gah!ghost

I'm trying to get better at writing and as I have spoken of before, I often loose focus in trying too hard to focus on a single narrative. So I'm trying to just write, regardless of what it is in an attempt to get more comfortable and skilled at doing it. So I figured it might be worthwhile to post what things I do write that have some relevance to this forum. If anyone sees anything they'd like to expand on themselves, let me know, I'm all for someone else taking my ranting and maybe making something of it.
 
This thing I just wrote is a seed of a DL story that I have been thinking of the last few days. There's no DL content in this little prologue thing but I think you can see where it would go in the direction.
 
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The Evocation of Ashmedai

A woman stood in the middle of a room. She was not the sort of woman you would expect to see in a bare dark room lit only by candles with a concrete floor. Her skin was tan and her clean silky auburn hair was pulled into a fastidious ponytail. She was dressed in tennis whites. The candles surrounded her in a broad circle maybe ten meters across. In the center of the circle at the girls feet were two low plastic tubs, the sort you might store Christmas ornaments in. The left tub was filled with a thick red liquid, the right something clear that might have been water.

The woman took a deep breath and stepped barefoot into the left tub. For several minutes she stood statue still, her eyes closed, muttering incoherent words under her breath. Then she opened her eyes and stepped very carefully out of the tub after which she proceeded to walk. Careful to keep each footprint touching the last she moved around the room describing a close-to-perfect circle roughly two meters across.

After taking the last step to close the circle the woman stepped into the second tub of water which quickly turned foggy as the red was washed from her feet. She stepped from the tub leaving wet footprints on the unsealed concrete floor. Careful to not disturb the red circle the woman moved around to stand at the edge of the circle opposite the tub. She lowered herself to the floor sitting cross legged.

Again the woman closed her eyes and spoke quietly to herself. This time it was simply one word recited three times, “Ashmedai, Ashmedai, Ashmedai.”

Every candle in the room went out and she began to realize she was not alone. Her slow even breathing was now accompanied by a ragged heavy panting, the sounds of someone in the throes of passion. Light slowly returned to the room and a figure sat cross legged like her in the center of the circle. The new light was soft and golden and seemed to have no visible source, radiating from the figure itself.

“Ashmedai…,” the girl whispered in awe.

The creature spoke, it’s voice was thick and lusty like it’s breathing and it spoke disarmingly with an American accent something like a Louisiana gentleman, “you already spoke my name three times girl, no need to say it again.”

He was slim and attractive, like an athletic youth, all smooth long limbs and softly defined muscles. This was somewhat spoiled by his cracked pitch black skin. The fissures weeped blood which slowly pooled around him. Blood also streamed down his face from his eyes, or where his eyes should have been. They appeared to have been carefully cut from his skull leaving two smooth empty sockets.

“What can I do for you girl?” he asked leaning back on his hands with languorous ease.

The woman swallowed hard and then spoke in return, “I would like to have a wish granted.”

“You do know there will be a price?” Ashmedai asked, and when the woman nodded he continued, “then, let me know what you desire and I will tell you it’s cost.” He spoke the word ‘desire’ with obvious relish his head lolling and eyes closing as he spoke it.

“There is a person, I…,” she carefully avoided saying ‘desire’ herself, no need to provoke the demon, “would like to have direct irresistible control over another. This control I would exert by conscious thought directed at this individual.”

“Ah, a difficult goal to achieve. There are many who do not like to see another’s will subverted. Those others will stand in the way of such magiks,” he spoke the last stressing the ’k’ sound. He held up a hand though the woman had made no attempt to speak in reply, “but no worry my dear, I am quite capable of overcoming such obstacles.”

The woman nodded in reply and asked, “the price?”

He smiled broadly, his black lips cracking as they spread oozing blood that trickled down his face and chest, “a simple enough price to ask, perhaps not so simple to acquiesce to. I ask, in return for this favor, for /you/ to allow /me/ to make one of your desires come true.”

She thought. The price seemed too good to be true. It was more like a bonus gift rather than a price. This was a demon though and so she asked, “can I choose which desire comes true?”

“Now where would be the fun in that?” he asked, “hardly could be called a price. No girl, I will choose the desire and I will not enlighten you to what I have chosen either before or after the pact is complete.”

Now that was a different thing altogether. She never looked too hard within herself and as much as some of her conscious desires made her nervous, she feared even more the desires she had locked away in some dark cold room and buried deep within herself. Still, it was imperative that she obtain the control she sought, or at least it felt that way at the time. Her mind made up, she said to the demon, her voice soft but steady and without fear, “I accept.”

