Fan Fiction » New Mutants Unlimited » New Mutants Unlimited #66
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New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Meisha "Muse" Aisha on Sept 11, 2007, 12:56pm
New Mutants Unlimited #66
Cover Description: Meisha peering into the empty blackness of a closet, terror written in her expression.
Title: Limbo (alt title; Forgotten)
***
There's something she sees, something she fears,
Something that never stays far from her sight.
A world of the damned, a world of tears,
Where all eyes are on her, fixed on her plight.
It never comes, but never goes,
It's crystal on and on, a winding, bleeding path.
The path spikes, leading to the doom she knows,
Hidden beyond her tormentor's wrath.
It whispers to her, a screaming echo.
The words linger on, lifting through the air.
She stares down the path, frozen in fear,
And the path stares back, stripping her soul bare.
She knows this place, the little girl does.
It's limbo; it's fear, it's the home of the lost.
It calls to her now, as it has before,
It falls before her again, their paths forged and crossed.
It comes when she's alone, it comes when she's scared,
It comes when she's forgotten, fading away….
It comes when she's blessed, it comes when she's erred,
All thoughts of life, love and hope fading once she's snared.
Limbo calls her.
A scream catches in her throat, coming out silent.
She stares into their faces, cold and stony.
They glare back at her, lashing out, violent,
Angry and rabid, the bitter souls of limbo.
Her whimper runs quiet, her cry runs out false,
They tug her towards them, down to her knees.
Locked now together, in their morbid waltz,
They tug at her again, pulling her close;
"Quiet, little girl! We don't care if we scare.
You've been good! You've been bad!
It doesn't matter; not here.
Who you are, who you were;
It's all gone to your fear.
Make it easy; give in now,
It's our fate you will share.
You've been forgotten."
"No, it is not true!
It is just a dream, just a lie!
I will not be gone; a faded wisp!
Never, not I!"
She turns and she flees, running for freedom,
Spinning and spinning and swirling away.
She begs and she prays for an escape from this bedlam,
But breath runs out ragged as she stumbles again.
The shadows flit away, setting another soul free,
She steps out before the girl, watching her meekly.
A breath pushes out through her lips, the air whistling sweetly;
Armless, she hovers there, smiling sadly.
"Never you say?" she sang softly.
"Look at me! How blind you must be….
The simple truth before you, you still hold as a lie;
I'm right here beside you. I'm you, can't you see?"
She screams and pulls away, running free,
Her double steps aside, watching her flee.
The double grimaces lightly, hiding her glee,
As Meisha runs blindly, unable to see.
"Limbo's waiting for you.
Come back soon."
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Pester on Sept 11, 2007, 1:15pm
Huzzah for rhyme scheme!
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Protoman on Sept 11, 2007, 1:18pm
What he said…even though I'm not exactly sure what happened.
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Last Hero on Sept 11, 2007, 1:19pm
Hate poetry. Can never follow it. Real mental block for me.
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Meisha "Muse" Aisha on Sept 11, 2007, 1:22pm
Yeah, I didn't put it across very well.
It's meant to be character and continuative limbo; kind of like what Grant Morrison did in his Animal Man run. It's a fourth wall play on how I left her to limbo a couple of times. Every time that I've written Lisa I've had some mention of the fourth wall, her existence as a fictional character, and limbo, so I figured I'd do something with it.
Sept 11, 2007, 1:19pm, Last Hero wrote:Hate poetry. Can never follow it. Real mental block for me.
Aw… I like poetry. I'm not particularly good at it, but I can still appreciate it.
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Last Hero on Sept 11, 2007, 1:26pm
MOST poetry seems more about the form than substance, and I just hate that. Not knocking people who do enjoy it, or people who write it, it's just not for me.
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Lisa "Nephy" Nephrahim on Sept 11, 2007, 1:34pm
Sept 11, 2007, 1:26pm, Last Hero wrote:MOST poetry seems more about the form than substance, and I just hate that. Not knocking people who do enjoy it, or people who write it, it's just not for me.
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Meisha "Muse" Aisha on Sept 11, 2007, 1:34pm
So this would've probably been better served in story form, huh :)?
