halogenic's blog

Calling all witnesses.

People gawked and gathered about televisions within the area, whispering behind anxious hands and feeling the sudden crawl of pandemonium itch at their flesh. The echo of their fears liberated from their expressions, from the way their eyes ate up the screen and resembled the frantic edges of animals.

 

 

"I'm Sally Jenson and what you're witnessing right now is the scene across the coast of St. James beach. The horrific and mysterious situation was reported only hours ago near five A.M. by a pair of joggers who were flabbergasted at what they had found. Over sixty sharks have been found here, beached by no real means. Some are not even local to these waters which has scientists even more baffled by finding them here. The largest of them even being a twenty foot great white, who typically does not surround this close to shore, nor are they found at this time of year. Even more frightening is the sight of over three dozen birds, ranging from sea gulls, finches and even ravens, all cast in a wide circle around this beach front home. Police notified the CDC who are now here investigating any signs of a virus, disease, or some have even gone far enough to suggest chemical warfare. The CDC has declined to comment on what exactly they have found, though have suggested that something was wrong with the birds. No signs of illness have been found within the beached sharks, though. The CDC and the local police department have quarantined the beach as of now, evacuating over five hundred beach homes of their residents -- even though only one home seems to hold any attention. We have gotten word that no one was inside, and police are still trying to locate the home owners. More on this story later."

 

 

the warning

 

 

_____________________________________________________

 

 

The message had been left as soon as Hunter had rushed her out of the house. There had been something heavy in the air, a thick smell of rot and old decay. Tethys spoke in roaring howls of thrashing waves, warning them -- chasing them from their once peaceful sanctuary. Her voice was shaky, confused with some chant of fright against the sea foam of her tongue. The reception making her voice just as choppy as the oceans wrathful surface.

 

"Shannon, it's Hayl-- do not go -- the house. Someth-- but we don't kno-- Stay away. It's -- there might be more -- wrong. I'll call -- Just stay aw-- It's a plag--."

 

And within the ending crackle of the call murmured something ghostly: We see you.

 

 

Fool me once, shame on you.

 

mouthful of sand

His feet were bare.

 

He could feel every grain of sand, the utter warmth of it from being baked in a high perched sun. The air, though, was cool and had no hint of humidity or heat strangling within it. There was no recalling how he got here, or where exactly he was standing. When he looked out into the open, shading his eyes with his hand from the glare of the sun, all he saw were sand dunes. Waves of beige and gold that littered the deserted land.

 

He strained to hear something. Anything. The silence became deafening.

 

Hunter scowled, suddenly, as if realization dawned on him out of no where. Confusion was thick a long the canvas of his face as he turned around once to search out the landscape, and one more time after that. His nerves, they weren't rattling. The sublime essence of the moment discomforting as well as comforting. He took a step forward in a direction he couldn't make out and instead of sand arching between his toes there was a texture of life.

 

The circle of greenery was perfect, a mini oasis of color splashed into the desert. Within it's center was an arched, marble tombstone and at it's base sat a bouquet of star orchids and white roses, not fully bloomed and clustered sporadically within the jungle array of flower petals dusted in pink hues and violet shades. He knew this tombstone even before he read the name chisled into it's smooth surface:

 

Daeva Anne Hallow; loving mother who left us to soon.

 

"This is a dream." He felt like he shattered the fragile silence with a simple mumur, wincing when he heard his voice echo against the sand dunes.

 

"Of course it is." That voice was not his own. It came from his right, and just like the tombstone, was beyond familiar.

 

Hunter twisted with a slow drag of his focus, almost hesitant to look away from his mothers gravesite. He was awarded a sight of an older man dressed in a black suit. A single white rose blooming from the breast pocket and his right hand encouraging his weight to be put on an archaic looking cane. The mans face was tired, gaunt and somewhat sloped -- but his smile was friendly and reached up to the blue-green cauldrons of his eyes. He had been watching Hunter's reaction, and seemed genuinely smug about the lack of surprise from him.

 

"It's the only way I would beable to talk to you." The man said, pursing his thin lips and slanting a sidelong look to the tombstone.

 

"Why am I here?" Hunter's first question.

 

The man looked over both shoulders, first the left and then the right. When he returned his focus to the youth in front of him, he grinned. Oddly enough, it resembled Hunters.

 

"Why not?" Again, he seemed smug. "Figured it would be familiar territory, for you." A motion of his left hand to give emphasis to the stretch of sand around them. "And, I know you're mother would like to be here for this." That said with a tilt of his head, indicating the tombstone.

 

"No. Why? Why are we here? Why are you talking to me like this?"

