âsometimes, i am solid; i am the rock in your palm, firm and rigid and *there*. i look down at my hands and i can see every crack, and every crevice, and every ridge and imperfection. sometimes, i am cloudy; i am the mist in your eyes and you find yourself squinting to find me. i look down at my hands and i find that the lines are blurred- did i always have so few fingers? sometimes, i am nothing; i am merely the air you breathe and you think so little you donât even notice me going in and out and in and out of your lungs. i am keeping you alive and yet you donât even look for me. i look down at my hands and i- i donât even see them anymore. was i ever there to begin with?â
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iâve got this scratching in the back of my brain thatâs demanding that i make a short film about asexuality and isolation, but i donât know what iâd do with it. i donât have a narrative, just a theme, and recently my ability to come up with a story has alluded me. i just know, though, that this feeling isnât going to go away. i should chase it.Â
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Some are mine,
the ones that I put up;
armour I use to protect myself.
The person I try to present,
or the person I try to hide.
Those walls are in my soul.
They are my home and also my prison.
Others go up on their own.
These are the walls in my mind;
the ones that throw themselves up
when Iâm trying to concentrate
but for some reason the wiring wonât connect.
In those moments itâs like
Iâve been locked out of my own mind,
unable to access thoughts that should justâŚ
be there.
I can feel it.
Pressed up against my forehead
the rough, jagged surface of the brick wall.
Trying to think is like pushing my head
harder and harder against the wall,
trying to reach the other side
but instead finding nothing but pain.
Then, of course,
thereâs the walls of my home.
These are the real walls,
the walls of my body;
the ones that I hide myself behind
on the days when the world is too big
and I am just so small.
The problem with walls,
no matter how much they can protect,
they also stop you moving forward.
What do you do when you canât push through the brick?
You look for a door.
Most nights, during Dâs shift while Nick was asleep, D would allow herself to cry.
Sheâd started doing this not long after Nick had taken her in. Late night watches were long, and there was nothing to do during these times. D would find herself sitting, watching, feeling the minutes drag by, and it wouldnât take long for her mind to wander.
The first night she cried, she wasnât even sure why. Everything was just a lot. For a world so quiet, everything around her seemed so loud, the silence completely deafening. All she wanted was to curl up in a ball and vanish - from herself, from Nick, from all of it. It wasnât that she wanted to die, she just didnât want to be for a little while.
After that, she found other things to cry about. Sheâd cry from pain, cry about her missing memories, cry that the world was basically a hellhole. But after a while, she ran out of things to cry about, and yet the sadness, the pain that she felt in her chest, never shifted. She carried it around like a weight on her heart, as if someone had taken a scoop and hollowed out her soul.
Nick helped with that. One night, just as theyâd started to trust each other, Nick was asleep and D was unloading the emotional baggage sheâd been holding in that day. She had to catch herself a couple times as sobs tore out of her, soothing her sad, sad soul and hollowing her out even further. She knew if she was too loud the tide might hear and come calling.
She didnât expect Nick, though.
Nick had never seemed⌠emotional. In fact, it was one of the reasons sheâd begun to trust him. You could look into his eyes and see someone simple, honest, but also broken. She never got the feeling like he wanted something from her, and she appreciated that she could see her sadness somehow reflected in his eyes.
That night, though, as she wept, she missed the sound of Nick waking up. Head in her knees, she didnât see him pick up her blanket and drape it over her shoulders. She reacted to the weight of it, instinctively reaching out to grab the edges of it and pulling around her. Nick planted himself down next to her, never saying a word. He passed her a glass of water, which she took.
For a moment, they just sat there together, watching the flames shift and change. D calmed down. And, in a moment of desperate need for closeness, she rested her head on the shoulder of a stranger.
Nick just held her that night, cooing and shushing her slightly to calm her, reassure her. In the morning, he didnât say a word, it was just business as usual.
D still carried around her sadness, but she found she could put it down in his company.
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so i realised as i wrote this one im pretty sure i gave nick a horse p early on but totally forgot which, yknow, woops
Eyes.
