#hawthorne project

[sender-paulson]

For the interest of, like, three people, I have a rough list of notable locations in Hawthorne Hills. More to come, but this is what I have so far. Anything with a * will be sketched in the future.

Attractions Seaside Amusement Park* Marine & whaling museum Historic village

Dining Ciacco's (Italian)* 吃我 (Chinese buffet) Ahab's (seafood) 106 Tea Shop* Koi Pond Sushi*

Shopping Hamon's Tobacco Planet X (comic shop)* Loop, Pull, Stitch (tailor & clothing store) Loose Threads (second-hand clothing store) Sinful Secrets (XXX shop) Orion (hunting supplies) Old Scratch’s (record shop)* Symphonia (music shop)* Punctilio Press* By the Books* Alchemist's Advantage Apothecary 13th Hour (magical supplies; two locations)*

Nightlife The Salty Seaman Last Orders (bar) 9th Circle (underground club)* Eden Nightclub* End of the Line Swandive*

Misc. String of Pearls (barbershop)* Nevermore News* Bastard Bob's Billiards Rook Takes Pawn (pawn shop)* Ryan’s Repairs* You Dry Now (laundromat/dry cleaners) Harris Hardware Farmer's Market It’s So Cold (ice cream parlour)* Beaumont Boutique Luxuria (day spa) Oneiroi Theatre* Graves Family Funeral Home* Ashes to Ashes Crematorium

[sender-paulson]

"Listen, kid. My family's worked this job since before your grandpappy was a twinkle in his grandpappy's eye. We used to drive a horse-drawn cart when we first came here. I know what I'm doing and I know where I'm going." - Charlie Dobbs.

One of the employees of the Graves family, as their main hearse driver. His family has worked as the "corpse carriers" for as long as the town has had dead people to carry and bury. Charlie is the most infamous due to his survival of the Great '59 Fire, and for still carrying out his job since. However, his job does get in the way of having a personal life.

[sender-paulson]

"I am not a good man. But I think... I like to think, I am somewhat justified.

"I was one of the founders of the City. I and five other men, we had the dream of a place where the idea of discrimination would be nothing but a bitter memory. We accepted all who came to our shores, so long as they were in need of refuge and not merely just looking for an easy target for pillaging.

"We worked for ten years before we had made any real headway. Ten long years labouring to raise a City from the rocky shores of northern Maine. A decade of toil, of sweat and blood. But at the end of it, we had a port City worthy of London in its day. It was only when the Puritans heard of our town, when the last remnants of the Inquisition came knocking at our walls, that we fell.

"They came with fire and steel, hatred and malice. They wanted nothing more than for us to surrender our refugees, our turncoats and betrayers to the crown and king. But most of all, they wanted us to surrender those of us who were, in their eyes, less than human. Those who sought our refuge for their unique appetites and cursed bodies. All of them were trophies to these men, but above all, they prized the witches we sheltered. I know this because while they wanted the children of night dead-- the lycanthropes, the strigoi and moroi, the revenants-- they wanted the witches alive.

"I would not allow it. Some... less than fortuitous among us thought of sending the coven out to deal with the invaders, but I would hear none of it. Then the fires started. With the flames they were setting upon us, it would be less than an hour before we were all naught but ash. I acted. I am not sure, even all these years later, whether or not I indeed regret it.

"Those who sought to betray our town and sell out the coven were put to grim use. The five other founders were quick to betray those we took in. I needed five living souls to open the gates of the Underworld and bring my plea directly to its grim tyrant. I regret having to deliver five of my most trusted brethren, but I knew that they would die happy to be of use to our family of outcasts. The five perished instantly as the Devil made herself known to us.

"I was surprised then that the Devil was a woman. I do not know why it surprised me so. After all, why else would the Devil so oppose the Father in Heaven? I remember my desperate plea, my demand for her to provide me with the power to defend our City. I remember her mocking smile, her promise to do so, as long as I paid a tithe every year. A due of whatever she demanded of us. I agreed, foolishly believing I would have the strength to pay the Devil her due.

