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[GiglameshDespair]

Yer a cyborg, 'Arry!

[Glacies]

Part of what I do with this is try and combine as many continuities as possible, not so much that it's impossible to follow but such that it's a bit, well, yeah. I count at least five different sources here: asides from Harry Potter, we have characters and scenes badly misinterpreted from Katawa Shoujou, Psycho-Pass, Gorky Park, and Altered Carbon. This section is what I've been working on most recently.


---

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Harry and Rin began driving up the coast along the scenic routes, rushing to beat Dumbledore to New York. Rin steered with one foot and operated the pedals with the other while Harry absent misguidedly played with his cell phone. The rhythmic flash of the streetlights as they passed was hypnotic, lulling Harry into a state of drowse. He began nodding off, his head leaning forward, his eyelids struggling to stay aloft in the wake of the fatigue catching up to him.

“Look.” Rin said softly. Ahead, the flashing red and blue lights of police spinners lit the snow. The NYPD, men in dark coats with badges on their chests, were securing a scene. Just off the road from a small roadside diner that was just off the road, Harry thought he glimpsed bodies. Curious, the two pulled over, parking their black sedan at the diner's little parking lot. As they got out, a woman in uniform came over to intercept them. “Move along, nothing to see here.” she said in a soft yet authoritative tone. Harry flashed his Hogwarts ID and stepped neatly over the crime scene tape, followed by Rin. With an annoyed glance, the woman fell in behind them.

They made their way through the trampled down path to the site, where the NYPD had started to clear the snow around the bodies. Harry lit a cigarette, the details coming to him sharply. The scene, and the biting cold, served to waken him. The woman, whom Harry noticed was a police detective, spoke. “Got phoned in an hour ago by a drunk who came out of the diner to take a piss. No ID on the bodies – and the coroner hasn't arrived yet. The CID should be here any time now.”

Harry scanned the scene with his augments, revealing an x-ray of the pair of bodies lying in the snow. He was reminded of snow angels. Grimly, he shook the thought away and considered the scene. Rin stared with a deadpan expression – like someone who had seen it all.

Another car pulled up, this one unmarked. Akane Renko, Chief Inspecting Detective for the NYPD, got out of the car and ran one hand through her brown regulation haircut. Harry turned to regard her and took in her narrow face, the dark circles around her eyes, making her look somewhat racoon-like against her pale face. She wore a long brown trench coat, and wore a strange black metal firearm at her hip.

She also lit a cigarette. “Who are you?” she asked.

Harry flashed his Hogwarts ID, but Akane lifted her gun out of its holster and casually pointed it at him. The gun lit up with little blue LEDs and a little hologram appeared on the handle. It wasn't oriented towards Harry, so he couldn't see what it said. He started to go into a kata mind duel stance, but then Akane said “Huhm.” with satisfaction, and tucked the gun away. “What was that all about?” Harry asked.

“I'll tell you later. First, what are you doing here?” she asked.

“Well, I was curious about the scene. It's quite a site, isn't it? And in such a quiet part of town, too.”

“And?”

Harry didn't bother replying. Instead, he walked forward, leaning over the bodies, bent down, and began digging them out with his hands. He knew that the CID would be wincing at his manhandling of the crime scene, but that she was powerless to stop him because he outranked her. He cracked open the frozen clothes on each body, searched the pockets, the linings, everything. Feeling around, Harry found an enormous exit wound at the top of the spine, and carefully extracted a slug from the wound. The other body matched. He stood up and stepped back, surveying his handiwork.

“Here.” he said, throwing the slug to the CID. She caught it and glowered at Harry. “Never let it be said that Hogwarts denies the NYPD the benefits of its efforts.”

“So what do you make of it, Harry?” Rin asked.
“The killer really wanted to conceal their identities.” concluded Harry.

“You don't say?” said Akane. The trio turned to regard the scene. Both bodies sported bloody, frozen stumps at the neck and arms, their hands and heads completely gone. They had been laid like snow angels, spreadeagle on the snow, their bodies frisked and all identification removed. Harry would have to wait for the report from the coroner, but he was sure the gunshot wounds were inflicted to destroy the cortical stacks. The two people lying for goodness knows how long in the snow were Really Dead – their stacks destroyed, unable to be re-sleeved.

“We'll take your car back to the station.” Harry said. Akane glowered, and Rin leaned over and smiled at her. “He's always like this.” she confided. Akane gave her a doubtful look and the three got into Akane's car and drove into New York.

Harry drove the car, and Rin and Akane sat in the back. The buildings gradually grew taller as they came into the city. “What was that all about, back at the diner?” Harry asked.

Akane grinned. “You're new to New York, aren't you? Never seen one of these?” Smoothly, Akane drew her gun again and held it up so it was visible in the rear view mirror. “It's a Dominatrix. Smart guns, tied into the city's SIREN system. It can, at a glance, determine if you're a latent criminal or not.”

Harry smirked contemptuously. “Can't be much good if it didn't pick me up.”

Akane gave a tiny, wry smile of her own. “Oh, it did.” she leveled the gun at the back of Harry's head. “I just wanted to know what you are doing in my city, babushka.”

