and the night approaches ---matthew

[Deleted]

She wanted to leave. Maybe going half a world away to any place that isn't home. Now that Nesia had been in Archadia for more than a year, the city had become a home to her. Second home. A home that its contents soon became unbearable to her. The same routine, the same road she took to work, the same people she saw every day. Only the clients were different, but they always put a similar facade in the jewelry shop. All her interactions and conversations felt superficial. She missed her old friends, but none of them were in Russia and online chitchat could not satisfy her needs. Nesia yearned for something deeper and closer, but alas, her job prevented her to establish such connection. Sure she got along well with her fellow designers, but there was an invisible barrier separating them. A barrier existing between Archadian natives and new settlers. Loneliness was consuming her inside out, and it was affecting her work. The city might be noisy, but its hustle and bustle drained her energy. Especially since it contrasted the silence that is her apartment, where the only noise she had was artificial. Unnatural.

Nesia took a day off to venture outside the city border, to the Blackwood Forest. Strangely, the first thing she did was taking out her sketch book and made some doodles. Dead leaves, young leaves. Squirrels and birds. Flowers and wild berries. Already in her mind forming necklaces and bracelet designs she would make later. The Indonesian woman ventured further and further into the forest, following everything that captured her attention. And then the day passed. Almost, but darkness fell faster in the forest.

The designer had been fixated on three blue flowers growing on the base of a large tree, kneeling atop the ground as she finished her sketch. Her cream coat and brown pants were dusted by bits of dry leaves that fell when she rose to her feet. Nesia gathered her belongings and mentally cursed her recklessness. How did she not notice the sunlight waning? Too bad there was no marks or maps between the trees that she could use to guide herself.

As panic began to rose within her, Nesia had to accept the fact that she was lost.

[[ sorry it took too long, Matthew Williams ]]

[Matthew Williams]

if i only could

make a deal with God

It was quiet. The voices, cowards that they were, always abandoned him. The pain obliterated just about everything from his mind. In a way, it was almost liberating, to have his head to himself again, it’d been getting more and more crowded lately, far from the sanctuary it had been during his childhood.

He hadn’t been paying attention to where his feet were leading him. Not until he tripped on an exposed root and fell heavily, the impact sending shockwaves of agony ricocheting through his body. He let out a sharp cry, more out of surprise than anything. He curled in on himself, fingers curling around his side, feeling the warmth seeping through his shirt, coating his hand in red with each pulsing heartbeat. He realized the truth then, as he lay among the sloughed leaves and moss and fallen branches… he was dying. It was only a matter of time.

Somehow the realization didn’t really bother him. Matthew looked up and smiled weakly. The tree before him was large and ancient, with large knotted roots popping up from the forest floor and a large canopy of branches that arched down around him like a sanctuary. If he was going to die, there were certainly worse places to do it. It looked quiet and comforting. Matthew began crawling towards it, grunting softly with each movement. He knew, even as he struggled to drag himself those last few feet, that it was foolish. What difference did it really make if he reached the tree? There was no one waiting for him, nothing to sooth the stabs of pain that centered on his side. But he couldn’t stop, not until he made it to the tree. After failing again and again, failing to help his family, failing to evade capture, failing to withstand his time in the Underground, he just couldn’t fail in this single goal.

He was crying by the time his fingers brushed against the scratchy bark of the tree. He was cold and he was tired and he was just so… unbearably alone. The touch of another living thing, even if it was just a tree, felt so nice. He collapsed, his cheek cradled by the tree’s root. If he closed his eyes he could almost believe he wasn’t alone.

But he was… even the voices had abandoned him. He laughed weakly, the irony not lost on him, even as his world spun around him. Perhaps for the first time since his stint in the lab, he actually wished he could hear those hated voices. He wished he could hear his brother’s voice once more. He didn’t mind the dying… he minded dying alone. God he just wanted to hear a voice, to have someone, anyone, so he didn’t have to face oblivion alone.

But he was alone, he had always been alone. Why should anything change now?

word count: 479

tags: @derpinesia

notes: Nesia's got a surprise in store...

by worldie on iof

[Deleted]

One thing to do when you're lost: listen.

Between the silhouettes of leaves above her, Nesia could see Archadia's cloudy night sky. She needed to see the city lights -- street lamps and office buildings, but it was hard to do when she's surrounded by trees taller than her. So she listened, picking through the voices of forest dwellers and noises typical of a city. Clutching her bag tightly on her chest, Nesia closed her eyes and focused to find roaring engines or human laugh. There was another park nearby which families frequented and during a bright day, their merry laugh would be carried by the wind into the forest.

Instead, she heard a moan. Panting. Soft noises that sounded like a cry. Nesia's body tensed. A cry in the woods at night; the only possibility she knew was a ghost. Nesia didn't know much about Archadian history, but a forest like this surely had its secrets. Like killers who dumped their victim's body or a lost person unable to find his way out, blinded by whoever ruled the trees.

She shivered, cursing her overactive imagination. Blackwood Forest was not a place like jungles in her homeland; which trees inhabited by animals and spirits alike. Besides, the sound could be coming from someone who needed help. Maybe another lost person. Nesia gathered her courage and approached its source, using her cellphone light to guide her steps.