“How wonderful,” he paused for a second and almost looked like he might sneeze, “and it is done and I will be on my way back from whence I came.”

“Wait,” the woman said, desperation creeping into her words, “I didn’t tell you who I wished to control.”

“Oh you sweet little thing, that is hardly necessary. I knew what your desire was the moment I stepped into this circle,” he wrinkled his nose and looked around at said circle, “this is chocolate syrup and food coloring how distasteful.”

And then, as quickly as he had come, he was gone. The woman sat alone in the dark, unsure of what to do next.

Anyone else watching this? Has to be one of my favorite shows on TV right now. I was super bummed when I found out that instead of doing the much more interesting (to me anyway) Mockingbird Lane, Bryan Fuller was now working on a crime procedural based on Hannibal Lecter. Didn't sound like something I gave a crap about. Between almost every show on network TV right now I have had my full of crime shows.

 

I was very wrong. Much like anything Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies) Hannibal is visually stunning to look at. The cast is fantastic, Mads Mikkelsen is quickly becoming my favorite Hannibal replacing Brian Cox and he looks the part in a way neither Cox nor Hopkins did. I love the characterization of Will Graham and he's just as compelling as Lecter. The show is incredibly well written, in particular the dialog. 

 

The most recent episode, episode 7, had some really wonderful visual scenes as well as several great dialog scenes. It might have been my favorite episode yet. If you like or can deal with the morbid, and enjoy well written and visually focused story telling, check out Hannibal. It is very good and sure as hell needs the ratings. It is sadly not doing well.

Disclaimer: I can all but guarantee I won't finish this story and will continue for awhile to start and not finish stories. I'm trying to get more comfortable with the process of writing and I'm finding that trying to force myself to finish a story does nothing but cause me to stop writing. So I'm just going to write what I feel like writing for awhile. That said, I do seem to make more progress with each new story I begin. I even finished one (not an abdl story so it won't be posted here). So who knows, maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel for this one. We'll have to see.

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A white hand, skin like wax, long thin fingers tipped with long sharp nails clear from quick to tip. Ripping, tearing, a scream stifled before it could begin. A bubbling sound not unlike air blown through a straw into milk. Bright crimson streaked and splattered across dirty red brick.

A phone ringing…

I fumbled for my phone on the nightstand. Whatever time it was it was way too early and goddamnit I knocked the phone onto the floor. I craned myself down over the side of the bed and not seeing the phone on the floor stretched farther to look under the bed. Seeing it there, I grabbed it and didn’t even look at the caller id before answering it.

“Muhmmu,” I managed before working out how to get my brain and tongue to work together, “hello?”

“Hey Tabatha, you okay? I hope you’re not sick,” said the voice on the other side of the line. It took me a few moments to recognize who it was.

“No I’m fine you just woke me up. Is this Glenn?” I asked.

“Great,” he said not answering my question, “you can come in today right?”

“I can come in today?” I asked. Today I was supposed to be off and my shifts usually didn’t start until after 4pm. I still had no idea what time it was but it was way earlier than 4pm.

“Great,” he said, apparently taking my question as a confirmation, “when can you be in?”

“I just woke up I haven’t even taken a shower yet,” my brain never worked too good right after waking up and I was not following the conversation at all.

“Okay, so see you in a couple hours then,” he stated… stated… not asked and then he hung up.

It seemed I had just agreed to come in on my day off to work an early shift that I never worked. I could call him back and tell him I wouldn’t be able to come in. It’s what I should have done and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to do so. I rubbed my eyes still sitting on my bed. I rationalized that if he hadn’t caught me sleeping I would have had the wits to talk my way out of it but in truth I would have agreed to come in no matter the situation.

Like an idiot I rushed. I skipped breakfast, skipped even having tea. An hour later when I was walking through the doors of the little local coffee shop where I worked my hair wasn’t even dry yet. As usual the place was basically empty. The busiest I had ever heard of was one day during lunch there were five whole customers at the same time. The story of the five customer day had been told and re-told for several days after the event. Today the only customer was a figure dressed entirely in loose white clothing including a white coat with a hood that was currently pulled up. The customer was sitting at one of the stools along the bar that ran along the windows so all I could see was their back. They had a laptop sitting in front of them and a coffee sitting at their elbow. The customer didn’t acknowledge me when I walked past clearly engrossed on whatever it was they were working on.

As I approached the counter Glenn called out to me, “Hey Tabi, thank you so much for coming in. I freaked out when Lane called in sick. I was worried the boss would find out I was the only one here.”