Harry blanched, and nearly slammed the car into oncoming traffic. “You're working for Dumbledore?” she asked.

“No.” Harry said.

“Really?” she said. “I noticed your ID was expired. Have you gone AWOL?”

Harry nodded.

“I find it hard to believe.” she said. “Sorry, but what are the odds of you stumbling into that scene? The guilty party always returns to the scene of the crime, so they say.”

His hands sticky on the wheel, they drove on. “Really. Rin, tell her.”

Rin sighed, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, we're not working for Dumbledore. Quite the reverse, actually.”

Akane considered this. “I'll need you to take a little lie detecting test. Just to make sure, you see.” she said. “Not that I don't trust you – but I don't trust you.”

Ahead of them, the Police headquarters loomed out of the darkness, neon glowing in the swirling snow. The slush flew as the car zoomed down the road, and a light dusting of sugar began to grow on the windshield.

At Police Headquarters, Harry sat in front of an oddly shaped machine made up of several lenses that moved back and forth like a weaving loom, shuttling about this way and that. Akane sat across the table from Harry and began pressing on a tiny little bellows and aiming the lenses. “Now,” she said “Reaction time is a factor in this, so please, pay attention.”

Harry swallowed.

“You are in hell. Why?” she asked.

Harry blanched. “I don't understand the question.

“You're sitting alone in your kitchen. Your wife walks in and shows you a two page spread of a nude man”

Harry frowned. “What, is she gay?”

“She likes it so much she puts it up on the bed room wall.”

Harry shook his head. “I wouldn't let her.”

The questions continued. Against the window, light from a backlit fan shone as snow beat quietly on the pane. Harry felt his sanity slowly slipping away as the intense questions continued, his pulse quickening, his grip on the edge of the table tightening like a wrench on a nut.

Finally, the CID pulled the instruments down. “You're human. At least in the soul.”

Harry stared bleakly at Akane. “What are you getting at?”

“Well,” she said “I considered it a possibility that you were a replicant plant by Dumbledore. But, it seems you are human inside all that metal.”

Harry stared at the unsympathetic woman who would so coldly write him off as nothing more than a toaster. “I never asked for this.”

Sometime later, Harry and Rin were making breakfast in the headquarters canteen. Rin idly passed Harry a slice of bread and looked expectantly at him. Harry sighed and pressed the bread into his stomach, where it began to toast nicely. As it turns out, Doctor Reed always wanted to make toast in her belly button.

They sat and ate at a small plastic table, Harry eating fruit-loops and Rin enjoying her toast. Akane walked in, trench coat swishing behind her, and Rin held up a slice of toast with her foot, offering it to the CID. Akane waved it away with a repulsed expression. “They're performing the autopsy now. Come on.”

They rose, and followed Akane down the cold steel corridors of the HQ to the operating theatre, where a pinched-faced man stood at the head of a table. The body had only just begun to thaw and an intern was hacking at it with a circular saw, pausing occasionally to warm his hands. The bodies were a neat pair, frozen white, skin raised in goose bumps.

The coroner tapped at a chart. “Contusions of the left vertebrae.” he indicated. “Small stipulations on the left tonsil, which match the contusions. The left ventricle is deformed, possibly indicating an interest in rock music and gang affiliation. Cortical stack is destroyed in body A by slug A, likewise B stack for B slug. Heads are both missing, hands are both missing, so identification is made quite difficult. Both Caucasian, male, twenty to twenty five.”

“How did you get the ages?” Akane asked.

“Lack of wear on the genitals.” the Coronado nodded.

Akane lit a cigarette, and Harry reached to do the same. Rin rolled her eyes, hardened to death. Harry thought he had seen it all. He was used to oceans of blood, hot kitchens, living rooms, board rooms sprayed with viscera steaming like fried bacon. But then the headless bodies in the snow...actually, they weren't that bad, Harry concluded.

Suddenly, he had an epiphany. “Lack of wear...?” Harry leaned in close, and plucked a hair. “Doctor,” said Harry, “What do you make of this?”

The doctor took the tiny frozen pubic hair from Harry and considered it for a moment. “Well...” he said, deliberating. “Maybe the world's tiniest violin string.”

Harry shook his head. “It's dyed.”

Everyone leaned in really close to look at the hair. Indeed. It was bright red. “So, what does this suggest?” the Coroner asked. “Perhaps the victim was into punk rock, and hooliganism.”

Harry considered this. “Your city's pretty conformist, isn't it?”

Akane shrugged. “Maybe. It's the judgment of the SIREN system.”

The three left the operating theatre and sat down at the canteen again to plan their next move. As they were pouring themselves coffee and Harry was tapping out another cigarette, the chief of police, or COP as his acronym went, came over and peered curiously at them. “Who are they?” he asked Akane.

The chief of police was a thin man with round spectacles, a nod to some sort of medievalist tradition of eye-correction before augmentation had fixed all eye issues. He wore street clothes, but carried himself with a quiet, understated confidence. He reminded Harry of an iceberg, all coolness that would allow anything to smash off it and smash itself into splinters.

