Okay. So this chapter is SUPER short.
This one is a little different. Since I didn't want to ramble on about the characters, I made this a drabble-chapter so it'd just be tiny snidbits of each character below. So I hope that you guys like the shorter sections...because it's a lot easier not having to write huge blocks of unnecessary text that I've already done in the past chapters.
Also, they're all based on songs and each person has the lyrics of a song I feel fits under their name. At the end I list all the songs in order of appearance if you guys wanna know what they are. :D Thanks!
Jillessa Heronstair's characters: Emily, Shae, Jeremy (kind of)
SilverJem5's characters: Caleb, Steff, Elena (kind of), Misty (kind of)
My characters: Quinn, Cole
~~Emily~~
Remember how to put back the light in my eyes
I wish I had missed the first time that we kissed
'Cause you broke all your promises
It was this heart wrenching ache in her gut that Emily had tried to work herself through every single day. If she just hadn't been so weak, so vulnerable, so gullible, she figured that she wouldn't even have been unhappy in the first place.
But she had no one to blame but herself.
She loved him then she hated him and then she loved him again.
However, no matter how many times she forgave him, it was as if her words came with a price and she sold a bit of herself every time. Like she was a smoker and her breath came too fast and something around her would squeeze, choke, suffocate the life from her until she was nothing but an empty shell. And she hated herself for that. But there was nowhere to turn but the mirror and even then, she still felt alone.
People called her an attention whore. Maybe she was. She had crossed the line of caring a long time ago.
In hindsight she wished she had never left her hometown.
Never traveled.
And that the past could be undone.
~~Caleb~~
Tell me what's the point of doin' this every night
What you're givin' me
Is nothin' but a heartless lullaby
When Shae had first offered him sex, it had taken coaxing for him to say yes.
He didn't think it would have effected him on a grand scale but he found that he liked her. Like...really liked her. Caleb had once mentioned- or rather, had been forced to explain his peculiar behaviour- to one of his friends about her. He admitted that he had started to like her more than a friend. But, naturally, no one took him seriously. His friend laughed, saying that, "Of course you like a girl who'll sleep with you with no resistance."
It had frustrated him.
Even Shae didn't take him seriously.
She giggled ignorantly in his face before prancing off in her own little bubble. And he didn't think that something so trivial and unrealistic could hurt but he realized that he was in the real world and no longer in a video game where he just had to trade coins for a digital feeling. He wanted her to know that he liked her more than a friend but she just didn't understand.
Every time he talked to her, it felt like he had to restart his strategy.
All the way at checkpoint one.
~~Quinn~~
1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 drink
1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 drink
1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 drink
Throw 'em back till I lose count
He didn't hate his lifestyle.
In fact, he liked it. He prided himself for being able to hold out on his highs that seemed to last for years. Like his whole life was one caffeine rush that never seemed to crash and everything seemed to be this one big blur of events that molded together to create one picture of everlasting adrenaline. Drinking too much was never a problem for him and he found ways to break through his tolerance and forget. Forget everything.
His life consisted of 98 percent imagination.
2 percent sin.
But soon he found a wall.
And
way
way
way
way
beneath him, he found a place called "Reality".
2 percent imagination.
98 percent denial.
~~Steff~~
We know full well there's just time
So is it wrong to toss this line?
If your heart was full of love,
Could you give it up?
Steff had always thought she had been too sensitive. So that had been the first thing to change when she had finally rid herself of the curse. 'Numbed to the world' was hardly the phrase she would use: she preferred, 'Finally in control'. It had been such a long time since she had been able to make a decision for herself so, when she welcome freedom with open arms, it was as if she had finally gotten a breath of air in the midst of the smoke. That she finally found a path to her happy ending.
But there was something that kept nagging at her.
It was as if there was something lovely about fire and getting burned. Like finding a strange addiction to a bee's sting. So simply had she believed in a road to happiness and guardian angels that she forgot about the flaws in her very nature. And she learned that, though she controlled her actions, she couldn't control what she felt.
Fear.
Love.
Hate.
All the emotions burning inside her like a fire from a stray match. It felt like she had a switch that something in her would flick on to scare her. And it worried her because recklessness was the very last thing she needed and control of herself was the very thing she craved. Needed. And when she found herself believing and saying things that sounded too good to be true, it hurt to fall back down to earth and find that the angels she was searching for were no where to be seen.
Angels, she forced herself to believe, were a myth.
And happy endings, she found, were merely fairy tales.
There was no such thing as happily ever after.
And yet she still could not control the fact that she still had hope.
