what that meant... Right?
       Surely she would know him to be a man of the cloth; of the
       covenate under heaven, of god. The shrines all around; the runic
       tattoos and even his apparel indicated his place among the
       believers.
       Although... If for but a moment he considered the honest truth;
       never letting the thought escape his features or free from his
       lips, he knew the answer was far more concerning. He suffered
       through uncertainty; his faith like the last few rays of
       sunlight before night fall, always on the edge of the darkness
       and damnation of non-believers. Such was his fear: Of falling
       into the pit from whence there was no return. Of a death without
       an eternal existence beyond...
       The monk drew away from the woman; a few casual steps as his
       attention moved elsewhere in an attempt to break her
       other-worldly gaze, and when he had made but a few adjustments
       to his garment while moving, he turned back with a resolute
       expression, and a solemn sounding voice. "M'am I am a man of
       god... of the celestial rivers and mountains. I most assuredly
       believe in god..."
       His attention flickered all about her face as he kept his calm
       and steeled his nerve "You are here at a great place of worship;
       speaking to one of belief in god, when perhaps you have been led
       here to learn of your own belief... of the faith entrusted to
       you by our creator" The monk dribbled on with a reserved and
       casual fluidity; picking each word with caution, as he made his
       way back to the spot where he had been reading. There he turned
       back to the woman, slowly sat cross legged at the trunk where
       his trophy book hid, and patted the soil before him.
       "Come... sit... speak with me of your beliefs, and I will do as
       we of the cloth are destined"
       #Post#: 406113--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Rebirth
       By: Ευα Date: March 1, 20
       16, 7:50 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Between the time it took for the woman to ask the question and
       the answer to register, Eva had closed the little distance
       between them, following his steps, her fixed resolve tearing
       through his back. Artists always had a sensitive eye - in order
       for their work to touch the heart of others, they had to capture
       everything they drew faithfully, they had to be true to the
       paper, they had to worship the many realities they journeyed
       through because even the slightest of doubt would be apparent.
       Maybe in the lack of detail to a wrinkle of an eye; or a wrong
       shade of emerald; maybe in a disturbed brush stroke, or maybe in
       the whole demonstration, in which case it would be time to
       abandon everything, and start anew. Eva’s greatest fear was
       losing her touch to distinguish the greatest studied landscape
       of all time - the human face.
       Happiness, sadness, laughter are all easily recognisable, they
       should need no label. Expressions of disapproval, reverie, or
       even doubt however, are vague and have no particular identity on
       the face, so when the man showed signs of neither, it only told
       Eva what she had already come to know about herself - that when
       you want to hide something, you dig into the box of masks in
       your psyche, and put one on. So when he spoke, a look of
       disapproval painted her own features, gracefully taking the seat
       he had offered and unknowingly, in the process of doing so,
       forcing her robe to open up some, baring her cleavage, and her
       cold skin.
       Bullshit.
       “You know. . the oak has many roots,” she pauses for a moment,
       pressing her palm to the bark of the tree they were sat under, “
       they extend so far down it’d be hard to knock it.” Finally, she
       looks up at him once more, her soft hand pressing against his
       chest, “how deep did you have to dig to find the answer to the
       question?”
       For a moment, there is a faint fleeting recognition, in her
       eyes, of their shared character, of their placid,
       information-drenched, spiritually confused judgement and when it
       passes, a smile makes it’s home to her plump, rosy lips. She
       leans forward, so those same lips are just about hovering over
       his before speaking again, “I used to speak to the sky until one
       day I realised it was empty,” with every utterance, her lips
       brushed against his, but Eva seemed ignorant to their unvoiced
       -sexual- encounter for in her mind, there was nothing she could
       see but innocence budding between them, “tell me, does God speak
       to you the way I do?” The hand on his chest presses harder, but
       her touch stays tender, “does he touch you the way I do?” Their
       mouths once more, touch in a way they generally shouldn’t be
       touching.
       But Eva doesn’t care.