"The fire stopped. None of our town were killed, though some were injured and a good deal of our town was burned. But it still stood. Those who opposed us looked on in fear and confusion. I faced them, standing on the highest hill overlooking their fleet of a dozen ships. And with but a click of my fingers, the flames they set to us flooded them instead. The Devil then informed me that I was to be granted a year of immortality. I asked why this was.

"And the Devil replied, 'Your town was once the lives of you and the other founders. Your immortality until then is paid with their lives. You will live as long as they would have combined. This is to ensure you can pay my price on time for as long as I ask you to pay my due.'

"One year later, I was to choose five members of our population to die for the town. The first few years were hard, as there were only a few dozen of us then. But as the years wore on and the town became a City, it became easier to justify keeping the town alive at the cost of hundreds over the years.

"Our end came in 1959, more than three hundred years after the deal was first made. Our City had a population over fifty thousand then. The Devil came to collect, and I told her, 'I cannot. I will not let that anyone die for the sake of the City anymore. This had to end sometime, and that time is now.'

"The Devil smiled. ‘Very well,' she said. 'Then I offer another option. I will still keep the town alive in exchange for one resident's life in place of five. And I will ask for no other due, no other tithe than this forevermore.'

"I could not resist. Only one would die instead of five, and no one would have to die ever again for the City? How could I not take that deal? I said yes immediately. The Devil smiled wider and held up a finger. 'However,' she said warningly, 'I choose who dies. And you know what happens if you refuse.'

"I hung my head. I relented. I asked her to name a citizen to die for the town.

"'Your daughter,' she said without hesitation. 'Your youngest, Chloe.'

"I felt my heart sink to unfathomable depths. The Devil was asking for the life of a five-year-old girl? My five-year-old girl? I wouldn't allow it. I never could abide by those who harmed children, whatever the reason. If I gave the Devil my Chloe, I'd be as awful as those I found most despicable. No, in fact, I'd be worse. I'd be the Devil.

"I said no. What else could I say?

"'No?' the Devil whispered menacingly. 'Are you sure about that?'

"'Yes.'

"And with a wicked grin and click of her fingers, the flames of three hundred years past raged through the City, razing every living thing in its path. I felt the rage of the fire myself, but I did not burn. Amidst the inferno, I heard the Devil's cackling voice.

"'I told you once you would live as long as your five founding fathers combined, didn't I?' she crowed.’ I may have forgotten to mention that one of your number was a true immortal, gifted with eternal vitality and youth. His life is now yours; how else do you think you survived all this time?'

"I cursed my brothers in arms. I cursed the life that was now mine. I cursed the Heavens for creating and casting out the angel who became Lucifer. I cursed the depths of Hell she called home. And most of all, I cursed myself, my hubris for dealing with the Devil so blindly.

"It has been over fifty years since that day. I have spent a considerable amount of energy and magic keeping others out of the City and keeping the ghosts and other undead in. This has become a City of rot and decay, an eternal monument to my moment of arrogance and foolishness. Once in a while, someone living makes it across the barrier, but they never leave it. Not alive, not in one piece. My City is no longer meant for the living. It's a haven for the dead and damned.

"What's more, I am the City. If I bleed, the City bleeds. If I mourn, the City mourns. If I die, the City dies. And I cannot afford the City to die, not when there are so many outcasts of the living world still seeking us out, living within our walls or under our streets. It is quite a torment to have so many dead voices in my head, so many ghosts seeking what they can no longer have with no way to relieve them.

"It is a form of Hell, I suppose, for I cannot die by any means I know of. Immortality is Hell enough, without the voices of fifty thousand dying voices every single second of every single day. I do not sleep. I do not rest. All of this makes it my Hell, my personal inferno.

"I am the City, and the City is my own personal Hell."

[sender-paulson]

Tithing Day, Part 2

Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here:

That night, the arena was opened.

It had been seventy-seven years since it had last been used. This was not the first time a lottery had produced more than one number, but it was the first time in seventy-seven years that it had happened. People were ecstatic. A betting table had been opened, with the odds heavily favouring prisoner number One-Six-Three-Three.

