QUICK NOTE:

Wow, this challenge is fucking awesome, I have no idea why there's only one entry. Thank you @MiGGiE for putting this on my feed :] I hope this counts D: I'm not that great at writing coherent stories, lmao. Oh well, on to the story!

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it was easter morning

april 5th in the 2015th year of our lord

or at least in the year of someone's lord

on this tiny—but huge—pale, blue dot.

twenty-four years is quite far

from what many would call a long-time on this earth

but it is still an eternity spent dealing with equal-parts bullshit and rapture

only to learn not long after that the rapture was bullshit too.

experiencing ever and over what i had finally thought

was the great epiphany of life;

only to see that it was actually just naivety and stupidity

superimposed upon each other into one beautiful, captivating mirage.

learning morals by drowning in failure.

learning love from the subtext of the hatred within humanity.

learning humility by disgust towards those who lacked it.

learning life-skills from the ridicule brought on by lack thereof.

it is kind of funny how every year i had thought to myself,

"fuck me, i was such a stupid kid!"

laughing at mistakes and misfortunes

wondering how that could have ever been me.

it is also quite funny how this happened

over and over and over and fucking over

'till the laughter felt empty and cold

and the wonder was too much to bear.

and then i got tired

of myself

of the lessons learned so quickly

of the lessons forgotten even faster

moments and eternities

gasping for purpose

begging for enlightenment

hoping beyond hope

and then i was nothing.

just tired.

just cold.

just broken.

but maybe that's what it takes

maybe you can’t ever know happiness

until agony has taken you

until despair has crushed you.

because suddenly i was.

i don't even fucking know

what the fuck i was at that moment

too much, too little, too late.

but i was.

and i felt alright

i felt content

i felt ok.

and so i took a deep breath

i walked outside into the harsh glare

and i just walked

i walked and walked and walked.

and walked

until my legs screamed and my lungs cried

until my heart stopped and my soul died

and then i walked some more.

and fuck if i knew where

or why

or what the fuck i was walking to.

i walked anyway.

i was tired

but for some reason,

i didn't give a fuck.

as if my destination mattered more than the stars.

lost in my own thoughts i stumbled,

at first i thought my own ignorance was at fault,

but as i pulled myself to my feet i cursed

seeing a small object glinting in the sun.

anger

rage

hatred

wrath.

it all blurred together

as i scrambled to focus it all

my animosity, my hubris

upon what deserved no less.

but

but

fuck

fuck.

i couldn't

i don't know

fuck.

what the fuck is this shit?

it was an egg

a cliche of the highest degree

a lonely, exhausted symbol of the day

so stale, worn, and sad

but

at the same time

as fucking hypocritical as it sounds

to me it wasn't

because scribbled on its shell

in an almost-unintelligible font

were fifteen words

fifteen tiny pieces of the vast, english language.

"Hello stranger whoever you are, I just want you to know that I love you.”

as I tried to lift myself to my feet

each word floored me anew;

to this day i don't know why but those words cut me

deeper than any blade ever could.

my knees buckled

my eyebrows furled

and for a few minutes

i just was.

usually, i would just scoff

and spout some pretentious bullshit like,

"fucking kids and their comma splices;

independent clauses should be joined by semicolons!"

but for some reason

for some strange, fucking insanity

that was too much for me to comprehend.

i understood too much.

how our entire world is shaped

by little chemical interactions in our brains.

our lives, our entire stream of consciousness

nothing but stochastic particles and our prosaic aplomb.

so much for the meaning of life.

so much for this hungry conscience

so much for this lustful hope.

but at least you can't break

what's already broken.

yet, no matter the imperfections

inherent in the human condition.

no matter if your sins slew your saints,

it's never too late

to go out and love someone.

i guess that i never realized

just how tiny everything really was.

all the intellect in the world was fucking shallow.

all the metaphors and prose unimportant;

when put in perspective.

She always knew exactly what to say. There was a perfect turn of phrase flowing from her red lips in the fraction of a second where it belonged. It was as if her words and the moment fused together, creating something glorious that never existed before but felt perfect.

My friends always loved her "because she was so young." Her toes were always a seductive shade of crimson and her hair fell in waves across her face like a chocolate fountain. Her set of skills included: poetry, painting, sewing, baking, and interesting, eloquent conversation.

She was my mother.

When I turned 11, she used her red lips to seduce another man that wasn't my father, or even my step-father.

When I turned 13, she used her swaying words to spread lies that caught me and burned me to ashes. I had to go away.

When I turned 16, she used her youth to convince yet another man, a boy, really, to share her bed. Like a siren, she brought him in with promises of rapture, only to beat him to death against her stone cold nature.

She still knows how to turn a phrase, I'm sure. I wouldn't know, because I cannot hear her anymore. I may have been birthed out of a microcosm with perfection on the outside and putrid, rotten secrets on the inside, but it no longer defines me. I am immune to the illusion.

Five men ushered a drunk teenage girl into a dark alley with coos of something awesome and intentions of violating evil. Nie could practically smell the deviance on them as they passed her exiting a night-club back door. She watched them with calculating black eyes and licked her scarred mouth in consideration as they disappeared behind the bulge of a rusty dumpster.

Her approach was as quiet as the sudden fight on the other side of it seemed loud. Muffled cries of a female were heard over the gruff insistence of the men and the distinct sound of tearing cloth.

When Nie rounded the dumpster all five men craned their necks to look at her and the closest one to her was immediately trapped in a headlock before she forced his head the rest of the way around. In seconds the other four men abandoned their target to attack the woman intervening on their fun.

It was over in four blinks of the eye and a few bellows of total agony amid the brief bone-breaking onslaught the men endured at the hands of the vivacious vixen.

"Thank you.." The teen mumbled through a busted lip, looking hopefully and gratefully up at the woman who'd just saved her. "Can you give me a ride home?"

"No." Nie said plainly as she glanced at the bodies and turned back down the alley the way she'd come.

"Wait! You're just going to leave me here?!" The teen asked pleadingly.

"The world is full of corruption thick as coagulated blood in a rotting corpse. I'm a blood thinner, a killer who aims her talents at the worst scum there is to offer-- sure... doesn't mean I'm one of the good guys though." Nie quipped over her shoulder with a morbid smirk and a slow stroll out of the mouth of the alley.

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|| another-proser ||

He was waiting to charge further into battle. He was waiting for just the right moment, for just the perfect opening to hopefully bring end to this conflict. He was a knight, his armor black as pitch. The field was empty of the casualties of the day. The friends and foe alike fearful to lose, yet the attrition on both sides of the war. A war that seems to be going on since time itself began. Always repeating, yet never repeating. Always ending, yet always beginning.

He was tired. Tired of fighting, tired of waiting. Tired of being afraid to die, tired of watching friends do that very thing. There were so few left at this point, yet there was still the chance to end this thing once and for all...

---

He studied, he almost missed it, but it was right there. An opening so clear, that it was hidden. The man picked up his last knight, a knight black as pitch, and took out his friend's last white bishop. He would have checkmate in three.

"Good game my friend, and good night! Same time tomorrow?"

His friend, only nodded silently, nodding his head in almost accepted defeat, as he eye the black knight, the bane of his almost sealed victory.