Excerpt: The Symphony of Revolution: Tale of Twisted Hollow

Prologue: Laments in a Grave Lacrimoso
December 25, 1991

Who I am is not important, for I am just a nameless face in this horrible ending. As I lay on this hard floor, body heavy and wracked in a pain I never felt before, I realize just how blinded I was to what was happening right in front of me. I was blind to what was going on in my own family, because of that I indirectly damned my entire family to death. Even now, staring at the growing pool of dark blood that was slowly covering the floor under my head, I am trying to find the energy to pray out loud but I can’t even take a breath to sob. Pray for my soul, for the soul of my parents, of my siblings, of my cousins, of my neices and nephews… of my innocent five-year-old daughter…

No!

I jerked, then tried to lift my head, as I heard my daughter let out a high pitched scream of fear coming from the kitchen. Following the scream I heard the evil, sinister laugh that I knew was from him. “Come here, my darling innocent sister, and let me lay you down to a gentle sleep.” I heard him coo in a disgustingly sweet voice, trying to draw my poor daughter out from whatever hiding place she was in. “Let me guard your lovely and bright soul from the sin that they have brought upon you, let me save you before you fall like the rest of our disgusting family before I purified them from that taint.”

If I could, I would have vomited because of those disturbingly delusional words. Silently I plead to Mercy and Faith that my daughter will be strong enough to survive this ordeal, oh please be strong! Survive this, please Mercy, go on and live your life to the fullest! Now I could feel tears in my eyes as I squeeze them shut, silently praying even harder then before and putting my scarce few heartbeats into it.

“You did not save my family!” I heard my daughter shrilly protest, showing that rarely seen defiance and causing a small feeling of pride to mark my final moments, but that was not what he wanted to hear and he growled. Growled like a feral beast, like a disgusting and arrogant man who was denied what he wanted. Now my chest began to constrict in my chest because the entire house was silent now, not even the house dared to creak in fear of drawing his attention, and my tears were now making tracks down the side of my face as I bit my lip.

Please, not my daughter. She deserves so much better and so much more then to have her life end so early, to end at the blade of this delusional fool who looked so sincere and was so familiar with us. The sudden burst of sound, pots and pans being scattered about with the occasional breaking of glass or porcelain china on the floor or walls, actually made me jump a bit and hurt my ears but I didn’t even have the power to cover my ears.

“You will be saved! I will not let their digusting, heathen ways destroy your still pure soul!” he shrieked as the sound of skin-on-skin contact, probably a slap, echoed in my ears followed by the sound of a body hitting the ground. I bit my lip, trying to convince myself that it was not as bad as it sounded, but my rational mind would hear none of that and several scenarios ran through my head at once. Then my mind cleared of those scenarios, of which each one was worse then the previous, and I couldn’t feel my body anymore which meant I had lost my fight to hang on.

“Sorry.” She barely heard her daughter say before there was a high pitched shriek and then the sound of feet hitting the ground, disappearing into the distance as the kitchen door slammed shut. That sick and twisted bastard was in pain, which served him right for what he decided to do that day. What he tried to do to her daughter. It was at that moment I finally cracked a smile and felt pride welling up in my breast, hoping that at least my daughter had hurt the bastard and maybe even saved herself with whatever she did to distract him with pain.

In the beginning of this I told you that who I am doesn’t matter, but now I believe that I most definitely wrong because the worse thing I could do would be to make myself a faceless casualty in this massacre. I am proud to tell you that my name is Izebells Crane nee Draconia and that I have witnessed the massacre of the family I married into and that of my own family, of which I obviously survived. I am the proud mother of a strong little girl who was not afraid to fight back in order to survive. My parents, her grandparents, would have been glowing with pride at such determination and I hope they are watching over her in the afterlife… like I will be soon. I had no regrets in my life till I hit this point and I regret not being strong enough to survive this in order to help my daughter through this ordeal to live in the present and not the past, to help her grow into a strong and beautiful woman.

Live on, my daughter, and turn your eyes to the future..