He wasn’t wrong to worry. The owner always demanded at least two employees be in the store at all times. I suspected there was something shady going on behind the scenes and I wasn’t the only one. The coffee shop had been open and in no threat of closing for well over a decade and yet we never brought in enough money to even cover employee paychecks.

“It’s no big deal,” I lied, “I was just getting up anyway,” I continued to lie.

“Weird right? The lady in white.” he said, his voice lowered as I stepped behind the counter.

“Lady in white?” I asked. My head was still fuzzy, I needed some caffeine and grabbed some tea bags from the counter.

“Yeah, the chick over by the front door at the bar. Did you see her feet?” he asked.

“Feet?” I asked as I poured hot water into a cup with the tea bags. I looked back across the shop at the woman. She was barefoot.

“Weird right? And that’s not even the half of it.” He wasn’t my favorite person in the world but there were worse people I could be stuck at work with. At least he was entertaining enough to talk to and made the time go by faster. “She comes in every day right when we open. She always is dressed in white, always has that coat on with the hood up, and wears sunglasses the entire time,” he continued, “she orders a coffee, takes off the lid, sets it beside her, and then after an hour she throws it out and orders another. She does this until she leaves. It’s so weird.”

“It’s too early for mystery Glenn,” I said, though I had to admit I was intrigued, “she does this every day?”

“Pretty much, occasionally she doesn’t come in, maybe one or two days a month,” he leaned back on the counter facing away from the front of the store while I dropped the tea bags in the trash.

I sipped my tea. I always drank it black without sugar or water. On the rare occasion I drank coffee I drank it the same way. I liked the taste of both and didn’t like to cover up the flavor with added calories. “Any idea what she’s working on?”

He shrugged, “I asked her once, when she was ordering. You’d think I hadn’t said anything. Usually even if someone ignores you they react when you talk to them. She didn’t. There’s nothing about that chick that’s not strange.”

I set down my tea and grabbed some napkins from under the counter.

“What’re you doing?” Glenn asked.

“One sec, be right back,” napkins in hand I stepped around the counter and started to check that all the napkin holders on the tables were full. I slowly worked my way towards the woman glancing up occasionally to see if I was close enough to read what was on her screen. I had good eyes and her back was to me so I had a clear view. The screen looked inverted, white text on black. In the brightly lit room it made it a bit harder to read than might otherwise be the case but when I was within a couple tables of her I could begin to make out the words in the document she was working on.

A couple things happened. I stared in shock at the screen. I could feel the blood draining from my face. The woman, suddenly aware of my presence, slammed her laptop shut and without looking back quickly slid out the front door. I stared at the door as it slowly closed on hydraulic hinges. I jumped when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“What did you say to her?” it was Glenn. I side-stepped away from him causing his hand to drop from my shoulder.

“Nothing, I think she just knew I was looking. Maybe she saw my reflection in the laptop’s screen?” I hazarded. That seemed unlikely and even if she had it seemed unlikely she’d assume I was spying on her.

“You look like you have seen a ghost, here,” Glenn was holding my tea cup in his hands and handed it to me absently, “did you see what she was working on?”

“Some sort of document, I didn’t get close enough to see what,” I lied.

Anyone tried these yet? The wide range of different sizes is pretty appealing to me. Northshore seems to be moving into making their own stuff which is interesting.

 

http://www.northshor...northshore.html

 

They look to have a much wider range of sizes than anyone else. The next closest is probably Tranquility. I think when I make my next order I'll buy some of the Medium ones and maybe some of the extra small too.

Have had them the last two days in a row. I usually get them maybe once every few months or so. I want to say it's stress from work at the moment. Wednesday I started getting the haloing but managed to down some coffee and take some Excedrin before the headache set in and while I felt kinda crappy for the rest of the day it wasn't too bad. Yesterday it was pretty horrible. I had been in DD chat during the morning and it started to hit me sometime after noon. Either didn't get the medicine in me soon enough or it just wasn't enough as I spent the rest of the day laying in bed with the lights off.

Right now I'm getting a goddamn headache. Not as bad as a getting a migraine but after throwing up for most of the tail end of last week and having a cold before than I am so over feeling like shit. Just needed to rant a bit.

For those who have never gotten migraines this is the best visual representation I have found for the "haloing" effect that precedes the migraine. It's really close to what it looks like for me. I think in some cases people only ever get this and never get the rest of the symptoms. For me I get this first and once it goes away I get the migraine proper which means a really bad headache, nausea, super sensitivity to light and sound, and just general malaise.

As you might expect when this is going on it's really hard to see anything. I've been stuck places unable to drive home before because of it.