       #Post#: 406117--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Rebirth
       By: Default User Date: March 1, 2016, 8:45 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       As quicly as the monk had invited the woman to sit and talk; her
       fragrant and chaotic demeanor shifting inch by inch as she drew
       closer, he resigned himself to the folly of perpetuating yet
       another lie. "Roots often run deep, but tis but a simple task to
       sever the trunk and let the tree fall..." His voice deepened;
       the tone one of authority and resolve, as she placed a hand upon
       his bare skin, and the coiled scripture over his form began to
       glow."God is all and with his word I am touched by the blessings
       of the eternal..."
       Such was the pressure of his gifted physical form; adorned with
       the etchings of the creator's praise, and such was the curse all
       the monks suffered through. Or so Adam wished to believe... But
       none of the others had even once faltered and allowed their
       script wrapped body to bear the glow of judgement.
       Sin: Blasphemous dereliction to the order and the faith. Frailty
       or uncertainty. Waning conviction... All would ignite the
       accused in the glow of heaven, and upon that bell's toll the
       bearer is beset by the most horrendous of pains. Mind numbing
       and blood boiling pain stretches from every word; every warped
       line of text, and when it has spread across the entire body and
       mind, the judged is only released upon their confession of
       gult...
       Though in truth... It just stings a little...
       As Adam pulses with the first sign of his unhinging conviction,
       he stands quickly to face the woman now no more than a foot
       away. His eyes narrow; a dark and cold expression turning the
       contours of his face into straight edges of cutting
       determination, as his voice slips through on an icy wind and
       adorns him in its absolute purity. "Upon this earth you are but
       a shadow of a fragment of what you could be in the hands of his
       eternal creator. You walk this land for the word of god has
       allowed it so. You speak and move of your own will because the
       omega declared it your right. You live and you die for the honor
       of serving in a court of perfection at the table of his lord."
       Adam's temper begins to flare; his anger at the putrid taste of
       his own words and not the woman, and as the pulsing of his runic
       scripture brightens to a near blinding point, he is lost to the
       torrent of his own growing lie. His icy bravado melts in a river
       of anger fueled flames; boiling his cold glare down to an
       ominous shallow steel of a warrior's blade as he looks over the
       woman and lets escape a devilish grin.
       "For the chance at truth in this chaos we are given a chance to
       see into the eternal and know of its warmth. We are the children
       sent out of our home to build upon our faith and one day return
       to the everlasting paradise. You are not yet lost, and with my
       head held high and my heart so full of heavenly knowledge that
       angels would weep for it, I will hear your confession and be rid
       of your sin upon this spot."
       His breathing had become very ragged and broken; the absolute
       sarcastic rage burnt into the back of his throat as he broke
       himself down into a hysterical and frantic race for coherant
       thoughts. The light that sought to envelop him in its entirety
       forced his eyes closed as he fought the overwhelming power of
       the judging aura. The second bell had tolled and Adam was slowly
       being drawn into himself for his feelings of guilt. His own
       remorse and confusion at not being utterly faithful and devout.
       His own fear of retalliation from god, from the monks, from
       everyone. It drew from his very soul his truest of feelings, and
       under the most inept of disguises. Each word had become a mirror
       to the truth as he rattled onward and forward through his
       deteriorating state.
       Soon the final bell would toll and Adam would be forever bound
       by the judgement laid upon him by the scripture. By god. He
       would either live or die by the glory of heaven, and in those
       moments before the passing of judgement upon him, he would be so
       lost to the damnation he subconsciously believed he deserved,
       that he would scarcely realize just how brightly he did shine...
       Like a star...
       #Post#: 406128--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Rebirth
       By: Ε&a
       mp;#965;α Date: March 1, 2016, 
       11:50 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       When at first he speaks, Eva processes the words like any other
       person would, in chronological order, but as he continues on,
       and with it, a perpetual glow accents his marred and yet
       surprisingly heavenly skin, she retreats further until her back
       is pressed against the oak tree, and his words become a running
       current; unpredictable and too divine for the likes of her; and
       she is trapped in a prison she had made for herself, the
       barriers around her not real, but not typical of an institution
       either. In her -lunatic- mind, the glow radiating from the man
       was a setting sun in the distance; by blocking out and avoiding
       reality, Eva guards herself against a mental breakdown and the
       possible threat of a switch in character; she likes her dominant
       self, and often times, didn’t get to be that version of Eva.