3 October 2011

My name is Evangeline Crane and I am a survivor of suffering that had been brought on by an insane, delusional man and the suffering I brought on myself by being weak. After my last lapse into weakness, while I laid in recovery, I decided that only a fool would declare that they don’t live in fear. Why? In reality everyone lives in fear of something, it just all boils down to if they accept that they have a fear or now. I know this for a fact, honestly I can also claim that I have expierenced such thoughts first hand, because I do willingly admit that I live in fear. I live in the fear that the longer I am in public places, the longer I travel in the open and without someone to watch my back, I increase my chances of running into him again. Is all of my curiousity and hope for freedom worth the slim risk of being subjected to his insane brand of ‘rescue’ and rehabilation? I beleie it is, since I can’t always live in fear that he is around the corner.

Then again, maybe I should. The puppet government of Capital City, as well as those closely tied to their continuing tyranny, don’t do shit to help curb his enthusastic fetish for mixing religious text with his twisted fascination with breaking people. If anything they encourage him and give him the needed leverage to justify his vile acts beyond the holy works he defiled with his own twisted interpretation. They claim that he is true to his ‘mission’ to save everyone from their own selves by releasing them or by breaking them and remaking them in his own twisted image. It is obvious, even to a blind man or a deaf man, that these are horrible and vicious lies. Vile, disgusting lies made up to control their people. The most painful revelation was, upon my last visit, the fact that it seems to be working.

Those people willingly traded their freedom for what they seen as safety and security. They traded their decision to have a police force for the questionable safety of an army that changes whims like the wind changes direction and force, of a government who employes many mad men who should have been put down long before this point. They like living in denial of their true fear, but when things get worse I have a bad feeling about what will happen to those foolish people. Unfortunately I am digressing, maybe falling into the pit of paranoia and conspiracy when I should not. I have been wrong before.

If anything fear is what really keeps me going right now. The fear that he will actually win this sick game he began to play with me, fear of what will happen if he catches me, fear of losing what little I have left in my life. My true, honest to Mercy and Faith, fear is that he will never suffer for everything he has, had, done to all of those innocent people. He is a man who bathes in the blood of the desperate, of whole families, or even of those that follow him and I want to make sure he feels the pain of his victums and the pain he has caused me.

I used to cry and scream every night because when I relaxed I would swear that I can hear their screams, the pleading of my family for him to spare my younger cousins. Hear his voice… If I sleep I get caught in nightmares where all I can see is blood, all I smell is the sickening scent of decay. I swear that I can still feel the smooth, fake ivory hilt of the blade that I used to stab him with in my hand and hear his curses ringing in my ears forever cursing them for brainwashing and daring to taint me. Sometimes I dream of what he did to me when I was ten, when he attempted to save me again but was interrupted, other times my mind jumbles everything together and that makes things worse. It had gotten so bad that I woke up screaming, trembling, sobbing, clawing at my eyes before Father would come in and calm me down.

My fear of sleeping got so bad that I accidently compromised myself, early in my career, and I was tortured till mind literally broke. After I escaped I found that I could finally sleep, seeing that those painful memories and nightmares of my childhood were traded for something worse. I don’t really know what happened that time, but it was a blessing and curse. I do know that the pain will never fade, that I’m broken and cannot be fixed. Thankfully that being broken now means I cannot be broken further later on.

Being broken means that I don’t have to fear my past, but my new fear is that my past is going to catch up with me at the worst possible time.

Movement One: The City of Otherworld

These lands are known simply as ‘The Gray Realm’ since it lays directly in the middle ground between two very different lands. To the south was the minor Light Realm, consisting of close to twenty domains ruled by Kings where the Heros of folklore and stories thrive with their over-the-top dramatics and perfect Princesses swoon at the mention of their names, which no Gray Realm citizen really paid much attention to since the Light Realm was exceedingly boring. To the west was the vast Empire of Dragons, known as the Dark Realm, which had constant wars between the four Dragon Emperors over who would rule the entire land, this land was avoided by Gray Realm citizens because it was hard to tell what would happen— arrive as a tourist and within a day become a slave because they were not a citizen or fighting for a cause. The Gray Realm was a blend of peace and fighting, as could be see by the main cities that stand out among the rest.

