Floating "How long has it been?" asked Harvey. There was an odd nostalgia attached to the noise of the establishment, the waiters bustling back and forth, glasses clanging together at tables all around. Victor's eyes looked towards the sources of noises as he identified them, flinching in apprehension each time. He picked up his own glass with a hand that felt alien to him. It seemed to float there in front of him rather than fight against his will and burn against the cold surface as a hand should. "Four months, give or take," he said, tipping the glass back. The beverage was sweet, whatever it was. Might've been tea, maybe soda. He'd hardly paid any attention when he ordered his food. Words rolled off his tongue without the trouble they used to cause. No more stuttering, no more murmuring. He set the glass the down and frowned, more at himself than at it. "The drinks here are crap, I know," Harvey said idly. "Look I get this is real soon after, but this interview’s been on my mind ever since your treatment kicked in. What's it like?" He had a pen and paper at the ready and his hands were all but raining sweat. 'What is it like,' what a great question that was. Well, what was there to say? "Best start with the anesthetic, I guess," said Victor. "You feel a cold rush in your veins and then the little man at your brain's PC starts clicking all the X's he can see on the screen. After that you're out cold for what feels like a heartbeat. Next few weeks were rough, but that's about normal for anything like this." He stopped and waited for Harvey to get all of that down. The weasel-like man was writing at mach two, it would've been amusing to watch were it not so oddly humbling. Maybe that was what Victor would learn to do next, write by hand as quickly as he could think. Sky was the limit at that point. "Go on," said Harvey. "The first thing I wanted to do after recovering was throw myself off a bridge. Not because I wanted to die or I didn't know what to do with myself, I was just absolutely sure I could fly." Even as he sat there, his chair felt two miles below him, he had to look in order to realize that he was still leaning back. Nothing ached anymore. Harvey was still writing like a man possessed. "I remember walking through a crowd with this weird sensation in my head. What was I even supposed to do with my arms without a chair to push? Everyone was swinging them while they walked. I didn't get why, still don’t. None of them spared me a glance, I blended in seamlessly with the backdrop just like everyone else for once. And the last thing I remember about that is feeling really disarmed without my chair there to sit in, or a wall to lean against," he said, then took another sip of his oddly sweet drink. No wash of aching pain hit him as he sat there motionless throughout their conversation. He moved his legs a little anyway, he could never be too careful. Not moving his legs was once a good way to temporarily lose his ability to stand. "So to sum it all up, I’ll ask again: What's it like to be cured?" asked Harvey. Victor hesitated and grasped for words that weren't there. "That’s exactly what it’s like," he said. "Come again?" "What do you feel right now, Harvey? Does your head hurt? How about your neck? Can you hold it up for another ten minutes without much trouble? Your hands feel pretty steady?" asked Victor, keeping his glass in his hand. The liquid inside stayed completely still, to his continual amazement. "I'm fine, I don't really feel anything, I guess," said Harvey. "And there's what I'm trying to tell you," said Victor. "Think of it like this, if you locked yourself in a room for ten years and all you heard was nonstop screaming, you'd get used to it, as crazy that might sound. It's like going from that to a library, Harvey, it's peaceful beyond what my lacking imagination can begin to describe." He looked down at his legs again and noticed that one of his shoes had come untied. 'Easy,' he thought, and pulled the laces this way and that until they were tied again. It took almost no concentration for him to do. Harvey looked on in confusion, Victor made no move to explain.

Witch Hunt. (Excerpt #3) With a grunt of exertion, she hauled herself up and through the motel's broken window. Complete darkness awaited her there. No sight at all was better than some of the sights she could have been met with. The sound of a master pianist at work flowed to her ears from across the room. Such a long time had gone by and still she remembered which room to enter, odd how some things stuck like that. And for her memory, she was rewarded with instrumental music, a luxury so sweet that she could only let herself be lulled by it. Only when the pianist finished his piece did Leah wake from her trance. "If you're here to find out whether the stories are true, I suggest you leave the way you came," said a voice from the piano's direction. The room was too pitch dark to distinguish anything at all by sight, but Leah knew that voice, she hadn't heard it since the Eclipse itself. "It's-" She hesitated, glancing over at Basilisk, who was all but petrified with fear. "It's Leah," she breathed. The unseen speaker whistled softly. "Well," he sputtered. "Well cut me up, my Moonlight. Cut me up and burn the pieces, I thought you'd be eaten alive out there." Something touched her shoulder in the darkness, it felt raw and stringy, like dry, loose cloth made of dead flesh. Leah tried to remember the sound of the piano, but she didn't dare shudder at the touch of his hand. "Tell me of your travels and of the other you travel with," he spoke directly into her right ear, but no breath accompanied his speech; the air stood still as his voice permeated the dark. He was a product of modern concept