 

"Oh." The mans brows lifted up and his wide-wise eyes squinted up at the sun. "Because it's quiet. And private."

 

"Who is helping you do this?"

 

"An old friend. You don't know her." Quickly answering the question as if it held no importance. "I need you to do something."

 

Hunter took a quick look around when a sudden chill escaped the feigned air around him. This place, it wasn't real. Though the mind seemed to think differently.

 

"What?"

 

"I need you to keep an eye out."

 

"For?"

 

"You'll know if you keep an eye out for it." The riddles. Always with the riddles.

 

Hunter sighed. "That doesn't help, you know?"

 

"It will." The man cleared his throat before hiking up the hemline of his pants and sinking into a crouch in front of the tombstone. His fingers, lengthy and thin, reached to dust a hint of sand from the top of the marble piece. "I also need you to keep quiet."

 

"Quiet? As in --"

 

"Yes." He finished the answer before Hunter could finish the question. The man looked on at the tombstone, sorrow wetting his eyes even though his mouth tried to deceive Hunter with a lopsided grin. "Your sister, too. Especially her."

 

"Haylee? What? I don't understa--"

 

"You will, Hunter."

 

Hunter felt his fingers pierce into his palms, knuckles springing white against the skin as he clentched them into fists of annoyance. "You can't do this! You can't just keep feeding me all these fucking puzzles, thinking I'll figure them out. Just spit it out, already!"

 

The man didn't need to look at Hunter to feel the tension rising. It caused the sun to glare white hot with the outer ring filtering in some toxic yellow. He did, however, look at his watch and come to a slow stand.

 

"Get Haylee."

 

"What?"

 

The man turned abruptly to face Hunter to show him his watch, but Hunter couldn't make out where the hands were stationed.

 

"Get Haylee." He repeated. "And get out of the house, son."

 

___________________________________________

 

Hunter awoke with his fists still clentched and his jaw set in a hardened line. He could taste the sun on his tongue, feel it in his bones and the way it brandished his skin with a slight tan. There was sand in his bed, granules of it rolling off the mattress when he moved in nothing but his boxers. The sigils on his body began to burn.

 

"Haylee! Haylee!"

 

His voice boomed within the empty corridors of their beach house, startling even the shadows to pull back from their blackout postures. He tore down the hallway until he reached a shut door, reaching to slam his fist against it to rattle it a long it's hinges.

 

"Haylee! We gotta go. Come on!" It was yelled, ferociously, a demand from the fireblooded titan. He was stumbling back down the hall, the glyphs against his skin causing his nerves to spasm. With a firm grunt he swallowed down the unusual pain, buried the fear that caused him to lose some grip on reality.

 

"Hunter?" Haylee was peeking out from her opened door and down the hallway, her head a mess of twilight hair and her eyes reflective like the moon hanging over the sea. Her voice was a combination of confusion and fright, a rare tone for her to ever create. "Hunter, what's going on? What're you doing?" She was still half-asleep, slurring her words together and reaching to start nudging herself down the wall of the hallway.

 

Hunter grabbed random things: Torn jeans, a wrinkled shirt, his phone and wallet a long with an aged looking journal that was leather bound and tied with a bright red ribbon. "We gotta go. Come on. Just trust me. Grab some clothes, leave everything here."

 

"Hunter, I don't understand! Just tell me what's go--"

 

"Haylee, now!"

 

 

 

 

 

While all the vultures feed.

Putting all the vegetables away
that you bought at the grocery store today.
And it goes fast, you think of the past.

Suddenly everything has changed.

Driving home the sky accelerates.
And the clouds all form a geometric shape.
And it goes fast, you think of the past.

Suddenly everything has changed.

Putting all the clothes you washed away,
As you're folding up the shirts you hesitate.
Then it goes fast, you think of the past.

Suddenly everything has changed.

 

the flaming lips

 

 

searching twilight

Lovesong

"You need to leave."

 

The reflection of a man, a rippled and warped sense of his handsome qualities, it did little but stare up from it's watery grave to the papergirl and her hurricane eyes.

 

"I don't love you." She choked on tears -- salt water. The burn was worse than a wildfire.

 

"You're a terrible liar." Said the man in the rippling waves, a mockery of Poseidon with shark black eyes. The surface seemed to breathe in the way the waves arched lovingly towards her face before falling back down. A hand broke the boundries and searched above to touch her face. Copper scaled skin, reptilian and glossy.

 

"You're a terrible lover." Her words meant to bite like a savage animal came out more and more like a submitting patient, slowly being consumed by the memories of passionate fuckfests and a love affair of gods. His fingers roamed, ravaged, and intruded across her face -- nose, eyes, cheeks, jaw.