The most unique of the cities would be The City of Otherworld, the oldest city in the Kingdom of Purgatory. While other communities, and the three other major cities, live off of the land and the domestication of animals, Otherworld surpassed everything by modifying their technology to a level far beyond anything in all the Realms. They had streets paved in cement, buildings that were many stories high and made of the metal that was mined from the vast wealth of minerals and mines close to the city, and their largest means of gaining any resource was by using the river to move things to and from any place.

With the rise of the technology was the rise of business and contracts, the building and destroying of fortunes within minutes or hours, and the opportunity of any lifetime. Many moved into the city to find their dreams, to become rich, or to be torn to their foundations and forced to pick themselves up again. Ethnic groups settled in varying areas and established their own sub-communities, a militia was created and later absorbed into what became known as The Third Party, and things progressed forward at a rapid pace. Many immigrants and resisdents either joined up with the political parties, found decent jobs and bought equally decent houses in residential areas, others joined up with the organized crime, and the few poor souls tried their hands at politics.

It is hard to really place Otherworld in a category with the others, due to its technology, but it was one of the keys to controlling Purgatory. The only issue with this key was that its teeth were sharp and it was not easily tamed. The city itself may have been split by a great river and landlocked but it was in no way defenseless or easily brought to a heel. The Dragon Emperors found that out the hard way when the Otherworld Parties waged a war of attrition that was forever immortalized in historical texts.

Chapter One: A Chimera’s Molto Adagio
25 October 2011

The Chimera’s Lair Tattoo Parlor was not a typical tattoo parlor, in the fact that it was located on the outskirts of the residental area of the city and the business and took up half of the ground level of an old house built in the Queen Anne style. The foyer had a professional air with its walls painted a deep shade of royal purple with golden accents that caught the light of the orante crystal chandelere that hung from the white ceiling. Thick clear glass counters lined both walls with black binders all over their surfaces, and a line of seven plain black folding chairs set-up in front of the main wood staircase that led to the second floor. At the moment only three people were browsing through magazines or binders, passing time till they met with a tattoo artist or still pursuing the design that would be inked upon their skin. The real action was actually just unfolding in the large sitting room to the right of the foyer, where the two night shift tattoo artists were holed up.

At first glance the room was stunning in its darkness. The walls were blood red with intricate black designs in the center of the four walls, the one large window was covered by heavy curtains, with spotlights angled to give the tattoo artists maximum lighting to complete their work. Upon entering the room it was clear that the place was split into four cubicles by a three foot tall wall in the same red color as the walls and of those four only two were occupied. The one closet to the doorway was occupied by a man leaning over the back of a young woman with black hair while the one beside them was occupied by a nervous barely twenty boy.

“Oh my Faith, Angel, you never told me you had a hot, evil older brother!” a voice squealed as a blonde young woman entered, her hips swaying as she attempted to keep her balance on her three inch stilletto heels.

That simple statement caused twenty-four-year-old Evangeline Crane to roll her eyes as she turned her head to the left and blankly stared at the bubbly, scantily clad blonde post-teen that had dared to say such a thing. If anything the only thing saving her from being attacked was the cubicle wall that formed a semi-private workspace for each of the working tattoo artists. In some ways it also helped that Evangeline was topless and straddling the black leather chair and she was in no mood to anger the focused tattoo artist who was working deligently on coloring the design on her left flank. “Why would I see fit to share such useless, not to mention disturbing, information with the likes of you?” the young woman lazily drolled out as she waved a black leather gloved hand dismissively in the air.

“Didn’t you know, honey? You are talking to the Queen of the Open Mouth, the Mistress of the Loose Tongue!” the brown haired tattooist, better known as The Artist to his regular clients, told Evangeline in a mocking stage whisper as the blonde glared at him.