Akane met his gaze, but nervously. “Harry Potter, and Rin Tezuka. They're consulting on the case, on a part-time basis.”

The police chief coughed politely. “Very good. In my office, if you would.” he gestured towards the door. Akane was swept into his office, a very neatly ordered room. In one corner, a set of image-finding consoles sat, screens dark. At the desk, a holographic display floated, numbers and maps and photographs slowly flowing by like magma on a basalt shelf.

“We're under pressure, Akane, to write this case of the Diner Duo as an open and shut suicide.”

“Surely you can't be serious.” Akane protested.

“I am serious.” the police chief said. He paused for a moment, considering his next statement. “And don't give me any guff.”

Akane frowned. “This is corruption, sir. Plain and simple.”

The police chief slammed his fist down on the desk, and the holographic display jumped and sparked. “Damn it, Akane. You're the best investigator I have, but you're going too far!” He considered his next statement. “I could give you twenty-four hours to solve the case, but Hogwarts is pressuring me to shut it down now.”

Akane grimaced. “I can't do that, sir.”

The chief of police stared at Akane coldly. She knew she was throwing everything she had done for her career away, but it was her principles or her career. One or the other had to die. It was Sophie's choice all over again, reloaded.

“Give me your badge.” the police chief said, extending his hand.

Trembling with despair and anger, she unclipped it from her coat and passed it to the police chief. When he moved to pull away, she held onto it a moment longer, both of them gripping it. She looked the chief of police in the eye. “This isn't over.”

Also, you guys both totally called it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It was raining out. The rain rapped against the tin roof of the corrugated tin metal shack. Harry couldn't sleep. Something was off, he could feel it. Dudley snored loudly next to him, sprawled out on a mattress. They had had lost nearly everything.
On the advice of William Taggart, Vernon and Penny had fled the United England and come to hide in the United States. It had been brutal thus far, living in poverty in a foreign country, with no common ground or even a common language. They quickly fell to the bottom rung of society and held on with their teeth to prevent falling any further.
Harry wondered if he would dream that night. In his mind of minds he could see the nightmares he had had in the past, about cold metal running in rivulets down his wrists, up his arms, smothering his face with the glossy, glass-like reflections cast on the metal as it poured down his throat. Harry did not like to dream. He tossed, restlessly, watching the shadows move across the ceiling as cars sped past on the nearby bypass.
Suddenly there was a noise.
Harry sat bolt upright and reached under a pile of grubby laundry for his 34. Automatic. He aimed it at the door. Then the door opened, revealing the silhouette of a gigantically proportioned man backlit against the neon.
*Click* *Click*
"Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, Harry, You nearly shot me." Hagrid said as he stood in the doorway, outlined against the city lights and his wet, rain-soaked navy blue raincoat was soaked from the rain and dripping wet.
Harry lay back and tossed the gun aside, where it fired twice in quick succession, punching holes in the corrugated wall. He stared at the ceiling with his eyes closed as the shots ricocheted around the tent camp.
"What do you want, Hagrid?" Harry asked wearily, resigned, without hope.
"You need to know."
Harry sat up again, reaching for a shirt. If he must endure this, he would do so without his nipples being exposed.
"Know what?"
"There's no easy way to tell you this."
"Tell me what?"
"It's going to be hard, harry. Verrry hard." Hagrid replied, rolling his “r” with gusto.
Harry pulled on a grubby shirt and looked at Hagrid with suspicion in his eyes and his body language..
"Tell me what?" he asked again, this time conveying his urgent impatience.
"There's no easy way to tell you this." Hagrid said again.
Harry and Hagrid stared at each other in silence for what seemed an eternity. Then Hagrid began.
"Ten years ago, at the Black Mesa Research Facility, the event horizon began."
Harry went cross-eyed, and tried to shut the memories out. Staring at the floor, he spoke.
"I don't care about that, Hagrid. It was in the past. Sure, the hospital bill was high but I want to forget, Hagrid."
Hagrid stared long and hard at Harry before he began again.
"There's no easy way to tell you this."
"Tell me what?"
"Ten years ago, during the Black Mesa incident, you were fatally injured, but you went to the hospital."
"The price was expensive but I am alive. So what?"
"Harry," Hagrid hesitated. "Harry, the cost was your humanity."
"What do you mean?"
"You're a Hanzer, Harry."
"I'm a what?"
"A cyborg, Harry. A machine."
Harry stared at Hagrid with a cold expression. The cameras that were his eyes dilated.
"I never asked for this."

[GiglameshDespair]

Cortical Stacks? Resleeving? I see someone's been playing Eclipse Phase.

[Urist Arrhenius]

ptw, and maybe contribute

[Glacies]

Nah. That's from a book called Altered Carbon. I'm not sure if Eclipse Phase is older or not, but I encountered the concept in the book.

[GiglameshDespair]

Looks like Eclipse Phase took it fro mthat then - it's a transhumanism rpg. Uses that exact wording - cortical stacks, resleeving, and all that entails.