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Last Hero on Sept 11, 2007, 1:36pm
Sept 11, 2007, 1:34pm, Meisha "Muse" Aisha wrote:So this would've probably been better served in story form, huh :)?
For me personally? Without question!
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Sadie "Suicide Queen" Hannoura on Sept 11, 2007, 7:31pm
Sept 11, 2007, 1:26pm, Last Hero wrote:MOST poetry seems more about the form than substance, and I just hate that. Not knocking people who do enjoy it, or people who write it, it's just not for me.
I enjoy poetry, but then there's this genre.
Worst offender- e.e. cummings:
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
Yeah, that's not poetry, and it's not art. Fix your typewriter.
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Sadie "Suicide Queen" Hannoura on Sept 11, 2007, 7:33pm
As for your work Seph, I enjoy your verbose and detailed fictions, and I have to say I don't necessarily enjoy a turn to this format.
Good story, but the poetry and scheme itself didn't add anything, and if anything, handicapped you.
Solid effort, though, and I like that you branched out into an original format for our fics.
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Meisha "Muse" Aisha on Sept 12, 2007, 1:06am
I'll probably redo this as a normal story when I get a chance.
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by BornIn1142 on Sept 12, 2007, 7:59am
No, leave it as you like it. Don't give in to peer pressure…
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Meisha "Muse" Aisha on Sept 12, 2007, 11:05am
I'm not saying I'm taking this down, I'm just doing a story version too.
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Meisha "Muse" Aisha on Sept 13, 2007, 3:12pm
New Mutants Unlimited #66
Cover Description: Meisha peering into the empty blackness of a closet, terror written in her expression.
Title: Limbo (alt title; Forgotten).
Note: And here is the hurried, story version.
***
A whisper runs through the air and my head spins to face it. There is always something in the shadows when I am alone; always something in the closet, under the bed, in the corner, hiding away waiting for me. Calling me.
It comes mostly at night. Mostly.
It only comes when I am alone- when no-one else is here to see it, no-one to help me. No-one to witness it; no-one to believe me.
They try to take me away. They think I belong with them, hidden away in a shadow, in a darkness where no-one will see me ever again until I am remembered again; but the forgotten are never remembered.
My breath runs ragged as I run to the door. Turning the knob, I rattle it once- it does not open. I rattle it again, slam my shoulder into it, try anything to open it. I flick Nathaniel's sword in pencil form out from behind my head and it shifts into a hammer which I swing into the door as hard as I can. Nothing happens- there is not even a dent. I even scream, and all that comes out is a worn and tired whimper.
They always do this; and whenever they come, there is no escape. No escape until I am remembered, which happens so rarely… is so… unlikely. I drop to the floor as I hear another whisper- another call.
"Come home."
Home. That is what they think of it. And they want me to think the same. All I want is to get away, as quickly as possible, to be safe, to be… alive, one way or another. They will not let me have that. Ever.
I hear weeping amidst the whispers. Who among them would not weep? They do not even exist. Not really. And that is where they think I belong… between life and death- between reality and unreality. Between existence and oblivion. In limbo.
I have seen it before. Rather, they have called me here before. Dragged me here against my will, just because I was left alone- just because I stray away. And within the beats of the moments in which I am perceived… they tell me I am not real anymore. That I do not exist.
That I am just not here unless I am being perceived by someone else.
They are lying. They always do. The thought is ridiculous; it just cannot be true! I do not matter, I am not here, unless I break out from my hideaway and venture into everyone else's world? I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge; the nightmare I built my own world to escape. I will not be a part of that world. I refuse to.
But does that mean the only world I can be a part of is limbo?
I lose myself to another whisper and start falling, on and on, further than I can even understand; but when it ends, I am standing still in the middle of a path. A crystal, bleeding path leading on into a crystal palace in a perfect little crystal world; my room nowhere in sight.
I take a soft, tentative step forwards; there is not really anything else that I can do, is there? The steps lead me further and further down the path, and I am almost surprised to find that to be the case. I do not know why- after all, that is the point of it, right?