When Nick met D, he wasnât looking for company. He wasnât looking for something to care about. In his mind, everything died the moment his family did, everything else was just purgatory; wandering the slowly dying Earth searching for a good death, one that Anna would relent to when he turned up in the afterlife, he would his shoulders and tell her well, i tried.
He didnât care. He may as well have been one of the tide, going where the wind blows and following the same paths over and over again. Get up, pack up camp, travel forward, find food, make new camp, sleep, repeat. In the months since they died, Nick had come across other people in the world, but heâd stayed clear. If he interfered at all, he left without another word.
Thatâs what he told himself he was doing when he watched the man enter the shop where D was fighting off a few straggles of the tide.
Heâd seen the guy a few times over the past few days. Heâd been moving around that area for about a week, coming into the town most days to see if any new bodies showed up. New bodies meant possible loot. Anything to survive.
Nick watched as this man lulled people into a false sense of security, before killing them himself. He had watched the man take pleasure in pushing the tip of his knife up through the jaw of a living man, smiling as his victim gurgled on his own blood. So, when he entered town that day and watched this man enter the store, walking toward this feral looking kid, he couldnât ignore Annaâs voice anymore.
Help.
âOnly for you,â he whispered to her, before heading in.
Heâd used the gun because⌠well, he was going to leave after this, what did he care? If he brought the tide here with this, then at least heâd know where it was.
One shot and then he was gone. Save the kidâs life and then leave. It was meant to be so simple.
When D looked up at him from that shop floor, he knew why Annaâs voice had some to him. He could see his wife in Dâs eyes. The bags under them were immense, and she looked as if sheâd been in more fights than just this one in the past few days, but she had the same piercing stare that Anna always had. The one that always broke him down, made him a better man.
Heâd tried to leave, he really had, but then D followed after him and tried to threaten him with a knife as she used the door frame as a crutch. She could barely keep herself stood up, but she was still fighting. Even then, he marveled at her.
When sheâd taken those few steps forward and fallen to the ground, even though there was no one left in this town, he could still feel himself being watched, and in his heart he knew it was Anna. Anna, saying this one, protect this one.
âGoddamnit,â he whispered, because he could never say no to her. Not even now.
âSo, Iâm pretty sure the house is next to a lake,â D said one morning. She was getting little clues from her dreams every night, like her brain was starting to open up to her again, allow her to explore. âOr, I dunno, some big body of water.â
Most of these clues were unhelpful in the short term - there was a tree next to the house; the walls inside had green peeling wallpaper; a light outside shone into one of the bedroom windows - but she knew that these little things would stitch together when she saw the place. She would know her home when she saw it.
Last nightâs dream wasnât like that, though. Last night she dreamt of water.
In her new life, D had never seen the sea. She wasnât sure if sheâd seen it in her old life either - such was the nature of amnesia - and she had no idea if she could swim or not, but that night, after she woke Nick up to take his half of the watch, she slipped into slumber and into water.
The first thing she was surprised about was just how⌠blue it all was. Something in the back of her head told her that she must be close to the surface because light couldnât travel that far down. The second thing was that she wasnât breathing. The realisation made her panic for a moment before she realised that she also wasnât drowning. Her lungs werenât bursting, she didnât feel the urge to inhale, she just was.
Life hadnât been exactly easy the past few months, - in her waking moments, she had just enough light to keep her from jumping into the tide or blowing her own brains out - but in that moment, surrounded by nothing but the vast expanse of ocean around her, she felt calm. Reflexively sheâd been moving her arms, kicking her legs, in order to stay mostly in the same spot (so maybe she could swim?) but as she let go she allowed herself to go where the water wanted to take her.
For what seemed like forever, she floated in the loving embrace of the sea.
A flash of movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention, bringing her back to the moment. Something like black ink moved quickly through the water toward her. At first, she just stared at it, but the ocean had made her soft, dulled her senses. Before she could react, the blank ink jumped at her face and forced itself up her nose, into her mouth and down her throat.
