I’m super excited. There’s a big tee shirt sale at Tee Public where all the shirts are $14 right now.
Now I just have to scrape up the cash to indulge my tee shirt fancy. There’s so much fandom awesome.
I have strange and extravagant dreams.
I let myself imagine the kinds of things that other people feel.
I wrap myself in the somewhat-safety of being someone else. It’s an old game I used to play.
I can see them looking at me, wondering. “Is Project Athena going off the rails like the McKabes and the Quin-Jongs?”
It almost hurts, to think that they doubt me so. I have been nothing but loyal.
I am loyal.
I was made in the Labs of Olympus, spliced from the Zeus gene-mod. I was the pride and joy, one of the Original Twelve phenotypes.
From our DNA is the rest of the Olympus Catalogue made. They might use my eyes and put them on a different face. Everything is mixed and matched and guaranteed to be a viable offspring, even when paired with lower quality DNA.
One Athena in every generation is Chosen, just as there is one Ares, one Hera, one Apollo, etc, etc. We live in the Lab so our gene-children can live free with their parents.
We have perfect genes, expressing all required characteristics of our class.
I remember when I was separated from the rest of my age group. I cried.
That was the first time I realized I was different. In front of an assembly full of people.
I remember that I was put in a group with other Athena-candidates. We wore tunic dresses and had classes together.
One by one, our class was whittled down to me and another girl. I remember that she had my face. My voice. It was like fighting myself.
And then there was just me. And I was standing in front of the Dagger Throne. And there were cameras everywhere and the whole world was watching my Ascension.
I never … Read the rest ““Project Athena””
This house is fucking freezing.
I have this small heater that’s supposed to make things livable and it does a half-assed job. It’s very disappointing.
I spend most of my time wearing thermal underwear and sweatsuits. I sleep under a layer of blankets.
It’s because the cold is a hungry beast. It tries to climb into a person’s veins.
I sometimes feel as though Eternal Winter has cast a spell on me.
In the same way that the Winter Queen cursed our country, I have to wonder if I’ve been more personally cursed. To always have cold hands and a standoffish personality. To be so entirely outside of every group I stand in.
And my curse began in this house. Where I spent my childhood and most of my adolescence. That I have returned to as an adult. Mostly because I have nowhere else to go.
That’s the sad thing about burned bridges. They tended to add up.
Now here I am. Home again, home again.
Making the best of a bad situation feels like the best thing I could do. So I’ll hold myself together until this is all over.
I huddle around the propane heater in the main living room and listen to the conversation swirl around me. Five people in one space could make a fair bit of noise. I made myself one of them and lived amongst them, waiting for word to come.
It’s almost a surprise when the blue stamped letter comes. I had nearly given into despair. (What if they’ve forgotten me? What if this life becomes my real life for the next ten years?)
The enthusiasm at receiving orders — it made me ashamed of myself. Just for a little bit. But mostly I felt as if I’d found something I’d spent years … Read the rest “The cold is a hungry beast. [NSFW]”
There’s a strange moment of disconnect between one thought and the next. It left him stumbling on numb legs.
He turned his body around and stood there, statuelike.
The world was made of fire.
It raged across the sky in blazing scarlet and gold. Giant wings reaching out to cover everything.
He tipped his head back and stared up at the parachute of light arching above him.
I’m going to die. The thought was spoken in a calm voice that rang through his ears as clearly as if they’d been outside of his own head.
It followed him as he ducked and ran and fought his way out of a city fallen to madness.
He came out of his fire with a starburst scar across the apple of his right cheek and an ankle that liked to pop when he walked. But he was alive and he could move to a suburban area and start a new life as a stay-at-home dad.
The woman he married was a dedicated career woman that had lokked startled by his offered Contract before agreeing.
The relationship wasn’t real, but he knew that he was a catch just on his looks alone.
It was kind of why he dressed as a farmer hipster when he wasn’t working. It was all plaid shirts, unshaven cheeks, and wildly tawsled hair.
He knew he was a hot mess. He could see the eyes that followed him around. It was why he’d switched to wearing glasses.
Add in Chucky, and suddenly he was the single dad that all kinds of women wanted to fix up.
Sometimes it made him laugh, when he was home alone with the sleeping baby. He would be watching TV in the living room, maybe smoking a little Calm and Cool, and he’d … Read the rest “Fill? 01 – on a gun”
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