Then I finally realize that I know what the palace is. I know what is in it, and I wonder how I did not see it a moment ago. The doom that I flee; the doom that I fear. A raspy, laboured breath passes through my lips as I stare at it in fear. In the next moment, I have flitted away to one side, running as fast as my legs will take my down the path in the other direction.
It is too late. The whispers come back, screamed echoes in my ears. I grimace and spin and spin and spin blindly away from the noise, but it does not stop. It never stops. And then they are here. I was not fast enough. I was not smart enough to realise that I had to get away before this started. They are here.
Blocking my path, they stand there before me; things of shadows. Of fear and loss, misfortune and unspent potential, but mostly? Of shells. Shells of something that once was, something that could have been spoken of. There is a lizard man. A pale man, his fangs bared, leering at me. An ape who moves with more intelligence than most people. A ghost, a frog, a god, a demon; they go on and on, and they are legion- more than I can speak of. More than I can think of. More than I can understand.
They laugh at me, jeer at me, sing to me, hiss at me, but all of it comes out the same. All of it means one thing. I cannot think straight, no matter the words, I do not belong in this place. Not here.
This is for the forgotten. For the people who do not actually exist, but only think they do; the people who only dream that they do. This is limbo, the place for the people who do not matter. The people who no-one cares about, who no-one has any interest in. The place that people go when other people stop paying any attention to them.
I do not belong here… do I?
I glance away from them frantically, and then my gaze falls back on them, flitting from face to face to stony face. I try to scream, try to blow them away, to shatter them, but it catches in my throat and comes out silent. They glare at me and one grabs me, throwing me to the floor. More of them start clawing at me, tugging me, beating me, lashing out, pulling at me, dragging me along the floor. I cannot stop it; I cannot cry out, I cannot fight back. They drag me along like a ragdoll, and I cannot do anything but whimper.
"Stop! Get off of me… get off… I do not belong here…."
They speak again, together, all of them, and the words come out warped. Mocking.
"Quiet, little girl! We don't care if we scare.
You've been good! You've been bad!
It doesn't matter; not here.
Who you are, who you were;
It's all gone to your fear.
Make it easy; give in now,
It's our fate you will share.
You've been forgotten."
I try to respond, try to deny their words, but mine come out just as strangely as theirs. As if my mind does not want to translate my thoughts properly.
"No, it is not true!
It is just a dream, just a lie!
I will not be gone; a faded wisp!
Never, not I!"
I try to scream again, and it finally comes out, knocking all of them away from me. I take the moment's chance I have been given and run. Run as fast as I can, anywhere, as long as it is away from them.
There has to be a way out somewhere…. Khuda… muhje teheek rakhe. I cannot go on- I need to find somewhere to stop… I am so tired; but if I stop, they will find me. Instead, I just keep on running blindly, spinning on and on, praying for an escape from this bedlam.
I step falsely and stumble, hitting the ground hard.
Something shifts in front of me; a shadow slides smoothly along the crystal floor, evaporating to leave a purple haired woman behind in its wake. A breath pushes out through her lips, the air whistling sweetly; armless, she stands before me, smiling sadly.
"Never you say?" she sings softly.
"Look at me! How blind you must be….
The simple truth before you, you still hold as a lie;
I'm right here beside you. I'm you, can't you see?"
She screams and pulls away, running again. The purple haired woman steps aside with a false grimace that she knows I can see through; she might as well be wearing the grin. My eyes fell on the armless stumps before I started running, and a wave of revulsion washed over me. Now that I am running, though, I can feel her eyes on my back. She just stands there… watching me. My vision starts to fade, everything beginning to grow dim. She calls out behind me, her words burning in my ears like an anathema.
"Limbo's waiting for you.
Come back soon."
I hear a rap in the distance, pulling me away, and I thank god for it.
***
For the second time in as many days, someone will hear a pissed off knock at their door as Pester knocks on it hurriedly.
Re: New Mutants Unlimited #66
Post by Meisha "Muse" Aisha on Sept 13, 2007, 3:43pm
Grah. I preferred the poem version….