It was then she started drowning.
She kicked as hard as she could, trying to head toward the light above her, but everything inside her burned. She screamed out into the water as the ink moved into her veins. She saw the black lines on her arms and across her body and watched as it began to take over her vision, the blue around her turning to an absolute black.
iâm back!! i took a break yesterday bc i went and did real person things, but here i am again, writing about these two nerds. if i was more awake i could have threaded more meanings into this but alas, i am sleepy.
Fall.
When D told Nick she knew where to go, she didnât actually know where to go.
âWe have to start there,â she said. âThat house was my house, Iâm sure of it.â
Nick was all in on this mission; they had been wandering about for so long with no real aim, he appreciated the opportunity to go somewhere, do something. He got up from his bedroll, making himself seem enthusiastic.
âWhere is it?â
Dâs face fell a little as the practicalities of this search dawned on her.
âI donât knowâŚâ she said, slowly.
A spark of irritation hit in Nickâs gut. As he tried to push it aside, he found it lead onto a soft familiarity.
His son was much the same way. All spark and creativity, he would often just do the first thing he thought of, before realising the scope of what he was attempting and abandoning the project. The house was filled with half-finished sculptures and other art projects. His laptop was filled with stories half-written. Nick had desperately attempted to teach him how to follow-through on a project, how to make sure you had enough stamina to make it to the end.
You have to take a second to consider everything before you start something, heâd said to him. Pace yourself, or youâll keep burning yourself out within the first day. And you donât have to start every project as soon as you think of it. Save a couple of âem for a rainy day, eh?
He was sure he was beginning to learn when the world ended. Then, a few months later, all the projects stopped.
He saw that same fervor in D now; the desperate need to do something overriding every single sensible bit of planning that needed to be done. Nick sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to think of a plan.
Start at the beginning, he thought.
Or the end, a voice seemed to reply somewhere in the back of his brain.
âThe town,â he said after a moment.
âWhat?â
âWhere we met. Weâll start there, move backwards. See if we can retrace your steps or jog your memory from there.â
D beamed. He could see anticipation building inside her. There was nothing like a search for answers that could bring a spark to the eye.
They packed up that morning, finally leaving the little run down shack off the main road. Nick remained surprised, but thankful, that the tide hadnât found them there. His optimism drained a little as he realised the leaves on the trees around them were slowly going yellow. He could feel a slight chill in the air and smell rain on the wind. Fall was coming, and winter followed. It was going to get harder to protect themselves when the weather turned.
He nearly said this out loud, but as he turned back to D the sentence died in his throat. She smiled at him, more drive in her face than heâd ever seen from her.
âYou okay?â She asked, pulling her backpack over her shoulder.
Nothing else mattered. Not the weather, not the tide - there was only this.
im literally falling asleep doing this but nick and d are back!! yay!!
Past.
âOkay kiddo. Where to first?â
D blanched. Sheâd been thinking about how to tell Nick everything in her strange and empty brain, but what to do after that hadnât even occurred to her. How do you chase memories you donât have?
âI⌠I donât know,â she said. âI guess I hadnât gotten that far in my planning.â
She wasnât quite sure why she was expecting him to be irritated by that, but she felt herself tense as he looked away from her for a moment, as if her body was anticipating a reaction her mind wasnât aware of. But Nickâs face just showed thoughtfulness, his eyes darting back and forth while staring at nothing, as if searching for something in the distance that D couldnât see.
âHmm,â he said, finally. âYeah thatâs, ah⌠Thatâs a tricky one.â
âWell,â she nudged him a little to bring him back. He turned to look at her as she continued. âMaybe we donât have to start today. Iâll keep milling it over, and if I come up with something Iâll tell you and weâll start there.â
Nick forced a smile.
âSounds good, D.â
He looked about as nervous as she felt. Later on, when the sun had gone down, D had yawned and Nick insisted she go to bed. She told him not to try and take the whole night shift alone, which he agreed to with his words, but she wasnât sure she believed.