Prisoner number One-Six-Three-Three, who would be better known as Jackson Calvin Harris, was six-foot, two hundred and seventy pounds of pure muscle, charged with seventeen counts of murder in the first degree. He had scars from countless fights, at least three of which he had earned Europe on the shores of Normandy. He was also missing an eye.

Prisoner Two-Seven-Three-Zero was considered the underdog in the duel, but then again, she didn’t quite have her opponent’s muscle mass. Or his murder record.

Mary Alice Ogilvie had a total of twenty-nine counts of public intoxication, nine counts of aggravated assault, and four counts of attempted murder. She had been arrested for whatever constitutes “unholy sexual assault” on four men and three women. Apparently, in her own words and not those of the Hawthorne Hills Police, it involved “fucking people with knives. People who needed it. People who liked it.”

Odds were seven-to-two in Jackson’s favour.

The rules were as such: each potential sacrifice would be given a weapon of their choice from the selection available. They could choose two weapons, one for each hand, but they had to be able to carry them. They would fight to the point where one would be mortally wounded, incapacitated, or begging for mercy. At that point, Graves would perform the execution, the mercy blow, and the soul would be taken by the Devil.

Also, minors were not allowed without an accompanying adult.

That was how it worked. Why else would the arena floor have a massive pentagram carved into it?

The crowd roared as the two prisoners stepped into the circle, sizing each other up. Jackson sneered as she saw Mary, going so far as to demand, “Is that it, then? That’s my opponent, or is that just his woman?”

Mary said nothing.

A pair of large racks was rolled out by the hooded figures, one to each prisoner. The racks were seven feet tall, nine feet wide, and covered with potential weapons. There was an organization responsible for curating and maintaining a wide variety of weapons for the arena, in case of such an event as this. The organization also used the arena and its facilities for their own purposes, but they made sure the weapons for arena usage were well cared for.

They also made sure there were plenty to choose from.

Jackson chose a vicious-looking flail for his right hand and a spiked club for his left. He grinned menacingly at Mary, challenging her to choose something interesting. She kept unblinking eye contact as she chose a quarterstaff with a weight at one end and several rows of sharp studs at the other.

The hooded figures rolled the racks away. Graves entered the arena, taking his place in the front row. Before he sat, he motioned for the audience to quiet. They gradually became silent, and once there was no sound to be heard, Graves produced a silver dollar from his pocket and flicked it into the air with his thumb towards the pair of contestants.

It could be heard hitting the stone floor. A starting gun for the fight to begin.

The battle began with Mary whipping her staff out and landing a blow with the weighted end against Jackson’s face. As he spun towards the ground, he lashed out with his spiked club, grazing his opponent’s arm, but failing to do any real damage. He quickly regained verticality and swung at her repeatedly with his right hand, but he kept missing. Mary, however, was more precise with her movements, landing a series of successful blows against Jackson with both ends of her staff.

Within a minute, it looked as though Mary would be the victor. But as she went to smash the weighted end of the staff against Jackson’s head, Jackson countered by smashing her staff in twain, temporarily disarming her and giving him the opportunity to return blows. He wasted no time, whacking her with the spiked club a few times, then lashing at her with the flail. In the span of ten seconds, Mary was covered in puncture wounds from the spiked ball of the flail.

Jackson brought the flail high over his head, sure of his victory. He had forgotten that he had snapped his opponent’s staff.

Mary hadn’t.

She drove the splintered wood into Jackson’s chest as he brought the flail down, only registering the threat far too late to react. At the same time, the spikes shattered Mary’s skull and pierced her brain. The crowd held its breath, wondering which would fall first. The first to fall would be declared the loser. Even Graves sat on the edge of his seat, expectant and anxious.

Jackson and Mary hit the floor at the exact same time, both bleeding profusely from different wounds.

The crowd roared, some in horror, others in either triumph or agony. Those who cheered were excited to see death, while others moaned about their wasted bets, as there was almost no one who betted on a draw (it was considered impossible, given the circumstances). Graves stood and motioned for the hooded figures to check the bodies. Both had passed on. The crowd murmured as Graves sat in apprehension.