       In that moment, the sea in front of the setting sun was
       indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sea was slightly
       creased like a cloth or a face with wrinkles in it, fragmented
       by the ripples that had formed on the surface. The horizon was
       an artist’s muse, details of crimson, and bright orange painting
       it like flames engulfing blue birds. When the man becomes
       brighter, the air seemed to become fibrous, the walls around the
       prison becoming clearer and more vivid, and to tear away from
       the red surface, that seemed like a fire, Eva had to prepare for
       what was to come, though she didn’t know how.
       Gradually, the fibres surrounding the man were fused into one
       haze, a luminosity that drew her eyes away and shattered her
       handmade prison, turning it into millions of atoms of soft cyan.
       The surface of the sea slowly becomes transparent, along with
       it, the horizon behind it, until there was nothing but the
       weight of her situation burying her into the ground. The woman
       fidgets, slender fingers wrapping around the soft fabric of her
       robe to tighten it around her midsection as she rocks back and
       forth, unable to look at him any longer, her eyes wide and
       absurdly out of place. When her disbelief transpires and she is
       forced to face the ‘perpetrator’, she rises from the black
       hollow beneath, looking up at the sky irascibly.
       The final bell was yet to come.
       “Show yourself you coward!” There was a list of things running
       through her mind, and as she shook, she couldn’t decide which
       atrocity to let out first, which of the misfortunes to bring to
       light but it dawned on her she didn’t have to verbally
       articulate them, but she needed to get them off her chest. “Were
       we your mistake, or, or. . .  were you ours?” She stammers, but
       continues on, not breaking her gaze from the sky, “Why did you
       let your catholic priest sodomise Esther? Why?! Why did Anne
       have to burn in this life? Why did you let her bring hell to
       earth?  Why did you push Leah off that roof?” And that’s when
       Eva finally acknowledges the man, walking to him, but still
       aiming her gaze at the sky, afraid to be blinded otherwise,
       taking his hand aggressively in her own, not aware of how
       harshly her bony fingers squeezed his.
       “Is he my punishment?!?”
       Soon, the woman would lose control, she needed to stop
       everything before that happened, and it seemed confronting the
       big elephant was the only way to do so. She challenged 'him'.
       Her heart screamed, her mind became overbearing, and she wasn’t
       sure she would make it through the whole ordeal, but she needed
       answers to her questions, more than she wanted to be ‘cleansed’
       of her sins like the man had initially offered.
       #Post#: 406222--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Rebirth
       By: Default User Date: March 2, 2016, 4:38 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       The tarmac was hot; almost unbearable to walk across in fact,
       and the sun wasnt setting anytime soon. The heat rose off the
       runway in sheets; distorting the horizon into a grey wave, and
       before the cold night air would wash through the desert airport,
       there would be many more complaints inside about broken central
       air. So many travellers had already threatened to sue; several
       others had threatened staff, and all in all it was hell on
       earth. The crowds had only grown as more and more flights were
       postponed, delayed, or cancelled entirely, and all the weary
       travellers were beginning to fuse into a riotous blob.
       Many airports had closed in the instant bombs were dropped over
       the US and Russian soil. Many others still had quickly altered
       routes and shifted flight plans to try and ferry people as far
       away as needed. It was only a matter of time; there in that sea
       of burdened passengers, travellers, and employees, and when the
       rest of the countries began to fight, surely it would be the
       end.
       Political rivals, military supremacy, capitalistic genocide, it
       was all there day after day. Week after week. Year after year.