[Glacies]

I am so, so sorry.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Open plains soared ahead of Harry and Snape as they galloped across the land, thunderhead looming high above them. Harry knew for sure the horses were going to die if they rode them this hard much longer but it was imperative that they deliver their message on time.
The butternut brown trousers and confederate gray tunic he wore were soaking wet from the rain as Harry and Snape rode up on the sentry, who waved them through with a wave from his cap, and with a wave the sentry waved at the two of them as he waved them through into a clearing where several men in confederate blue were doing early morning soldier things, but wet because it was raining. Harry's trousers and confederaete gray tunic were soaking wet because it was raining. He slid from the saddle in a smooth motion, tucking the scroll case behind him and wringing his confederate brown hat out in front of him. Snape also did the same and as the two dismounted their horses died in unison and slid into matching, pre-dug graves with little splashes.
"Gentlemen!" said an aide, shouting to be heard over the torrent. "The general is expecting you! Right this way." he yelled, and gestured over his shoulder in a come-with-me gesture that they should follow him where he would lead them. The aide continued "We've been lookin' for you folks for about an hour now, seems you barely beat the storm in - and the dawn." That much was true - the pair had arrived just in the nick of time and the storm was coming down hard.
At the mouth of a large tent, they were met with coffee made from ground chicory roots - no cream or sugar this close to the front line - by another aide, who gestured them into the tent. General Robert E. Lee looked up from where he was writing a dispatch and nodded at them to take a seat in the little folding chairs while he finished writing the dispatch. He stood, and stroked his stately, white beard for a moment before he turned to the aide and said " Thank you Tyson that will be all." and gestured for the aide to leave with a get-out-of-here gesture indicating he should go. The aide looked doubtful, but General Lee shook his stately white head insistently and said "I trust these gentlemen implicilty, Tyson, depend upon it. You may leave us." and Tyson the aide nodded and left.
Snape rose to shakle the general's hand and the three of them shook hands like stately gentlemen before General Lee raised a stately eyebrow and said "Now, to ensure some privacy..." and he pulled out his wand and cast a silencing charm on the tent entrance. "Alohamora" he intoned with his trademark Southern Viginia accent. Then he turned to Snape and Harry, who were dressed in ragtag confederate uniforms, and asked them "What news from Dumbledore's army?"
Harry offered Lee the scroll case which held dispatched from Lupin in it detailing his mission.  They conveyed the urgency of his mission and that Harry be aided in arrived New York City with all urgency, as the fate of the world hung in the balance. "These implore me, Mister Potter, that you be aided in arrive New York City by any means possible. I cannot jeopardize operations on the border of the wilderness without blowing my cover - and yet times such as these call for desperate measures." Harry and Snape had a curious appearance.
General Lee looked pensive, and withdrew behind his desk where he unrolled a map of the wilderness, lines and estimates drawn upon it indicating where things would happen and men, minne balls and blood would be sensleslly wasted. There were several rail lines marked on the map, most of them with big red ecks marks through them indicating that the Union had sabotaged them, or the Confederacy had likewise sabotaged the rails before they could be seized and used by the Union.
"Here" said Lee, gesturing at nowhere in particular on the map, "We shall make our stand, and it here, by the grace of god and my home state of virginia, we shall enable you to break through enemy lines and make your way through washington and from there, undercover into New York by rail."
Harry nodded decidously, in affirmation of the fact that he believe he roughly understoof what General Lee, one of the greatest Aurors to ever lived, had planned. But the General was not easily impressed. "But, first, gentlemen, I think I would appreciate an explanation of how you got here."
Harry began to explain.
In the early morning fog of Normandy's beaches as the smoke filtered overhead, it rained hard and Harry's antiquated great war era trench coat was dripping wet from the rain. He lit another cigarette and put it in his mouth with the other three as the silence built, no noise except the breathing of his fellow lander-mates, crash of the surf, the crash of the artillery,anti-air guns, the lark still bravely singing scarce heard amids the roar of the aeroplanes and the small arms and machine gun fire from the beach. But otherwise no sound except pattering sand. Harry drank in the terrible silen-
General Lee waved impatiently.
Harry drank in the terrible silence, landed, fought his way past some nazis, commandeered a jeep and stole a dead SS colonel's uniform, drove down the road ahead of the invasion, fought some more nazis, then arrived at a secret airfield.
General Lee held up his hand, palm outwards, in a slow-down-what-are-you-saying gesture and said "Wait, what? Secret Nazi Airfield?"
"Yes" said Harry, his glasses steaming "A secret nazi airfield." he said with the sort of reverence one normally says "Surprise christmas party." And it was indeed just that. Captain America, another famous auror, was fighting a secret wing of Dumbledore's army codenamed "MANY HEADED SNAKE CREATURE" alongside some nazis who had discovered the deception; but it was too late; many planes armed with city destroying PIGMUFFUINS were being launched. Logically, Harry decided it would be best to leave the cleanup to Captain America and the rest of the nazis, so he grabbed the plane to new york.
The great bomber with the PEEGMOOFIN was no B-52 like the germans used during the waw horever, it was a B-5552, and was equipppexc with secret self0-defensive mechanisms that caused it to deliberately steer itself into a flotilla of Japanese Zeroes and Gundams.
Lee only stopped to ask what a Gundam was. The answer did not appear to satisfy him, but he said "Pray continue" and so Harry did.
Harry fought a sword and gun duel of whirling death atop the B-55552, holding a lithe gray mauser in one hand, a cigarette in the other and a katana in the third. He whirled and slashed, and the bad guy samurai in a big goofy mask with red pom-poms sneered decidously under his mask and kicked harry off the plane. He looked over the edge of the plane where he had kicked Harry off but saw only the ground far below because Harry was holding onto the sword handle grip thing of the katana he had stuck into the underside off the b-52 secretly unbeknownst to the sAMURAI. Then he turned his back and Harry hauled himself back up on the plane. The samurai heard the faint scraping noise and made a "tch" noise of disbelief before he turnedd, and adopted a dual stance yet again. Harry raised his Katana in both hands, took another draw on his cigarette, and dive-rolled forward at the same time the Samurai leapt and slashed horizontally. There were two strokes with one moment, two strokes in one thought, cherry blossoms fall in the springtime, and when the bright flash faded, the samurai paused, gasped with disbelief, the slowly his upper torso slid off his lower torso and he fell away from the plane in a spray of viscera. Harry wiped the blood off his katana in one smooth motion and sheathed it inside his leg (Dr. Reed had always wanted to store a Katana inside her leg) and bowed for a moment in respect for his fallen enemy before before blowing the scattered cherry blossom petals away and looting his corpse.
General Lee nodded at the neccesity of war. His own confederate troops were woefully underequipped and many only had shoes because they looted them from the dead or scavenged the leather.
Harry knew he was running out of time so he ran to the flight deck and hotwired the plane and aimed it roughly at north america, confident the US postal system would bring it down, then he ran to the escape pods. But the airlock was sealed shut. "AI DOOR" HArry yellwed on the intercoms, but the door remained shut. Harry opened his multitool, screwdrivered a panel open and cut and pulsed random wires until the door's hydraulic clamps had engaged and disengaged, he received a mildly lethal electrical shock, but then finally the door sprung open. Harry leapt into the escape pod in the nick of time, but then Dobby sprung out of the shdows with a cloaking device holding a shock bation! "Harry potter must not go to New York, or he will be in mortal danger!" the house elf shrieked, and he tazed Harry unconcious.