The pentagram in the floor was glowing.

And it was glowing red…

[sender-paulson]

Tithing Day, Part 1 (The Lottery)

An alternate title could be, “What the Fuck Is Wrong With Hawthorne Hills, Part 1.”

The dread crept up Dr. Graves’ spine as he saw the coming date on his calendar. The end of the month was here, which meant it was already time for the semi-annual tithe to be paid. It had been on the last day of April that the Devil came to collect half of his due. That was the deal: one soul on Walpurgisnacht and another on Samhain, no exceptions or refusal ever. But Graves, who had been with Hawthorne Hills since its founding, always made the decision of who would perish somewhat fairly.

After all, the Devil asked only for a soul on each night. A living soul, that’s all, one tainted and spoiled by the sins of man. And to decide, Graves would find the worst of his town’s sinners and criminals and enter them all in a lottery. The name drawn on the mornings of April 30th and October 31st would die in a public execution, and their soul would be sacrificed to the King of Hell. The townspeople had decided since the first tithe that this was the way it would be.

It worked well, at least during times of desperation. When the town was aching for money or goods, dark deeds filled every heart, meaning many more names for the lottery. But when things were good, so were the people, which meant fewer names to draw. But no one sacrificed in the town square was ever innocent. Everyone was guilty of something.

Everyone.

It was never easy for Graves himself, though. He felt every death in the town, whether or not he wanted to. He was the town. If he clenched his fists hard enough, the ground shook. When he laughed, the town rattled. And should he die, the town would perish entirely. And he was not above purposely ruining aspects of himself to drive up the numbers of possible sacrifices.

Desperate times, desperate measures.

The 1930s were particularly easy for the town.

He sighed, looking over the prospective candidates. Out of an approximate population of fifty-three thousand, almost four thousand were eligible for the tithe. He sifted through them over and over, constantly flitting mentally between the two sides of the argument. On one hand, he would always be the one to execute the one who died for the town. Their blood was on his hand. He laid them to rest afterwards as well, as the town’s only operating funeral home, so he faced them both before and after their death.

It was never an easy choice.

On the other hand, the town would perish without a sacrifice. The people who died for the town, they were criminals. Rapists, murderers, drug dealers. They were given the gift of life, and they either squandered it, or they willfully destroyed the lives of others. Two people, unfit of the precious gift of life, died for others to flourish.

It was the easiest choice in the world.

And so he debate in his head went on and on, neither voice in his head really winning or losing any ground. He wished so much to just be rid of this life, this miserable existence. He wished he could have died all those years ago. He begged the angel of death to come for him, for any god of the Underworld to take him. But to no avail.

The dead only left Hawthorne Hills on Witches’ Night when a sacrifice died.

And they would return on All Hallows’ Eve when they had a newly-minted guide.

Graves checked the calendar again. Today was April 30th.

Tithing Day.

He sighed heavily and walked onto the balcony adjacent to his office. Already a crowd had gathered in the town square below. A pair of hooded figures approached a stage with a cage full of numbers upon a hastily constructed podium. Each number was a criminal, condemned to life in prison. Within twelve hours, they would be brought to the town square and their life would end in a public execution. What happened after was unknown, aside from the body would be taken by the same hooded figures who brought the cage every six months. Their identities were unknown to all but Graves himself.

He cleared his throat and called to the crowd below, “Peoples of Hawthorne Hills. Today is Tithing Day.” Over the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd, he continued. “Today is a day of mixed blessings. A day when one of you will die for your town, for your people. You will be chosen because of your sins. You will be chosen because you deserve it. You will die because it is asked of you by a greater power than we know better than to deny.”

The crowd held its breath as the hooded figures rattled the ancient cage. Round and round it went, hundreds of lottery numbers rolling over each other inside. Hundreds of different possible sacrifices, hundreds of lives waiting to be ruined, altered…

Saved.

After a minute, a clanging sound resounded across the town square. Something had gone wrong. Something had stopped or stuck. One of the hooded figures gave the cage a good smack, and out dropped two numbered balls. The figure took both, looking to his companion for help. They shrugged and turned their heads upwards to Graves.