       Growing from wars in unknown lands, to wars on our streets, and
       wars in our homes. Idiotic; puppet leaders, with strings a mile
       long and easily seen, led the world to ruin, and gained little
       more than a fool's pot of gold in return. The tanks, the jets,
       the defensive capabilities or military might, it didn't matter.
       When the first air-burst contagion burst from its canister and
       began the epidemic, there was no point in running. There was
       only certain death in the near future. Certain... painful...
       death.
       Adam; at the verge of reality; stood on the tarmac with wide
       eyes as an entire lifetime flashed before him. As he grew, aged,
       and inevitably died. He learned, grew, fell ill, and memorized
       everything that he witnessed. It seared into his soul while he
       basked in the glory of god's final bell. He entered another
       life; his life in another world, and in that fleeting instant
       before his certain death in both realities, he smiled.
       Hysterical laughter broke away from his lips as he witnessed a
       far worse, far more tragic, and eye opening world unfold before
       his eyes. He watched humanity end over nothing, and silently
       thanked god for the chance at life in a far simpler world. He
       genuinely apologized for not having the proof his fickle mind
       needed. He cried out in protest of his own ignorance and his
       haste at losing his way.
       In the moment before condemnation; on the precipice of slipping
       into an eternity of nothingness, Adam admitted his sin to
       himself, and sought forgiveness from the holy father. He sought
       out the clarity of truth and declared it his truest goal. To
       revel in the history of the lord; of god's work beyond the
       simplicity in his own world. He would come to learn of the
       fallen reality. Of the horrid hellish landscape of those who
       came before. He would dive headfirst into loving each second of
       his life in god's grace.
       Well.... He would have...
       When again Adam opened his eyes; believing himself forgiven,
       alive, ready to explore what the world had to offer, there was a
       far more gruesome fate awaiting him. When he tore his gaze away
       from the nearby earth and the tree shaded grass, there stood
       before him a wasteland. The world he had known; in an instant,
       without a sound or sign, had been devastated. There were columns
       of ruptured stone bursting from different chunks of the ground;
       molten lava bubbled from cracks and fissures as far as the eye
       could see, and the ruins of a great city sat smoldering in the
       distance. He could taste ash as it fell upon him, and he could
       hear the scream of the wind as it tore at him with vicious heat.
       He couldnt believe his eyes; astonished, absolutely in shock of
       what he bore witness to, and when faced with certain damnation
       as he was, he completely forgot about the woman.
       He stared off into the hatred of humanity; rubble, devastation,
       corruption, and death in all directions. He felt his stomach
       twist; nausea and a dangerous headache threatening his already
       staggered stance, and when he came to kneel in prayer and
       apology a moment later, all he could think was that he was
       alone... But as tear filled eyes; watching the nightmare before
       him, turned back to the tree, there she stood: As bold and
       beautiful as before.
       At first joy overwhelmed him: He wasn't alone in the end...
       Quickly that joy fell away though, as he realized the truth. If
       he were in that abyss, that hell, then so was she. Had he caused
       it? Had he pulled her there? Was she being judged as well? His
       mind raced; eyes darting to and fro as he knelt and tried to
       process it all, and as his head tipped and mumbled words began
       to fall from his lips, he fell deeper than ever, and began to
       fade away into absolute madness.
       There he would cry and beg forgiveness: There, near that tree,
       in the beautiful mountain air, near the temple of his brothers,
       in a world where tragidy had never struck, he writhed in the
       torrent of destruction that god had given him as a curse, and he
       witnessed his own sanity slip away in the terror of his maddened
       isolation...
       #Post#: 406229--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Rebirth
       By: Ευ&amp
       ;#945; Date: March 3, 2016, 11:35 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       All too suddenly, the vast terrain becomes very remote and still
       and with it, Eva’s face mellowed, the air around her thickening
       with a blue mist, or was it all in her head? Was she the one
       drawing a curtain over her own mind to keep the man in harmony?
       With opaque, contemplative eyes almost staring through Adam, and
       the tips of her fingers pressed together, she depicts first, the
       horrors on the streets before her, and though she wasn’t
       physically there, it was like a motion picture, just movement
       and even despite the lack of sound it was the most deafening
       thing the woman had faced yet, witnessing events that had
       occurred long before her birth.