It was during that night that she had a new dream.
Her dreams were usually quite abstract; set in nowhere and about nothing, they were always unsettling and nightmare-like. That night, the dream felt more like a memory she was watching from the outside.
She watched a mid-thirties couple exit a car with a little girl, who was playing with a small teddy bear. D hadnât seen her reflection in a long time, but she knew that girl was her. She watched the couple share a small kiss as they all walked up to the house, a for sale sign pulled out of the ground and strewn on the grass.
The dream barely felt long enough to be a dream, but she still woke up gasping. Her head pounded, as did her heart. Nick looked at her, an action man ready to fight, but D just waved him down.
âNick,â she said, voice very calm but urgency brittled under the surface. âI think I know where to goâŚâ
taking a break from nick and d today because today sucked ass and i wanted to write about how much it sucked ass and why it sucked ass and why everythingâs going to continue to suck ass until i figure out how to be happy
Simple.
Everything seemed so simple when I was younger.
Throughout school, all my plans seemed like foregone conclusions. Pass exams; go to university; immediately enter career that I love and will satisfy me for the rest of my life.
I think it all fell apart when I didnât get into the university I had my heart set on.
Well, thatâs not true. I met a lot of lovely people at the school I went to instead. People who are some of the most important in my life. I also learnt a lot at that school, and did a lot of things that I donât know if I would have if I had gone somewhere different. Itâs hard to say. But not getting into my first choice university was the first of many moments in which my life went barrelling in a different direction to the one I very specifically planned on going in.
Since then, itâs been a lot of little things. Itâs been not being able to move out of my house. Itâs been taking a job that I thought was really going to set me going on my career, and realising that actually within five months I feel like Iâve gotten all I can out of it. Okay, so quite big things, actually.
Today is Valentineâs day and Iâm sat here, alone in a house full of people, realising that nothing has been as easy as I had convinced myself it was going to be. Iâm feeling isolated and my self-esteem is so fucking low Iâm finding myself so angry that I let myself get beat down again. Iâm a shitty employee. My job bores me. I have no time for myself anymore. Iâm not happy.
And the worst part â the shitty, no good, completely unfair and entirely ineffable part â I donât know how to fix it. I need a job. I have a job. I donât like this job. But no job means no money and I canât go back to having jackshit again. Not with the car that needs constant attention and the fact Iâm STILL LIVING AT HOME FULL TIME. I donât have a life, I just have the shell of one, and I donât know how to fix it. I donât know how to figure out what it is I want. I donât know how to be scared and do something anyway. I donât know how to stop hating most of the things I write and actually learn how to get better. Thereâs no time, and I am so tired.
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this is short because i literally just fell asleep sitting up four separate times
Light.
Anna had this saying:
Youâre like a happy grey cloud on a sunny day.
Nick, for the longest time, had no idea what that meant. She would never explain when he asked, sheâd just smile - knowingly, like she always would - and say:
Youâll see.
Not long after she⌠Nick had been walking. Itâs not like the end of life as he knew it could have come at a good time, but in the middle of summer is possibly one of the worst it could have been. He hated the heat. It always seemed like it affected him more than anyone else he knew. When he was walking, he did his best to stay under tree cover, but there were long stretches on the road he took which were just open air. The sun would beat down on him, jackhammering him over and over again. Heâd look up, searching desperately for a sign of cloud cover, but the sky was as blue as could be.
A couple hours later, though, and a single, grey cloud made its way across the sky. It passed slowly in front of the sun, casting the land below into shadow. He watched it come. He praised the heavens when he drifted in front of the sun, and took a moment to appreciate a moment of respite.
Annaâs words crept up on him. A happy grey cloud, blocking out the sun.
That was the first time he cried since he left the house.
D reminded him of that too. Individually, they were just grey clouds, hoarding baggage. Together, they were a storm cloud brimming, waiting to explode. If one went off track, the other had to balance them out. He was going to have to be the sun behind that cloud, and he didnât know if he could do it, but he had to try. D needed something to lean on now, and he would make sure it was him.