[UXLZ]

Mmm... Some random poetry. T'was written several years ago, and none of these had a particular amount of thought put into them. They aren't interconnected, either.
I know I have a hell of a lot more lying around... These are the only ones I could find for the time being.

Spoiler: Haikus (click to show/hide)

Thus comes a new dawn~
Another day of sorrow~
Never shall it end~

Tragedy awaits~
Nothing ends in happiness~
Such is our world's way~

Drift along the breeze~
Wherever shall it take you~?
Naught but to despair~

What of those forgot~?
Entombed below forever~
Lost amidst the sands~

Shadows in the night~
Eternal sleep approaches~
Destiny is here~

Presence out of sight~
Embodiment of terror~
Avatar of fear~

See! Watch the swallows~
Floating on the sacred wind~
Drifting in the breeze~

Look! See the rain drops~
Falling down in symphony~
Shining in the night~

Cold like ice and snow~
In Entropy and Chaos~
Void between the worlds~

[GiglameshDespair]

That's not how tildes work.

[UXLZ]

That's the only thing you have to say? :v

I don't care if that isn't how they work, they make it look prettier.

[GiglameshDespair]

If you insist.
The second and third to last I like, the rest seem a little 2edgy. And yeah, to me it just looks silly with tildes at the end of each line. Doesn't make sense.

[UXLZ]

Yeah, they were meant to be 2edgy, I'm a 2edgy person. The second and third to last are admittedly my own favorites as well, though, they conjure beautiful images.
This is a sort of Haiku Battle I had with one of my friends. It's obvious which ones are mine.

Spoiler: The Battle (click to show/hide)

Screams break the silence~
They echo through the darkness~
Weak of heart beware~

Innocent children
have no fear, for I am here
woe to all your ghosts.

Heroes come and go~
Your faith in her is foolish~
All of you shall die~

Always keep my word
Protect the weak and weary
That's my way of life.