“Double innuendo intended, I will assume?” Evangeline asked with a wide grin as Artist snickered and turned off his ink gun. They had known each other for close to twelve years now, having grown up in the same area where their pathes seemed to constantly cross, and in that time she could honestly say that Artist had not changed a bit. He still wore a red and white horizontal stripped turtle neck with a tight black shirt over that, the front proudly sporting a design of twining dragons in white, with black jeans and steel-toed boots with his brown hair pulled back at the nape of his neck by a white ribbon. His attire was usually a source of apprehension among many of the elder generation in the rather small chartered group known as the ‘Order of BloodInk .’ Being who he was he never really cared about their demands and continued his way of life while they had yet to realize that the threats on their postcards and in their boring newsletter had been ignored in favor of being used as kindling.

“Do you honestly have to ask?” he retorted as the blonde stood straight up, forcing a fake smile on her face, and adjusted her low cut top. Artists snorted and sat straight up, cracking his back as he did, and then turned to his bench and carefully sat his needle gun down before he stretch his cramped fingers for a few moments. “Kid, your breasts are not that interesting and you are in a tattoo parlor so I have seen more appealing ones.” He told her without turning around as Evangeline let out a bark of laughter, those loitering around the shop snickering at the now fuming blonde’s expense.

“Most people are ruined after seeing Countess in her full glory.” She commented looking over her shoulder at Artist, who turned and lecherously grinned at her.

“Considering her profession, she is perfection of seduction in silken flesh and tempting blood.” He told her and moved back over to her side, carefully overlooking his work for any flaws before he turned back to his work bench and picked up a cotton alcohol pad and gently cleaned the inked area, marveling at the life he was breathing into what would be his most beautiful work to date. “I prefer yours to her’s, to be honest, not to large and the fact that my work will leave a lasting mark makes me happy that I will always be touching you.” With a flick of the wrist he tossed the slightly bloody cotton pad into the garbage can under the bench, ignoring the dropped jaw of the blonde as Evangeline chuckled.

“You are such a flirt, Artist.” She told him, fluttering her eyelashes and then turning to their unwanted guest. “Why are you still here?” she coldly snapped as Artist carefully leaned over her back and brought a gloved hand up to press down on the nape of her neck, a silent means of telling her to lean forward, as she pressed her front tighter to the leather and straightened her spine so he could admire what he had just finished. Definitely his best masterpiece to date, he thought with a smirk as he carefully brought his other hand up to trace the network of thin black lines that formed a complex spider web covered in dew on thin brown and black shadowed branches with sparse leaves in dark green or a withered black leading to the main design that was on the woman’s left side.

“He is your brother, why wouldn’t you be proud of him?” the blonde persisted in an afronted tone as she leaned over and rested her elbows on the low wall, giving both Evangeline and Artist a clear view down her shirt.

“Proud?” Evangeline echoed in a hollow tone, her face blank.

“Beautiful.” Artist whispered as his breath brushed against Evangeline’s bare shoulder, but his pride over his work did not deter Evangeline’s growing anger towards the blonde. Feeling her tense beneath his hand, Artist leaned back and pulled his hand from her neck and turned away from the scene with a sigh and pulled his gloves off before he tossed them into the garbage can. “Now I need a drink, do you want something?” he asked Evangeline while cracking his knuckles, rotating his head around to get the kinks out from leaning over someone for too long of a period, and then turning his attention back to the frozen young woman.

“Alcohol would be best, something that will go down smooth but with a delayed kick.” She answered and continued to stare at the now smiling blonde who opened her mouth to add her two cents in but was cut off when Artist just chuckled. He then got to his feet and stalked out of the low walled area, making sure to brush past the blonde while stretching his arms above his head, and silently thanking whatever diety was listening that if she began flirting with him he could go find his boyfriend and proceed to put on a show. Both young women watched as he disappeared into the back room of the parlor before the conversation continued. “I am not proud of a delusional sociopath who persists in being such a embarassment to the entire human race.” Evangeline snarled at the blonde, causing her to reel back in overdramatic shock that caused her chest to move freely under her too small shirt and her micro-miniskirt to ride upand reveal things that most of the city must have already seen.

“Whatever. Like, could you set me up on a date with him?” the blonde then asked with her hands clasped in front of her with a wide eyed, hopeful look. This display just caused Evangeline’s brain to come to a skidding halt and wondered just what this little idiot was on to ask such a question.