Graves inhaled sharply. “Put one of the numbers back in the cage,” he instructed.

“No!” boomed a voice like a gunshot. From the midst of the crowd, a tall man with a black travelling cloak and a goat’s skull as a mask strode towards the platform. He took both numbers from the executioner and read them aloud. He looked at the number in their right hand. “One-six-three-three and two-seven-three-zero,” he called out. He dropped the numbers back into the cage and hopped off the stage.

“What happens then?” Graves asked from his balcony.

“The sacrifices shall fight to the death,” the goat-skull man replied. “Winner gets their freedom. Loser comes with me.” And the next moment he was gone, lost in the crowd. The citizens looked up expectantly at Graves. He was the savior of the town, after all. He wasn’t mayor, but he had lived here longer than anyone else, and he dealt with the unnatural occurrences that took place in Hawthorne Hills.

Finally, he declared, “So let it be done. As soon as the moon begins to rise, the prisoners one-six-three-three and two-seven-three-zero shall duel to the death. The victor shall be granted clemency for their crimes, and the victim shall be added to the memorial of those who gave their lives for this town.”

The crowd cheered as the doctor ended his speech. They went away at once, chattering about bets and opening the arena again for the first time in almost eighty years.

Graves sighed and sat at his desk. He removed his glasses, rubbing the space between his eyes. When he looked up he saw the goat-skull man standing at his desk expectantly. “What do you want, devil?"

The man grinned behind his mask. “I want blood. And I want my sacrifice. I came to talk terms in case something goes wrong…”

[sender-paulson]

Cast List

I did it. I complied, from countless notebooks and scraps of paper (literally) the litany of characters I've worked on, tweaked, or worst of all, created since I began the Hawthorne Project way the fuck back in 2008. I planned to leave it alone altogether about two years ago, but I've since decided that this is the perfect place to display the pure shit I've made and continue to make.

So here now, is the full cast list of the Hawthorne Project (or at least the ones who matter at all).

Kris Tailor, one of the Undead

Katana DeHarte, a Reaper

Wesley Lacroix, an underground doctor

Roxy Russell, a radio host and vessel for a Cherub

Declan Lacroix, a retired Voodoo priest

Tanya Belloc, a vessel for a Duchess of Hades

Eddie McGraw, one of the Undead

Matthew Dearing, a Courier

Enzo Ferri, local scientist

William Whitehurst, cultist and madman

Nathan Whitehurst, a swordsman and demon hunter

Jüssi Andersson, head of local clan

Annalisa Rose, second-in-command

Erica Rose

Dylan Grey

Ashlynne Grey, a half-blood

Ryan O'Hare, head of pack

Rocky, second-in-command

Seth Silvers

Nick Borges

Ronnie Lete

Jeremiah Wilson

Shiloh Madison, Witch Supreme of the local coven

Lindsay Lovelace, a witch-in-training

Yama Oba, an elder Witch & retired Supreme

Yuki Shiro, a Witch and ex-wife of Dr. Graves

Dr. Graves, a Mortician & Occultist

Katherine Roth, the unofficial "Mrs. Graves"

Zack Graves, one in a set of twins

Jack Graves, the other in a set of twins

Emilie Graves, a girl of seventeen

Chloe Graves, a witch-in-training

Zero, a grave-digger

Victor, a family servant

Deumos, Ambassador of Hades (of the Hellhound Corps)

Nikola, Ambassador of Heaven (of the rank Irinim)

Serafina, the Lamb of God

Sandalphon, a Cherub and intercessor of Heaven

Talia Sineva, an assistant to Raphael

Mefistofeles, a part-time resident of Hawthorne Hills

Agreas, a Duchess of Hades

F. Alexander, an agent of Lucifer

Noah, a false prophet

Theo, a homeless god

[sender-paulson]

OK, so I'll have to reshoot them, but the main cast of my pet project are being done up, and once the photos don't look like shit, I'll post them. As well as the Hawthorne cast after that.

Stay tuned.