Words are filled with lies~
Nothing survives forever~
Young grow old and die~

Yet, life continues
built on the promises
our fathers made us

Sadness, pain and death~
Life is naught but misery~
How long 'till you learn?~

Til the sun has set
and the laughter is no more.
Then, life can best me

Laughter's end is nigh~
Life returns to dust and ash~
This world's time is done~

Spoiler: 2EDGY (click to show/hide)

High up above us~
The stars oh so bright~
Those wonderful diamonds~
They gleam in the night~

The Red Eyes of Madness~
They glow like the Moon~
They trap you, ensnare you~
And draw you to doom~

You cannot betray them~
You cannot resist~
Those red eyes of sirens~
In your heart will persist~

They splinter your mind~
And shatter your head~
They break you to pieces~
You're better off dead~

Those beautiful diamonds~
They shine in the night~
So deadly and dire~
In scarlet red light~

Spoiler: More Edgy? (click to show/hide)

 
Full of terrors worse than death,
Yet even so it steals my breath,
Our world, our home, our life-long friend,
That no one's mind can comprehend,

The seas that swell with blood-red tides,
The moon that in its veil hides,
The shadows where the dark things creep,
And wind that in its whispers keep,

In mountains high whence rivers flow,
In tundras where the ice winds blow,
In cities where the lost ones walk,
In jungles where the hunters stalk,

This world of ours that awes me so,
It's sad, at last, to see it go,
We tried so hard but far too late,
Its only end, its certain fate.

[Tack]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Old timbers creak and moan,
As she who stays above them groan.
The daily death of these old bones
Brings agony, memories, questions.

The house, it squats upon it's hill,
a lonely caretaker, penned to will
The solemn search to find who'll fill
For the soon to be forgotten.

Agony, for the fruits gone dry,
The burning hope as the years went by
The ashes left as she came to find
Her tree was withered and broken

Memories, for the few left yet,
who've taken wing, and taken bets
On spreading far until they've met
The heights of their ambitions

Questions, as she clutches tight
a page marked with dying sunlight
The future used to seem so bright
But now the house is empty.

She leans back, and gives a sigh
a fruitless gesture, a pitiable cry
and in the darkness the top leaves die
On a tree so gnarled and quiet.

On the mount, the house sits still
the quiet of an aching will
to slowly ache and groan until
Time alone claims the deed.

The fruits who've spread both near and far
give certain pause, simultaneously are
struck with thoughts of their grandma
Perhaps we should go to visit.

Whipped this up in five minutes just to see if I could.
It's the first poem I've ever written, and is likely to be the last.

[UXLZ]

Oh, that's a format I've never seen before, I'll have to give it a try at some point. Very nice.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

so here's an unedited version of my english assignment.
its a short story that has to have the main character be a girl with a postcard collection, an orange, and the setting has to be steam punk

warning it is long and probably drawn out, I forgot it was supposed to be double spaced so its twice as long as it was meant to be.


Citrus Fruit Talk to Her

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Citrus Fruit Talk to Her
Lois sat in her room staring at postcard, she was having heated debate with a tangerine over where she should move her bed. She exclaimed to the talking fruit,¨Yes but if I move it here then the sun will shine in my eyes and it will keep me awake in the mornings!¨ The citrus yelled back,¨Precisely, if that happens you won’t sleep in.¨. Her father sat outside her door listening to the argument, he knew there was no way he could help his daughter. He shook his head and walked away knowing that she would not be able to live a normal life, she must be kept away.

She was a schizophrenic princess who was locked away in a tower for her own protection. She has been locked away most of her life and unable to see anything outside of the metal walls of her tower and out the window to see the smoke of the industrial city. Her relatives begin to feel sorry for her and gift her postcards from cities around the kingdom. Some are bustling trade hubs, others are exotic port towns, and others are neighboring cities that she can just barely see out her window. The postcards gave her an unrealistic and pristine look into the outside world, her relatives hoped they would be enough that her imagination might be able to let her walk the streets from inside her tower but she wanted to truly experience it. She wanted to walk the streets, see the buildings, and meet the people.

One day while sitting in her tower, eating lunch, she heard a voice speak up from inside her room, there wasn’t a single other person there but she listened to his voice,¨Why so gloom Lois?¨. The princess looked around confused, her eyes traced the room looking for a body to put the face to but failing to do so, the voice spoke up again,¨What are you looking around for silly girl, I’m right here!¨, he sounded rather impatient. Lois still couldn’t find where the voice was coming from and drooped her head down in sadness, but when her eyes fell on her tray of food she saw the orange. This didn’t look like any ordinary orange though, she saw eyes, a nose, a mouth, and eyebrows. This strange spectacle wasn’t the first time she had seen faces in objects or fruit, its something that has happened to her her whole life but out of the voices she heard none of them ever matched the faces she saw but this one was different. This time when the voice spoke up yet again the lips on the orange moved,¨Yes, there you go. You finally found me. Now answer my question if you would, why do you look so gloom?¨. She was so scared when it started speaking she was frozen but when it stopped she reacted by screaming in a high pitched shriek and throwing the tray at the wall splattering food everywhere in her room. As the orange smacked into the wall it gave off a loud scream of pain.

Only a few short and silent moments later did the guards rush into her room after hearing the scream and rushing up the stairs. After three dead bolts were unlocked the door swung open and two guards rushed in,¨Princess, are you ok! What’s the matter?!?¨. Still in shock, she sat speechless on the edge of her bed staring into the mess of food splattered on her floor and against the wall. One of the guards approached her slowly,¨Ma’am, are you ok? What has happened?¨, she shook her head slowly and whispered to herself,¨This can’t be happening…. It can’t...¨. The guard spoke in a soft and calming voice,¨What has happened Lois?¨, she glanced at him then back at the wall,¨It spoke to me…. The food spoke to me..¨ The other guard standing in the doorway overheard this and burst into laughter at the outrageous statement. Lois sneered at him. He quickly stopped laughing and yelled out,¨YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME! DO YOU?¨. The guard next to her patted her shoulder and both the guards left. The door closed and each bolt locked. Half an hour later she was met by her aunt and a maid met with her, her aunt calmly spoke to her,¨Lets take a walk while the maid cleans this mess up¨. After a long walk and new postcard, one of the cities she can see from her tower, the princess was returned to the tower. 