After she opened up, the emotional toll of the moment became a little much for her, and D went to bed. Nick didnât think of himself as a religious man, but heâd pray to Anna every night. Protect me as I hunt tonight, protect those who donât have my skill set tonight, protect D tonight. Sheâs the best of us.
Nick had made this pact with the heavens. If he prayed, and a dark cloud passed right over the sun, he knew someone was listening, and tonight someone was. It was that, and only that, that gave him the courage the next day and say:
ohhhh i love it when prompts work with the ideas i have!!
Darkness.
D lived in the dark.
It seemed to represent every part of her, right down to the raven black of her hair. She hid in the shadows between things, so unknown that she didnât even know herself. If she was being honest with herself, it was comfortable that way. No matter how badly she may have wanted to know the truth, there was something that always held her back; a hesitation to step into the light and finally open her eyes.
It shouldnât have scared her as much as it did.
Knowing had to be better than not, right? And yet every time she remotely dared to stare into the abyss of her memory, fear attacked her like sharp knives in her brain. She cowered from it. Eventually, it became easier not to look at all. She couldnât even say it out loud. These simple things, stating the truth⌠There had been times, at night when she and Nick would share dinner together, that she had opened her mouth to tell him. It wasnât a secret, she wasnât trying to hide it from him, and yet every time she tried to force out the words it was as if her throat closed up. Sheâd force herself to take a breath, check her lungs were working properly, but it would be like breathing through a straw. The good thing was she was aware of herself enough to know that she was teetering on the edge of panic, and she could make the choice to step away from the ledge.
After many attempts, sheâd given up. They didnât talk about that kind of thing anyways. They talked around each other, saying everything except what they were keeping in their chests. This process made it okay for her to keep her secrets, and she was glad for it. But with every day that passed, every moment she was painfully aware of that she could have said something, it just became harder and harder. The desire to say something grew, but so did the fear that it might change something. That she might have to face the dark again.
Funny thing about anxiety: sometimes it has a loophole. Turns out fear of dying cancels out fear of the dark.
He didnât push. Of course he didnât, but she knew he was waiting to talk about it. The few days after she woke up, he had been particularly kind, as he was sometimes. He had hunted and brought them more water, insisted that she rest more. They both know staying in one place for this long was suicide, but the walls provided enough cover that it might take the tide a little longer to find them than it would if they had stayed out in the open.
One night, finally, D found some semblance of courage.
âNick--â sheâd started, but Nick cut her off.
âYou donât have to.â
âNo, no I do.â She smiled a weak sort of smile. The kind that indicated sadness than any kind of joy. She put her face in her hands, fighting the internal urge to run from this again. Not this time.
She took a deep breath.
âMy first memory is not long before I met you. I woke up in the woods, bag in one hand, knife in the other. All I could think about was water. I donât think Iâd eaten for days. My knife, my clothes, everything was covered in blood that I donât think was mine. It was all dry. I couldnât remember my name, couldnât remember where Iâd come from. No mother, no father -- it was just dark.
âSome part of me knew that this world wasnât safe, and when I saw the monsters in that shop you found me in, I wasnât surprised. Certain things feel like a forgone conclusion but everything else is⌠Itâs just not there.
âI think⌠something must have happened, and whatever it was my brain couldnât cope with it, so it shut it all down. I donât remember my childhood. I donât know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I donât know if I had siblings, or a house, or dreams of a bright future. All I see when I close my eyes is the dark, and I donât know how to shine a light into it. For a long time I was okay with it, but nowâŚâ She turned to Nick, who was watching her so closely. âI need to know. I think I want to find where I lived, figure out what happened to me. But I canât, I canât do it by myself. I canât go into the dark by myself not again, not again.â
She couldnât help it. The fear bubbled up in her chest and the next thing she knew Nickâs arm was around her, keeping her safe. He cooed softly in her ear, calming her slowly.
âYou wonât,â he said, âwe can go in together. I swear.â
She may have not known any different, but there was something about the way he said it that made her believe it.