~~Shae~~
You're on your knees, beggin' please "stay with me"
But honestly, I just need to be a little crazy
All my life I've been good but now
Ooohhh
I'm thinking "What the hell?"
Fluttering eyelids.
Forced exhales.
Roaming hands.
There was something wonderful about the way people reacted when she was in the room with them. Shae knew she had a reputation. She knew that people thought she was easy, and she didn't deny it. No matter what they called her, it didn't change the power she felt when people looked up to her, handcuffed to the bed like dogs in chains. It was all gritty silence and broken silence and she liked it that way.
Because she could do anything and she was entitled.
The problem with Quinn was that he never remembered a thing. He was too drunk, too high, and she hated that kind of thing.
The problem with Chris was that he changed. He grew soft and she knew he had let everything get to him.
The problem with Leo was that he wasn't really the type of guy that had the same type of charm she had. Besides, he was too arrogant and bossy.
Thinking back, she knew of a time in her life where sleeping around wouldn't have been her sort of thing. She didn't want to be labeled as 'bad'. But as soon as her hesitant feelings slipped, the idea of a boyfriend was unthinkable. Now, it was all about the moment. She liked luring in people like a cat lured in prey and she was hungry. She knew they didn't think any more of her than a club slut who slept around, but it was a game to her.
Some people had asked her to take it further than just flings- they wanted relationships.
It was enticing, sometimes.
But then she drew back, thinking what the hell.
She liked being bad.
~~Cole~~
I better let you go
To find the prince you thought you found in me
I better set you free and give you up
Just wave and say goodbye and let you live
Without a monster like me
Cole wanted some sort of salvation.
An end to the endless abyss of darkness. It felt as if he had been thrust into a dark tunnel, scrambling for balance and teased by a light at the end. He wondered if anyone else ever felt the way he did, but asking was the last thing he was about to do. He didn't have anyone to ask anyway. Well, he had Stephanie, but even then he couldn't. No matter how kind she was to him or how honest, he couldn't bring himself to give her the whole truth. It was impossible anyway. Even he was confused on what he knew and what was false.
It was that sort of confusion that led him deeper into the dark.
He found that he had changed.
Everything was so wrong, wrong, wrong and he wanted to be different and he wanted to be the same and he took out his anger on the innocents of the town. His whole life was lies of knives and crossbows, spilling blood with skulls and crossbones because no matter what he did, it would always be hell that followed. It was the monster he tried to kill that he found himself become and it felt like a rot in his chest when he slashed and slashed and slashed.
And he would like the sound of the screaming. And it was then he realized the extent to which he had changed.
He didn't know why Steff continued to visit him. Perhaps she had nothing better to do, but he wanted her to leave. And stay. And then stop talking and then never stop talking if only he could hear her voice and know that he wasn't truly alone. But they were different: too different and she was all light and he felt heavy inside and confused like he was seeing the world through a splintered kaleidoscope and all of the reflections refracted light in too many ways till he was sick.
So if there was anything he wanted to do, it was to make sure no one else had the chance to get splintered by the shards of glass.
And he pushed her away.
Again.
And again.
Because even if he wanted to protect her, he could never shield her from the monster within.
~~Jeremy, Misty, Elena~~
Picture, picture, smile for the picture
Pose with your brother, won't you be a good sister?
Everyone thinks that we're perfect
Please don't let them look through the curtain
Losing someone was like losing a part of themselves.
A parabatai was sacred. And the pain of the rune being ripped away from them was enough to make them fall. Jeremy, after, had wondered if he had failed his since he couldn't save him. Misty wondered if it had been fate for hers to die after they fell in love. Like it was some kind of revenge from the angels.
A husband was more than just a person. It had been Elena's constant. The one person who was there when everyone declared her a heretic and different. He was patient and kind. And it was that very quality of his that she had fallen in love with.
But as the clock ticked,
People fell,
And it hurt.
And everyday, they put on smiling masks and a pretty personality because everyone would turn away if they didn't. Because the world didn't like the ugly. It was like people had bad days and weren't even allowed to feel it. And instead they would be stuck in a dollhouse of empty happiness and porcelain faces of glittering eyes. And they were afraid to let anyone see the real expression of their eyes in fear of being degraded and told that they weren't allowed to cry because someone out in the world had it worse.
It felt like someone telling them that they weren't allowed to be happy because someone in the world had it better.
And despite the way they yearned to express that they weren't okay, they hid it.
As always.
And lived a seemingly picture perfect life.
Songs in order: Jar of Hearts, Temporary Bliss, Chandelier, Not About Angels, What the Hell, Monster Like Me, Dollhouse