She sat on her bed, staring at the wall once covered in food now clean. She wondered why she had to be the only one, the only ‘crazy’ person in this world, the only one that heard the voices and saw the faces. After giving a long sigh she heard the familiar voice of the orange speak again,¨You never did tell me, why so gloom?¨. This time the voice didn’t scare her, she spoke back,¨I have lived in this tower my whole life, not allowed to leave and only getting to walk the castle grounds when I have another ‘episode’, they think surrounding me with images of these spectacular cities oh so near to this tower would just take away my need to explore the world.¨ the orange spoke back,¨Maybe you should go, escape, and explore this world. After all it is your life to control and not theirs.¨. Lois chuckled to herself, she was listening to an orange how mad,¨How would I even escape this place and why should I listen to some stranger that I don’t even know their name?¨. The orange took a moment to think then spoke,¨My name is Dante, I am an orange¨

After a long night of planning her escape, Lois collected a few of her favorite postcards and one of the city she wanted to go to, she made a makeshift bag of sorts out of her sheets then climbed out of her window down to a lower window, busted it open with her feet, climbed back in, and sprinted out of the tower, out the courtyard, and through the opened castle gates. She ran to the small village just outside the castle, it was a clean town filled with small stone huts with a large clock tower in the center of the town that spewed smoke and steam from its small chimneys. Lois ignored the small houses and looked for a carriage, she knew what they were, she had seen her relatives arrive in them and she knew they took her father places. While wandering around the town she saw another fruit, this time a lemon, that began to speak to her, this time she didn’t question it but knew she didn’t have enough time to talk to it so as it began to tell her hello Lois threw it into her bag. After wandering the streets she got to the other side of town and saw the white smoke of a carriage, there it sat in the street painted black with two steam stacks at its front and a driver sitting on the front edge waiting to drive wherever need be.

She walked up to the driver and he looked down at her,¨Hello young lady, where you be going this late in the evening?¨ Lois couldn’t figure out what to say and slipped saying,¨I need to go somewhere¨. The man gave a chuckle,¨Where that be young lady?¨, Dante spoke up from within her makeshift bag,¨Show him the postcard¨. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the postcard of the nearby town of Dunwall, she then showed the driver the postcard. He responded with another bellowing chuckle,¨You be headed to Dunwall? Well I won’t be stopping you but I’d much rather be here than there.¨. This confused her but she didn’t question it, he spoke once more,¨What will you be paying with?¨ she padded down her pockets and looked in her bag to no avail but then remembered she was wearing several nice necklaces and a couple rings, taking off one golden chain necklace she handed it to him,¨Will this work?¨. He reached out and snatched it from her hands,¨Why yes, that should more than cover it¨ he pulled a lever attached to the steam powered carriage letting off a whistle of steam from the steam stacks,¨Hop in the cabin and I’ll wake you when we are near Dunwall¨. So Lois opened the door and got in the carriage, soon she fell asleep laying on one of the cushioned seats using her bag as a pillow.

She awoke to the driver shaking her awake and a crick in her neck,¨Ma’am we are just a quarter mile from the city, would you like to stretch your legs before I drop you off?¨ she gave no response but grabbed her bag, and took her postcard of Dunwall in hand. She stepped out of the carriage and onto the edge of the hill where they were parked, she stared at the pristine city on her postcard and then looked out to the city with her groggy eyes and was shocked at what she saw. There was a large city, covered in black ash, with smoke and steam rising from its skyline. In utter disbelief she collapses to her knees but being so close to the edge of the hill this throws her off balance and she tumbles down the hill. As she reaches the bottom she collides with a small tree and loses hold of her bag, it flies off and releases its contents. Lois gets back to her feet and begins looking through the mess of postcards and torn up bed sheets, she yells out into the open grassy field just outside the city,¨Dante! Dante?!?¨ a voice not belonging to the orange calls out,¨Help!¨ Lois rushed to the direction of the call and there she saw the lemon from the day before on the ground, she questioned the fruit,¨Where did Dante go?¨ it responded,¨I don’t know by I’m in quite a bit of pain¨. Lois left the lemon in search of her friend and as she looked through a patch of grass a large bird swooped down in front of her and plucked the orange from the grass, Dante called out in pain,¨No, no, please help!¨ but Lois was unable to catch the bird before it flew out into the city.

