26. Fear: What scares you a little? What do you feel when scared? How do you react? Due 25/02/2017

Running, always running but from what? From who? From myself? From the eyes that follow me in the shadows or from those that try to protect me? He, she, they, who knows but I can’t ever stop. They all want me dead. I can’t see how to win this one, not with so much against me.

What can I do? Who am I? I’m just a girl really a woman, a woman who's been told the world is on her shoulders. Humanity rest in my hands, so I ran. I’ll admit it now, I couldn’t at first but I can now, I see it now, I see why I did it. I ran, I ran from the good, the good forces the ones that wanted me to save the world. I ran from the ones who want to stop me. I ran because it is scary. Can you imagine? I’m only 20 something and I’ve got to save the entire world and why you may ask, why does this nobody have to take on this responsibility, well it’s all to do with my lineage. Who my parents are, but they left me, they didn’t want me, so why should I want to take on this familial responsibility. If they didn’t want me in their lives why do I need them and their heritage. Why do I need this in my life?

I guess I ran to the wrong places and the wrong people, I ran to Rowan. He was always there in the shadows, in the darkness watching me. Rowan who loved me, who I loved in return, who I still love. Rowans people are the wrong things in this world. They are sadness, evil, pain and suffering. They fester in the shadows making the world dark and cold, taking the goodness and replacing it with spite and hate and loathing. He’s not like them, I hope. They want to use me for their own means but then there is Tristan who is the light, the guy on the right side, on the good side. He wants to save me or so he says, but he’s after me too. He needs me dead, that’s how they win by my death, by my lack of existence. That’s how the world get’s saved, by dying, not by some magical mysterious way of conquering evil and fighting for the good and being victorious. No! My blood needs to be shed, to soak into this planet we call Earth and become a lifeforce. I also need to be the doer of the deed I need to sacrifice myself. I have to go against everything that I was ever taught by the people that mean the most to me. My family, my adopted family, Adian and René not those parents that threw me to the wind to survive on my own, not these self proclaimed “Fairies” that have decided to claim me as theirs to be their saviour. None of this is real, is it? I just want to wake up. For this to have been a dream. I want to stop running. I just want, I just want to be real, to be normal. I don’t want this, I never asked for any of this! I don’t want to die, I don’t want to go. I guess that’s how I’m running from myself as well as from everyone else because if I’m honest with myself, if I just believe in myself I should be able to this, but I can’t or won’t so I run. I run with Rowan by my side, I run through the shadows, from him as much as with him. And boy can I run.

From here I need to have a plan, Tristan comes to me as I dream and Rowan tugs at my every waking moment to keep moving. I need to find a way around this. My parent were never meant to be you see, they are from opposing sides. One from the light and one from the dark. They never meant to have me, truth be told in the fae world a light and dark fairy shouldn't be able to conceive let alone carry a child through to full term. I hate them, for this, for what they have forsaken me to.

22. Smoke, Fog, and Haze: Write about not being able to see ahead of you. Due 21/02/2017

Breathe

A balloon bubbling in my chestTightening, constricting each single breath

Breathe

Numbness cascading down my armsMy mind grows foggy as my head fills with lead

Breathe

The weight becomes unbearableShoulders droop, chin rests on heaving chest

Breathe

Unable to exhale

Breathe

Squirming fear grows in the pit of my stomach

Wrestling and writhing

Breathe

Nausea comes in waves and swellsMy spine contracts

Breathe

Shoulder blades lock into placePain emanates from contact with the world

Breathe

Unable to see through the smoke

Breathe

18. Cleaning: Hey, even writers and creative artists have to do housework sometimes. Write about doing laundry, dishes, and other cleaning activities. Due 17/02/2017

So today my daughter is going on a school tour involving a 26km Hike through the Wicklow mountains. I've been thinking all day what I'll do when I get home. It's not very often I find myself alone on an evening. Thoughts of trips to the Cinema and going for a drink after work have all flitted across my mind but one thought has taken over and I'm looking forward to it more than any of the others.