 

It barked a laugh, the reflection of a man so far from sympathy, so close to chaos. "Again! Terrible liar, blue eyes."

 

He had a Shakespearian tongue, tied in oldworld riddles and telling the horrific tale of a Tethys baby mixed up in the shadow of a monster -- she confessed her own obsession with a tender hearted sigh into his palm.

 

"I'm never going to give you what you want." Her murmuring plea to convince herself, to convince him -- her tears were black with her sins.

 

"You will."

 

 

 

 

le neauba

 

Strip, fuck, regret.

It's sometime in the fall since the leaves are out for blood with their autumnal wash of colors, the range being from sunbelly orange to toxic yellow and bright bites of red to smear at the ground outside. It's near Halloween, the handful of carved pumpkins littering the door ways and stoops of the comatose neighborhood give it away with their triangle eyes and sharp toothed grins. Their belly's full of candles made the skittering of shivering flames seem eerie, possessed jack-o-lanterns that were trying to keep the shadows at bay even though the sun had set hours ago. The time now was for the nightlife.

 

One house was a catered piece of decoration for this time of year, with it's hanging straw bodies and sticky fake hands crawling up from the immitation graveyard that normally housed tulips and snapdragons during the spring. The old oak tree that sprawled it's skeleton branches tapped and scratched against the glass of the kitchen window, a nosey piece of bark to try and watch the unveiling events inside. The wind was crisp and sharp, whistling over the grit of the chimney and rattling the plastic bones of store bought zombies. There were a few lights on within the abode, constructed of old wood and an older history. The essence of candle light was much more still on the inside than the struggling twists of those that sat in the pumpkins on the outside, forced to burn against the chill.

 

There were bodies struggling on the couch that sat neatly in the pit of the living room, idle pieces of furniture held hostage and forced to watch the carnal ballet being performed right in front of them. The man was sweat laden and the glisten from the candlelight stroked at his physical attributes appropriately, making him seem layered in a network of sinew and physical attractiveness. Precise glyphs of ink exploded down either sides of his spine and were undeciphered by the wide eyed furniture. He was greedy in how he grabbed at his partner, harshly biting her skin with the grip of his hands, forcing the sway of her body to be submissive to his needs.

 

His opposite was an awe inspiring creature who bathed in the twilight and had a rich sense of seduction, urging the man on with trembling lips and minute gasps for breath. A silverspun tongue that littered the small crawl space of air between their faces with the prophecies of Pisces and confessions of debauchery when they were tailed by shameless moans. Her head would tilt back to expose the addictive curve of throat and the racing pulse of her jugular, pieces of moonshed hair falling to stretch like a noose. Her fingers were as hungry as his albeit more graceful than barbaric, searching the map of his shoulders before a puncture of a nail dragging grip would be appropriate.

 

He whispered something and his voice was dry like that of a panting demon.

 

She responded with the unveiling of her eyes from the fanning stretch of lashes, slivers of chalcedony leaking from the cracks as if opening a dam.

 

"I'm coming back for you."

 

 The mans hands leashed across the poetic line of the womans throat and wasted little time in shutting down her airway, clentching so hard that knuckles erupted into his skin and were bleached white from the stress. A bruising strangulation that left her blue lipped and white eyed.

 

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

Haylee's limbs were jerked out of the recycled memory turned nightmare, figure launching up from the mattress that was sticky with the residue of a cold sweat. Breathing was a struggling procedure as her lungs were stung by the sharp inhales and paniced exhales with her psyche trying to take a step back from the surrealistic murder scene.

 

"Shit...", she murmered just after her pulse fell back into a normal rotation of pumps rather than slamfucking against her sternum.

 

She untangled from the tentacles of her sheets to drift like a phantom away from her bed, a place where the horrors of her dreamscapes seemed rooted. There was a sloppy sense of amusement, completely misplaced when her mouth spoiled a moment of concern with a one-sided smile. Hand searched the tiled wall within the catacomb of the bathroom for the lightswitch.

 

That moment of unusual psychosis failed to numb her from the vision within the mirror -- a striped scarf of bruises that resembled fingers and pushing palms, the strength of a monster trying to snuff out the light within her eyes.

 

"... shit."

 

 

strangers in the attic

 

 

Where it all began.

oren & daeva hallow

 

I gave you all the love I got
I gave you more than I could give
I gave you love
I gave you all that I have inside
And you took my love
You took my love

I keep crying
I keep trying for you
There's nothing like you and I baby

This is no ordinary love
No ordinary Love
This is no ordinary love
No ordinary Love

 

- sade 

Hello, from the grave.

