Im Up.

I’m up.

The Moon blesses me, rising into the sky in all its pale and hallowed glory, a howling face at my back against darkness.

Bones split, break. Pitiful human things to be discarded. My blood is an inferno and it burns against my veins, hot, flooding through the gaps in torn skin, turns snow crimson-black. Steaming.

I scream, and in turn my jaws shatter, buckling into a terrible snout. Teeth crack like sickening musical notes, flattering to the sidewalk as I lose them. Eyes bulge, midnight colored tears clouding my vision, until my sight glows with ethereal shadow unseen by any other eyes on the planet.

Spine broken before subsuming into something broader. Armored. Wings fuse outward, and then catch the wind, unfurling. Fingers mangled, lost, regrown anew in devastating talons.

My new jaws work, once, twice. Strong. Strong enough to bend iron, cleave flesh. Claws grasp in eager need, slashing at the cool air—

A howl in the distance. Familiar, and terrifying. Beautiful. My new face does not smile or grin, but even yet, I feel hungry joy.

With a flap like thunder, I sail into the night, searching for an old friend.

Does anybody else get really antsy when they’re feeling lonely? I don’t know how to stop feeling like this. I have trouble sitting still, I endlessly scroll, I go back and forth in my mind. Dunno what to do.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Jeeze. I’m inspired by everything. Music, certain feelings and atmospheres. Things will simply snap into place in my thoughts and I’ll see very vividly what they’re producing.

This rifle was the Devil’s favorite. He slew legions of angels with it in the War of Heaven, hungry golden bullets that could crack universes and turn concepts into meaningless bundled words. It is beautiful. Metal so black it’s almost blue, refined onyx overlaid with silver, ivory.

You pulled it from dead hands. Victorious.

It feels perfect— familiar. Like an old friend. The sinking Sun descends and throws warm red light over everything, drowns this world in blood.

Somewhere deep down inside, you can’t help but feel that this weapon, this rifle— has been waiting for you.

You dig. You’ve been digging a long time. A featureless blue sky sprawls, staring down at you. It scorns you white-hot sunlight, painful and scorching. Judgmental as long vanished gods.

You’re dirty. Dust on clothes that in another world, another time, were expensive, implication of status. Now they’re just a shell. A hollow you live inside of.

Digging. Digging. Digging. A shadow crosses the sky on huge wings, plunges you into darkness for just a heartbeat. There’s blood under your fingernails. You swore you scrubbed and scrubbed, you were careless this time, so careless—

It’s done. Another doll in the dirt.

Dusk comes and chases the Sun over the horizon to usher in perpetual, desert midnight. Cold, unblinking stars manifest in silence. You numbly climb into your car beneath them. Driving away from this, from the thing you broke.

She’s there by the side of the road. Bloodied. Gazing at you.

Every mile is accompanied by that face.

No other cars. No gas station light, no haven town.

Just a cracked, porcelain face and bottomless, black eyes.