artist culture, a freak-show that should have been race-horsed in the cradle. Leah hated the man and his ability to break her usual state of calm. She'd heard of barbaric places in the outside where they broke down and rebuilt people like him, like her, even- stripped away any touch of the Eclipse and called them "Functioning Members of Society"™. Those places hardly ever sent trappers into the Shadow, but Leah would have sold out the pianist in a heartbeat, had she ever come across any. "I fell into the company of the Moonlit Witch," said Leah. "She sewed wings to my back and declared me beautiful. I travel not with a friend, but with another who shares my desire." She spoke boldly, not shouting, but she did not let her voice falter. A thoughtful hum or two was the initial reply to all she'd said, but then she felt a raw finger trace her left wing. Leah steeled herself as it slowly went around her other wing as well. "And pray tell," he mused, "what that desire is." The room began to lighten, it became a single shade above total darkness. Leah could just barely make out little signs of movement in the swirling pool of blindness. As she watched all of those tiny twitches at all edges of her vision, her mind harkened back to the episodes of sleep paralysis she'd once experienced. Few things made her skin crawl, but those nights were things she preferred to leave in the past. "We seek to kill the Witch," she said. "I know my companion only as Basilisk, for we adhere to the formalities of half-breed theology." The pianist's form became visible in the receding blackness; he was tall and frail, skinny as ever. "Not good enough, my Moonlight, you know I do not abide by the new ways. Speak your name, Basilisk," said he. Unlike Leah, Basilisk was unable to keep herself from shuddering as he reached out and lay his hand on her neck. Leah would never forget watching him play in the bar on the night of the Eclipse as everyone else was contorted by the powers that be. She hadn't been able to look at him the same way since. Ironically enough, he'd never be able to look at her again, and the strip of cloth tied over his eyes was proof enough of that. "Priscilla," breathed Basilisk, terrified. "That. . . That's my name." The pianist hummed thoughtfully, and Leah felt the sound reverberate through her body. As with all others who'd been in his presence, Priscilla was unable to muster any show of strength. That was what differentiated Leah from the race of vagabonds she'd found the half-breeds to be. She knew this place, Eclipse's Shadow, and it had known her both before and after its fall. "Enough, Morren! You owe me more than you can pay, if I remember rightly," growled Leah. "So tell me how to track the Witch." Mystic mumbo-jumbo followed Morren like a cloud, which was half the reason Leah wanted nothing more than to rip his throat out with her blade. She restrained herself only because the sicko was useful at times like these. "The Witch loves rumors," he said, sitting down on his piano bench once more. "Follow the rumors and find your mark." She hated that he always knew when a conversation was winding down; he never gave up information unless she was ready to leave. It didn't matter anyways, the room was continuing to brighten, and the last thing she wanted was to see him without the wall of darkness between them. What a repulsive creature he was, through and through. "Take care, Priscilla," he said, raising his voice to speak her name. "You too, Leah. And don't forget your end of the bargain, either." She had no end of the bargain anymore, he'd broken every code of conduct she respected, her trust in him was gone. "Yeah, wait for me here," she said, then took a hold of Basilisk's shoulder and pushed her towards the window. The two of them vaulted out the way they came and bolted into the woods as quickly as their legs would carry them. Leah's heart hammered so loudly in her chest that worried about it rupturing. That'd be just her luck; leave the abode of the most twisted thing in the Shadow only to drop dead in the woods because she was a coward. She dropped to her knees some distance after leaving eyeshot of the Scar, her wings fell limp over her shoulders. Basilisk all but collapsed nearby, coughing like an asthmatic with broken ribs. She hauled herself to her knees and continued to hack up a lung even as she vomited into the dry leaves beside her. Leah collected herself and let her body vent out all the pent up shaking and heart-hammering it had inside. 'I won't throw up,' she inwardly commanded herself. Her stomach turned in response. 'I refuse.' The sound of Basilisk spitting and hurling her guts out onto the ground wasn't much help either. She thought back to pile of dead, deboned Wringers, slit ten times from head to toe. They were a new phenomenon in the Shadow, and yet they hadn't disturbed her nearly as much as old Morren had. He was like an infection, a rot. The longer he lived, the more corrosive and unhinged he became. Leah dreamt of bulldozing the Scar sometimes. Burning it would've left too much room for things to escape. No, she would surround it with gunmen and rip apart anything that tried to run. Only when the final building had been ripped apart by the metal maws of industrial machines would she set it all ablaze. It would be a beautiful funeral pyre deserved by the town that she'd known before Eclipse. The Witch came first though, the Witch's blood was her heart's desire, and so she forced herself to stand up again. Horrible as he was, Morren had given away something important. If she played her cards right, Leah would have her prey by the end of the night. "You good?" asked Basilisk, her face a sickly pale. "Yeah," said Leah. "We're headed for the caravan."