 

"Do you remember what I told you, about your sister?"

 

"Yes."

 

"These are just bumps in the road, Hunter. You've been given a great gift. Your sister, the same. She needs you just as much as you need her."

 

"I know."

 

"Are you protecting her?"

 

"Of course I am."

 

"Are you so sure?"

 

"What makes you think I'm not?"

 

"Because she has bled, and you have not."

 

"Just because she has bled doesn't mean anything. I will bleed, I will bleed for them and her but not for anyone else."

 

"You sound scared? Are you scared?"

 

"No."

 

"Your sister, she isn't scared, is she?"

 

"I can't remember when I've seen her scared."

 

"I will help you, Hunter. I will watch her."

 

"She'll never forgive you, dad."

 

 

 

Moros

A request.

 

Mother --

 

Hunter is worried. I am worried. It's the calm before the storm and I can't tell what direction the wind is coming from anymore. It changes to quick, it stops out of the blue, the air is thinning and the ocean doesn't look as full as it was. What's happening? Is it because of Rowan -- I hate to even write that witch's name. But is it her? She's coming back for us since Xavier dropped the deal.

 

Please come see me. Come see us. I know it's hard, but I think we need this. We need you. Just for a moment, a sliver in our dreams. Just to tell us everything will be ok. We're older, but still young. We know what we are, we understand now -- but sometimes, just sometimes, I think we need a guide.

 

I love you, I love you, I love you. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for your love.

 

- Blue-eyed Baby

 

 

".. we are made of water .."

Mirrors & Black Cats

The house is quiet. It hums now and again with the surge of the air conditioning or the echoes of wind chimes settled out near the porch. Secluded, pushed away from the urban chaos of the city and coiled against the bosom of the sea. It's view is amazing. The outstretch of ocean always reminding them, always there to keep breathing, just like they did.

 

Haylee refused to look in any mirrors, to disgusted with the aftertaste of the dream. Her face scabbed over, lines drawn in red snares to flaw the usually flawless nymph. Hunter had helped her in throwing sheets, towels, blankets over the mirrors within the abode. They were tainted, Haylee had said, and something was watching them from the other side. Hunter didn't argue, didn't question. There was no reason to.

 

"Did you sleep ok last night?", Hunter asks while they are a long the floor boards of the back porch, watching gulls swing down over the frothing waves near the rocky cliffs. He's comfortable in jeans and a white cotton undershirt. A stain across it's front is from lemonade, the glass of it held in his right hand. Haylee looks over to him, and even though her face is in ruins her eyes glitter like blue washed pearls.

 

And she smiles, faintly. "Yeah, I did. I'm alright. You don't have to keep asking me shit like that, Hunter." Her tone is easy and far from scolding. She doesn't want to ruin the mood where the salt coated air and the warmth from a happy sun is just to good to not lounge about. Lazy lions. Haylee looks back out to the shore, finger tips reaching to barely brush across the maddening map of her face.

 

"I know, but come on, H-- Fuck! Just let me say it!" His tone changes like the skin of a chameleon, quick to be camoflauged in his emotions. It twisted from ease, to confusion, and finally anger. It rushed from him that Haylee even felt her brows knit.

 

"No.", she tells him, her own hands brushing through the wild fray of gold and moonmilk hair.

 

"This is a fucking joke! Why the fuck are you so worried about your name, anyways? Who is really going to twist it around and use it against you. It's not like we've --", and he paused, just as he pushes the glass of lemonade to his dry lips. Realization pinpricking the landscape of his stubbled features. "It's that fucking man, isn't it? Why? Why don't you want him to know your name? Is that why it keeps going to his home?" The questions came out like a rapid fire attack, the assault of his tone causing the willowy woman to flinch.

 

"Hunter, stop." Haylee was careful in how she used her tongue. The bridge had broken before and they had rebuilt it, rebuilt their lives. Her temper was not her own; a puppet to strings of a higher maestro. "I have my reasons. Plus --", she haulted to finger out a piece of ice, rolling it across the wingspan of her collar bones. "-- Lark seems like a suitable name to go by, don't you think?" Her grin wasn't meant to be so mischief making.

 

Hunter, who was like a coiled snake ready to strike, began to settle once more. He shook his head, once and then twice with his mouth opening like he was about to say something. He finally did after a moment of silence passed between them.