       Death - a permanent coma; disincarnated spirits, swallowing dirt
       and dust but not having the will nor strength to stop.
       The first was a slow, painful, and presumably inevitable death -
       a young girl, kidnapped by a group of men and kept in isolation
       in a desolate house, owned by her parents. They fed her insects
       and eventually, she drowned in her own urine and faeces, body
       limp and lifeless in a pool of her own blood. Before the girl’s
       demise, they challenged her to a game of Mahjong Solitaire, and
       promised her freedom if she were to win, a devil’s bargain but
       she accepted nonetheless and when she had won, they beat her
       with iron barbells, they poured lighter fluid on her arms and
       legs and set her alight, all watching her burn. The next day,
       she had gone into shock and died, after forty-four days of
       torture. They found her body stuffed into a concrete-filled
       barrel on a tract of reclaimed land, in Toyko and Eva watched
       the events unfold, trying with all her might to reject them. But
       before she could, her vision blurred, and there she was, at her
       next destination.
       Taphephobia - the fear of being buried alive. There was one
       single man, and that’s all it took, really; a man with an
       insatiable curiosity and a prodigious capacity for art. He had
       spent the better years of his life defining himself as a writer
       and creating many worlds for his beloved, Edith, to travel
       through, after all, she was the only one who had the pleasure of
       reading his work. Benedict of Laodicea was an artist whose only
       definition was his lack of outline, his lack of rules when it
       came to perfecting his craft. There was something possessed,
       mesmeric about the way he told stories, his gift to capture
       people with the written word enthralled his wife but the more
       she read, the more elusive he became and when she could
       distinguish between him and his characters no longer, she took
       her own life.
       Upon finding out, Benedict had ordered his servants to lock him
       up in the family tomb and leave him there to rot, and die.
       Trapped in a dark chamber, he was surrounded every night, with
       the grinning faces of his ancestors, slowly starving to death. A
       tragedy that Satan himself wouldn’t inflict on anyone, and yet
       Benedict, did it voluntarily.
       Eva came to understand the contradiction in the two visions, but
       her protector had subconsciously surfaced, so when it came time
       for this panorama to shatter, so would her memory of it.
       The woman had come to learn, in the short years she had lived,
       that the present incorporates the past, and in the past, all
       history was made by man, not God. When she comes back to Adam
       -considering she had even left this angelic mortal soul- she
       finds him curled up on the ground, mumbling incoherently to
       himself, like the insane. Clearly, he hadn’t found solace in his
       visions but Eva had the fortune to forget hers. The man of God
       had suffered and she, a woman who questioned God's existence
       every night, had come back untouched but then again, wasn’t
       there some holy and seraphic law against touching women?
       What was once a land of evergreen and flowers were now bare
       fields, covered in rubble and dirt. Eva realised instantly, the
       alchemy of spring was never to be expected; she wouldn’t see
       this dull brown earth ever change to emerald again, and that’s
       when it dawned on her, he was her punishment, and this was their
       own personalised hell; Eva’s and Adam’s judgement day, and it
       had come before time. Instead of resenting the man, instead of
       being hostile and filling her heart with contempt, she kneels
       before him, cupping his face in her soft, delicate hands,
       suddenly disproportionately fond of him.
       “Hush now. .”
       Wide-set, almond-shaped eyes burn through him as she wipes a few
       tears from his cheek, cradling him in her arms, whilst
       whispering words of comfort into his ears, trying to persuade
       him, in a calm, reasonable, Estuarine voice; the same voice that
       could persuade patrons if it had to. In the midst of it all, as
       her fingers brush through his hair, she looks up at a sky and in
       her gaze, there was only one message; I gag on you.
       “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”
       And like a mantra, Eva repeated those words over, and over, and
       after a few minutes, she lost sight of who she was trying to
       comfort; the man or herself.
       *****************************************************