#2022 rewrite

[bad-writer]

Adrienn opens his mind to the life of the island. From the disappointment and self hatred brewing in Sorena and Steka’s hut, to the resentment and humiliation from the two broken boys laid out where Steka left them. Lychen’s greed and Carden’s loss. Adrienn’s mind is open to all of it, tangling and twining with his own emotions until they are one in the same. Adrienn imagines that if perhaps the world were more pleasant, more optimistic, and soft, he would have grown to be a kinder man. It is not within his nature to focus on regrets, but still, he wonders.

An excerpt from my writing

[bad-writer]

The salty winds from the Allonian sea surround the two men and Adrienn allows his shadows to manifest, whirling and spinning around them under the force of the gusts. “Why did you think I wouldn’t know?” He asks because he is genuinely curious. “That I couldn’t hear you? I am Neurotica, we hear everything. Our minds are nebulous, porous things, easily molded, easily corrupted by outside forces. Did you know, my brother and I lived in a tent town when we were children? There was a man there, another Neurotica. He was missing his eyes and all of his hair. He would speak a different language every day and rarely understood what he was saying. He was my age but he looked like a dead man walking, and that is what he was. What all Neurotica become. Why would you think that I couldn’t hear you? I couldn’t stop hearing you, any of you, even if I wanted to.”

An excerpt from my writing

[bad-writer]

Lychen scowls like a child, a brat who has never had to be told that he wouldn’t get his way today. That he had to be sent to the back of the line, that he had to settle for less than nothing. He might act an oppressed party, but he had gotten off easy, he still had respect up until he decided that wasn’t enough for him. “I gave him exactly what we agreed on. I don’t know where you received this information-“ The black third eyelids flicker across Adrienn’s gaze as Lychen flinches back, an instinctual recoil over something intrusive worming its way through his brain. Adrienn moves closer to Lychen so that he can see his own eyes reflected in Lychen’s wide, grey ones. “I received it from you, Lychen. Where else?” He says softly. “Don’t mistake me or one of your stolen orphans, one of your weak and frightened cattle. I am nothing like that. I am here because I choose to be. I am here because I have my own plans, my own desires, and goals. I am here because you are convenient for those goals, and because I love a man with ambition. I am not here for you to lie to and to use. So do not attempt it, or it will be painful for both of us.”

An excerpt from my writing

[bad-writer]

The sun always hides itself away from the island, like a virginal lover, its warm golden rays eaten up by rainclouds. But the rain has slowed down this morning and an ethereal mist has filtered over the healthy green grasses of the island’s hills. The bordering Agnell’an island donated a dining hall, a shower stall, and a couple of warmer military barracks to Lychen’s cause. Adrienn likes Lychen’s barracks, he has an ostentatious sense of decor that Adrienn can really get behind, all tiger stripes and marble statues of naked women. Adrienn has always liked that nouveau riche style best, street rat that he is.

An excerpt from my writing

[bad-writer]

The flames reach high up into the air, dancing, and rejoicing, spreading across the grassy lawn. Katarina smells the burnt meat of her skin, something close to pork. Her hands all the way up to her forearms are shiny red and deep purple in the places where the fire had burned particularly deep. The pain is stinging and venomous like teeth deep beneath her muscle, digging and gnawing at her delicate places. But she barely notices as she moves to stand, sturdy and tall as she never was before. She feels a fullness deep inside of her, like the contentment after a good meal. A giddy, celebratory joy.

An excerpt from my writing

[bad-writer]

Katarina digs her finger beneath the golden cuffs that her mother had designed and controlled from the time that her fire roared the surface. But it hadn’t just appeared one day, it had always been there. The fire had been alive in her from the day she was born.

An excerpt from my writing

[bad-writer]

Fire cannot be controlled. It is madness, it desperation and consumption, a clawing, ferocious hunger that peels the skin down to the very bones and then chews at those too. It is a living thing, a scavenger that cannot be contained, rattling the bars of the cage and screaming over the top of your own voice. The fire isn’t inside of me, it is me.

An excerpt from my writing

[bad-writer]

🌹

Katarina lays shivering on the ground, with her fists pressed tightly to her rabbiting heart. Her skin is downy with sweat and her burns are shiny, weeping red and white fluid up and down her arms. They never heal right with the power-dampening cuffs on, even when they are taken off. Her skin is a patchwork of her own anger and her mother’s disappointment and disgust. She would peel it all off if she could. She imagines carving through her bones and boiling viscera with a pairing knife, finally facing the source of the undying flames and dousing them in sand and baking soda and tearing out the tinder that causes them to spark to life. But she is afraid that the source of that fire is just her, something broken and ugly in her making that forces her to be such a monster.