Exhausted and sad Lois gathered as many of her cards as she could and began putting them into her now torn up bag, she heard the lemon speak again,¨So I guess you just don’t care about me then huh!¨. Lois walked over and picked up the fruit,¨Why should I? All I need to look sane in this city is be the only person walking around talking to fruit, this hurt the lemon’s feelings,¨I guess no one cares about little old Tammy Lyn¨. Tammy began to weep in Lois’s hand. Lois felt terrible,¨No please don’t cry, here I’ll take you, can you help me look for Dante in Dunwall?¨. The lemon ceased her weeping,¨I don’t know the city but I’ll help in any way I can¨. So they ventured forth into the grimey city. The deeper they trudged the meaner the people got and the more trash they found littering the streets.

It had been hours of searching every nook and cranny of the clock towers and storage facilities of the city with no sign of Dante, the sun was going down and they needed a place to rest. Lois had remembered a bridge that had a nice road running underneath it that would give them a good place to rest. When they got to the crossing Lois and Tammy found only one other person there, a homeless beggar who sat against the wall of the overpassing bridge, he would ask every passerby for money but few helped. As they approached closer he began begging to them,¨Please ma’am, I haven't eaten in days, one coin is all I ask, you must have something¨ Lois shook her head not knowing how she could help. She sat near him and asked if she may spend the night there and he agreed,¨Ain’t no one else to keep me company, name’s Clem¨. As the moon and stars came out and all was dark Lois laid against the wall, unpacked and unfolded her bag to cover herself with the sheets and set Tammy Lyn near the postcards. They said goodnight to each other and Lois drifted into sleep. She awoke to the noise of Clem rummaging through her things, she yelled out at him,¨What are you doing?!? You’ll destroy my postcards if you’re not careful!¨. He didn’t care, continuing his search he found the lemon and spoke out,¨A bitter choice but it’ll do¨. Lois screamed out,¨No! You can’t eat her, she’s my only other friend!¨, he didn’t care. Tammy Lynn was wide awake and screaming for mercy but it was as if Clem didn’t even notice her pleas. Lois got up and tackled Clem throwing all three of them to the ground. Clem pushed Lois off her and grabbed the lemon, he clambered to his feet and stared Lois in the face,¨I haven’t eaten in four days, I thank you for this meal¨ with those words he took a giant bite out of the side of the lemon, Tammy’s screams stopped and Lois cried out,¨NO!¨ she began to cry. Clem could have cared less as he collected her sheets and several postcards before he ran off.

Lois sat on the cold stone ground, taking heavy breaths of soot filled air, she began to calm down as she remembered she still needed to search for Dante. She picked herself up from the ground and dusted off whatever ash or dirt had collected on her clothes and soldiered on in search of her missing friend. She explored through the bustling city looking intensely for a birds nest or maybe calls for help from the orange but she found nothing. As she was giving up hope on finding her kidnapped friend when, as she was climbing down a ladder on another clocktower, she saw a black bird fly by and out into the wilderness of the other side of the city. She hurriedly rushed down the ladder and through the streets running in the direction she saw the bird flying. As she ran past the edge of the city and began to run through grass adjacent to the city she caught a breath of fresh air which awakened her and she ran faster now not weighed down by the smog of the city. She began running up a hill towards a collection of trees and saw the bird sitting on a branch. It was pecking at an orange peel, Dante had been eaten. Lois drooped down, now depressed,¨This world is not as pristine as they have made it seem, why would I have ever wanted to leave my tower.¨ The crow looked at her, for a moment she thought it would speak to her but all it did was crow and continue pecking at the orange peel.

Lois headed back to the city, she was slumped over with tears brimming in her eyes. She had only known her friends for less than a day but they cared for her more than others had. As she walked through an open market in the street she stopped at a fruit stand, there were bruised and old citrus fruit piled in the cart and she saw one lime laying in the pile, it was not old or bruised or rotten. It was ripe and she thought to herself that maybe it would speak to her, she picked it up and examined it, the stall worker looked up and commented,¨That’s a fine fruit you found in a pile of filth, make for a good treat.¨ she went back to her work. Lois laughed to herself at how people really ate these things. As she turned and examined the lime she saw an emotionless face on it, she whispered to it,¨Hello friend, are you there?¨, its eyes opened but it did not speak. She grew frustrated for it not responding,¨Can you even speak?!?!” she exclaimed at the fruit in her hand, the people around her gave her strange looks and she noticed. She felt alienated from them and for once she realized how insane she looked to them all, as she took steps back from the stall trying to find words to say she heard a carriage stop behind her. As she turned to look the doors opened and two guards got out and grabbed her before she could escape,¨It’s ok princess, we’ll get you back home.¨ She did not resist and gladly followed back into the carriage.

For some days she kept the lime hoping it would speak but it did not, its face even began to fade. She heard the voices less and less and saw faces on objects rarely if at all. Months later a doctor examined her, the same that diagnosed her. As he read through her results he exclaimed to her father,¨Why sir, it seems your daughter has been cured. It’s a miracle if I ever heard of one. Her delusions seem to have faded and she shows few signs of her past ailment.¨. The princess was allowed to leave her tower and she was slowly introduced to the small village but Lois knew she never ever wanted to leave her paradise that she once escaped.