Ironing, I'm going to get the baskets of clean clothes that have been getting larger lately and I'm going to delve in and destroy them. Get it all done and put away while watching a horror movie or two. Change the bedding, make the beds. It's 3pm and I've another 2 hours in work and an hour of travel before I'm home, and I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

17. Dictionary Definition: Open up a dictionary to a random word. Define what that word means to you. Due 16/02/2017

Euphorbia

 Definition: Spurge or bastard spurge a genus of plants of many species mostly shrubby herbaceous succulents affording an acrid milky juice Some of them are armed with thorns Most of them yield powerful emetic and cathartic products

1350-1400; 

Middle English euforbia for Latin euphorbea, an African plantnamed after Euphorbos, a Greek physician

16. Addict: Everyone’s addicted to something in some shape or form. What are things you can’t go without? Due 15/02/2017

Mmm, coffee first thing in the morning. A double espresso with a heaped spoon of sugar drank like a shot. Best way to wake up in the morning.

Cuddles with my daughter, even though she's a teenager now and doesn't really want cuddles i still love them and can't live without them.

Supernatural the TV show, Dean and Sammy have been such an important part of our lives that I just can't imagine a world without them.

Lastly, Pizza. I love Pizza. Pizza, Pizza, Pizza.

15. Eavesdropper: Create short story, or journal entry about a conversation you’ve overheard. Due 14/02/2017

"The Foreign ones are just so tiny!"

"I know who would be intimidated by them. You'd think that there would be bigger and stronger ones."

No, no, no you see the smaller ones are all from different countries because of the heat. They are leaner and smaller and don't eat as much so they don't get as big as our ones."

Unknown subject.

38. Fire-starters: Write about building a fire

Samantha found herself standing, staring at a gigantic door way. A large ugly face sat squarely in the middle of the door. Made of the strangest black shiny metal that seemed to just suck away the light. The dark amber eyes followed you wherever you went. From its grimaced mouth hung a knocker made of the same black metal. Where the knocker lay against the door, marks, nicks and scratches from years of being knocked upon covered the surface. Somehow this made it so much more gruesome. Samantha reach out to touch the knocker without evening thinking, as her hand crossed between her and the door she noticed something was wrong, her hands have never been so smooth or Petite not since she was a child. 

Glancing down at her feet also tiny, nearly frail and dressed in white knee-high socks and black patent leather shoes. On the left sock sits a dirty brown scuff just below the knee, Samantha’s mother will have something to say about that. It’s then that she noticed below her feet was no longer the aged wooden planks of the porch but a carpet, only ever seen in really dated home’s, like a grandmothers. Hers was pinks and gold’s in colour, this one was rich blues, ivories and red flowers scattered across the sea of blue. When did she knock, or pass through the door? Time here always seemed so disjointed. Maybe it was her, looking down on Samantha.

 
In later years she came to find out more about the big house by the silver bridge. About who lived there and how on its last day’s the light danced off the Liffey River until dawn broke, the sky was a light so bright that you could tell it was burning from two towns away. Back to this moment she looked away from her feet to the mantel. Standing in the entrance way to the right of a mantle as big as you could get, a fire roared in the hearth and stationed above the mantel was a framed likeness of the most beautiful woman you ever did see. 

Her hair was as black as a Raven and just as sleek; her crystal blue eyes pierced your heart when you took them in. She was dress in all her finery and sat stiff and hard. As she probably knew that she would be sitting there, perched above the mantel. You could smell the smoke now, and something more. It burns her throat and catches her breath. Crackling and popping sounds emanate from all around. 

 
As Samantha has done for the past 21 years, sitting she took a deep calming breath, coughing a little. Reassuring herself “I am in my own bed, in my home”, she repeats this over and over to herself. “The house is not burning; I am not burning.” Heart finally stops racing, her recurring dream struck again. This is the house that burned down before Samantha was born.