 

"Look. I know you don't want to talk to it but I think it would be good for you to. You can't just ignore what it did for you, H--", he looked frustrated, and then calmed. "-- Lark. I think mom would want you t--"

 

"Shut up." Haylee snapped, rolling her body into motion to escape the bowl like sun-chair. "I will never talk to it. Him. Whatever. My forgiveness for what happened is slim but not enough to coax me to be buddy-buddy with it. I'm not like you, Hunter. I don't fucking care about the ammends. I care about the details." Haylee spoke with her back to him, walking further and further until she was coasting down the steps. The walkway was small but it spread like a black rock path towards the waters edge.

 

Hunter was left to sit and watch her go. His expression was blank.

 

The black cat came from the corner and sat, watching after Haylee just as Hunter did. 

On the rise, standing up to the surrealism.

 

 

Twenty fifth hour protege

 

We're all right we're supposed to be.

This is the door that is always open.

No one has the guts to shut us out.

But when the door huts, we're all back to our grave sites.

 

Her blood wasn't the same -- it had no normal qualities of air meets inside life. Air is what makes our blood turn red, did you know that? in our system, it's practially clear. It's the sudden introduction to outside air that discolors it, makes it more thick and potent and sticky in a red flow that can look beautiful, the stem of our lives, what keeps us seperated from being nothing more than a species of a different realm. Coppery tastes usually fills my mouth when I bite my tongue, or floss to hard to make my gums bleed. But this was so different. It had this heavy aroma of sea salt and warm sand, cold waters mixed with the lakes baking beneath a strong willed sun. I was scared. Legitimately worried when I felt her heart race, was shocked by the black tendrils of her psyche oozing out of her pores. Christ, I had to help -- they say not to wake the Awaken when they have been dragged beneath the undertow of prophecies, of dreams that are not colored pictures of slumber but that tell the truth. All riddles, a huge puzzle, every piece of detail giving away to something that none of us can understand, and sometimes we ignore them. To scared to dig our fingers beneath the Veil and unravel them.

 

She was screaming so loud that I woke up and rushed into the room, fear and brotherly love singing to my spine so bad that my body felt like it was on a mission. The instinct to protect, to serve as another who is as blessed or cursed as my ethereal sister. Under the covers she thrashed, blood painting black in the night of her room until the light was flipped on. A setting from a horror movie, her hands brandished as the culprits to the nefarious state of her once unflawed features.

 

I know the culprit. The spit-fire red head witch who has haunted us from day one. Been the one taunting us to the dark side even though we're a team of neutral grounds. Where we believe that fate has her own hands, puppets to things unseen, and there is no good or evil or light and dark -- just a limbo inbetween where we are a part of both. Between the Titans that spit our kind to the earth and those that hold sanctuary in our souls -- Tethys, Circe, Aradia, Oeanus, Artemis, Dryads -- but we're still just human. Enlightened, darkened, dramatic pieces of old statuesque religions that we harbor with out exposure. Atleast, I hope.

 

I shared a question to Haylee after her Dreamscape fiasco, binding her muscles and cooling off her night tremor with out completely disruspting if they were trying to communicate to her. To warn her, save her, prepare her for a battle that will be as fierce as the Black Hourglass days.

 

What do I do, mother? What should I do, father? You're both opposites to how we have grown and yet you're both as tired as we are, wanting to cut our strings and let us battle our way through like the Spartans.

 

I can't sleep, and I've called Lark into my room -- Lark. She's beginning to forget her name, to forget the power behind it and the tragedy it can be. I need to keep telling her pasts between us, refreshing her memory, making her look directly in the mirror when she is awake to point and say this is you, this is your face, remember your eyes and don't forget our past, present and prepare for the future.

 

She's now sleeping, shallow breathing, her face bandaged and gauzed with her nails caked with her skin that was left behind. I want her to be close to me, to always have an outlet. Feed me to the nightmares and I'll save her from her self as much as I can.

 

But how can a Hallow expect to tame another Hallow?

 

It's impossible. Dangerous. The igniting of an armageddon that is just out of our reach.

 

I want her to rest, I want her to stay here, I want her to feel whole.

 

Fuck you, mother, for leaving us so soon. Sacrificing yourself for us. Fuck you, father, for abandoning us unil the Morose lured you into a trap, to take us as slaves? Captives? Experiments? To benefit your dark magic?

 

I'm watching her sleep and she looks peaceful, no more nightmares after I left the bergamot beneath her pillow and hung ropes of ivy vines.

 

She told me how her face (my face) was ignited with fire, like it burned through my flesh by hibenating in my bones.

 

I'm going to find Rowan on my own and confront her. Wreckless queen, Mab mentality, a true Hera at heart with the ghostly bargins of Hades.

 

I hear her again, and I'm leaving to check in on her.

 

I've brought fresh dirt into the house. It'll help clear out the demons.

 

Hunter A. Hallow