"Hello?" the woman whispered, not wanting to spook anyone in accident. "Is anyone here?"

A loud rustle answered her. Not the kind of rustle made by wind, but like a heavy object dragged in a short distance atop the dead leaves. Still telling herself that it wasn't otherworldly noise, Nesia scanned her perimeter for anything that wasn't tree bark. Her light fell on a pair of shoes, belonged to a man laid down under a tree. She almost jumped at that sight -- the thought first crossing her mind was a dead body, but his chest rose and fell in a slow pace. He's alive, he's breathing.

"Sir?" Nesia reached for his hand, raising her other hand above them so the light wasn't directed at his face. Upon seeing the wound, Nesia took off her scarf and placed it above his side. "I-I'll call an ambulance, please... please stay with me." As panic rose within her, fueled by the sight of a wounded man and her lack of first aid skill, Nesia prayed that he wouldn't die before her.

[Matthew Williams]

if i only could

make a deal with God

It took a moment. Matthew was sure that he was just hallucinating. His desperate mind trying to conjure up some specter to keep him company for the end. But the thump beside him, the fingers dancing over him… it was too real to be anything from his mind. He moaned slightly and opened his eyes, determined to catch a glimpse of whoever had appeared at his side.

She was an angel, Matt decided, his violet eyes drifting to look at her, feeling her hand rest on his forehead. She was soft and oh so warm against his chilled skin and he hummed softly, reminded of better times, of his mother’s soothing caress. He felt her pressing against the wound and he supposed he should be a bit concerned by the fact that he didn’t really feel any pain. Not that he was complaining. Somehow, as if to make up for years of neglect, God had sent an angel to sit with him. He frowned as he heard her say something about an ambulance. He couldn’t let him self be brought to a hospital, so far as records went, he didn’t exist! Fictional people don’t waltz into emergency rooms.

“Don’t bother,” his voice was hoarse, but surprisingly more substantial than he figured he could muster. “There’s no signal out here. Tried a dozen times.” He smiled up at her, his own bloodied hand covering the one she had pressed on his side. “You’re quite a ways from the path… are you lost?” He studied her for a moment, choosing to focus on her, rather than the icy aches radiating throughout his body or the way his throat felt like drought parched earth. His angel was beautiful, even in the dimming light of the day, he could see that much. Her eyes, even besieged by panic over finding a bleeding stranger, were stunning. Her long hair fell thick and heavy down her back. But it was her voice that stunned Matthew. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had spoken to him with such kindness, as if he was actually an equal. And for a moment, Matthew let himself believe it, believe that she was kind, that it wasn’t just because she hadn’t realized what he was.

He looked down at their hands at his side, noticing that the rivulets of blood weren’t as thick as before. Damn. This would have been such a perfect way to go. In the peace and stillness of the woods, with this beautiful stranger watching over him. He let out a shaky sigh, feeling more than a little disappointed. “Don’t worry, Miss…. The blood’s already stopping… I’m not going anywhere,” he smiled up at here weakly. “Name’s Jordan. What’s yours?” Even half dead, Matt was no fool. No traces. He couldn’t give her anything that would lead back to the Underground, and especially not to him.

word count: 479

tags: @derpinesia

notes: 

by worldie on iof

[Deleted]

Her breath began to condense in the air. Nesia had taken off her jacket to cover him. A wounded person should be kept warm, that's what she knew. But it became the last thing she could do, because her brain couldn't come up with anything else. So she sat and held his hand, still talking just to keep him awake.

"Don't bother." She heard him saying, his bloodied hand suddenly placed atop of hers. Nesia held herself back from squirming. "Are you lost?" he asked.

Nesia nodded. "Just... took a walk for inspiration but I couldn't find a way back, that's all," she admitted, embarrassed. Finding a way back from a trip in the wood had been done several times when she was in the girl's scout, but that was a decade ago. Archadia's woods was almost foreign for her; Nesia never entered it before despite seeing it often during her previous walks. She placed her phone on a nook in a nearby trunk, so its dim light could give them a better lighting.

Something glinted on his wrist. Carefully Nesia pushed back his sleeve, revealing a metallic tag tied to a bracelet. The blood had splattered on half of the tag, but she could read half of the information printed on it -- if only she had a better light. The tag itself, however, reminded her to a sample tag she was shown by a government staff who briefed her about the laws and customs of Archadia.

It's a mutant tag, and most wore it as a necklace. She never saw the real thing; there weren't many mutants she saw so close. Owner-less, not to mention. But come to think of it...

“Name’s Jordan. What’s yours?”

"Nesia," she repeated it once more, making sure he could hear her pronunciation clearly. "Jordan, would you tell me what happened? If you don't want me to call the ambulance, then at least please let me contact your owner." Nesia reached for his hand and squeezed it gently, her expression worried. "Your wound could be worsened if not treated properly, and I don't want to have you dying in my arms, no."

"I promise to stay with you until you're in good hands, Jordan."