Witch Hunt (Excerpt #2) She walked through the moonlit forest with Basilisk by her side. They both kept their wits about them. Midnight wasn't the hour to go unprepared into the woods. All the luminescent mushrooms and moss reminded her of days long passed, days when she was new to this strange world, before she'd borne the wings that she now wore with spiteful pride. Had it really been so long? Three long years? No, surely it was a dream, it was all a dream. So long as she told herself that, there was no reason to be scared or regretful. 'Boom, boom, boom,' went the guns of the distant caravan. Maybe they'd wake her up from this place. Maybe she'd find herself in her bed, her wings gone and her body unscarred- like Dorothy coming back from Oz. "And you weren't there! And you weren't there," she'd say. "Only I was there. None of you were Ever there. . ." The bitter taste in her mouth took her from her thoughts. She could smell violent unrest blowing in on the wind. Risking a glance over at Basilisk, Leah noticed a nervousness in the way she held her gun. "I am alive," Leah whispered to herself, grasping her necklace with her open hand. She repeated those three words over and over, her voice so soft that Basilisk only noticed the movement of her lips. Distant thunder masked the sound of footfalls for moments at a time. Storms were coming, and the Moonlit Witch was in its eye. Both travelers looked skyward, as though expecting to see lightning come next. That was all thunder was, a spiteful reminder of the sight they'd missed out on. Neither of them took it too hard, there was more lightning yet to come, whether by their doing or the storm clouds'. (This one is disconnected from the first by several pages, so it is not a direct continuation. Enjoy anyways!)

15 Word Rant So much wasted time, Playing dead every night, I'll rest when I'm dead.

The Cursed Witch Hunt. (This is an extremely small excerpt, so excuse any contextual confusion or terms that seem to have no meaning. Enjoy!) "I am alive," Leah repeated to herself. She held a machete in her hand as she walked down the dirt road. Monstrously huge trees towered either side of her, their trunks no thinner than thirty feet in diameter. Maybe one day she'd build that tree house she'd always wanted. If nothing else, Eclipse's Shadow offered interesting opportunity. To the artistic mind there lay a canvas for the likes of Leah to paint on, and so she painted. "I am alive," she said once more. Gunfire raked the three-dimensional wall of trees that blocked her from the highway that ran parallel to the path she walked. These excursions were normality for her; every few months there was another caravan on its way through the Shadow. Ahead, there stood two winged figures, they stared at her with their #lifeless eyes as she fearlessly stayed her course. Leah spread her own wings as she neared the Seraphs. They regarded her without expression, but she fluttered her white wings and dropped into as graceful a curtsy as one can manage in a pair of jeans, with one hand clutching a machete. "Speak, half-breed," said the Seraph on the left. Its voice rolled through her mind like distant thunder. Its mouth did not move as it spoke, nor did it flutter its wings as she did hers. "The Wringers, where did they fall?" she asked. "I seek the Moonlit Witch." As the name proceeded from her lips, the Seraphs' wings spread wide and claws extended from their fingertips. She smirked. Nobody was without a sandman, a devil to haunt their dreams. Only Leah remained fearless, for she'd gone through the flames and let the fear, agony, and weakness burn away. The Seraphs stood still, fearing to move, lest the Witch emerge from the trees and cut away their wings. "Need I call upon the Scarecrows for answers?" shouted Leah. "The dead Wringers, where are they?" The volume of her voice attracted the attention of search lights and machine guns from the caravan. Neither of the Seraphs paid the gunfire any mind, but they cowered before the fury in Leah's voice. "North of the Scar, my lady!" cowered the Seraph. "The apostate seeks refuge with the natives!" Its voice changed in tone, but no terror showed in its face; indeed it remained expressionless. "Thank you for your minimal effort," she said dryly. As she moved to pass by them, the Seraph who'd been silent suddenly spread its wings. Leah stopped in her tracks and looked over at the Nightmare. "You, a half-breed, treat us as underlings. Do not dare to tread on us so," it said. "Would you threaten a Crow?" she challenged. "Touch me and commit apostasy, for my wings were taken from one of your dead." Machete in hand, she passed by the Seraphs as they stood there restraining themselves. Leah smirked and flared her wings as she grew close to them. They both backed away from her, for she was condemned by every law of the Eclipse. She continued down the road, dirty white wings still spread wide for all to see. The wind at her back coaxed her. 'Run, jump, fly,' it seemed to say. Who was Leah to refuse? She took off at a sprint and threw herself skyward. Her wings caught the wind and dragged her upwards. She soared some height above the path and let herself glide towards the Scar. Things felt right in the sky, it was the only place of solace for her. Purebred human shelters were cramped, her wings would ache if she went hours without stretching them. Between the treetops and the stars, she was free, free as she'd never been before. And yet she flew towards the witch who'd cursed her with flight. It was the principle, she decided; a curse was a curse, no matter what the bearer made of it. Leah was far from the only witch hunter in Eclipse's Shadow, though, and she knew it all too well. The thrill of the race, like hounds on a fox hunt- that was what made her feel alive. Unfortunately for many, feeling alive was far from a common luxury. Houses lay scattered on the ground below her, some were burned, others were battered, as though they'd been repeatedly slammed into by a truck. 'Oh well,' she thought. 'The smart ones don't live here anymore.' She looked out in front of her, rather than survey the ground further. Treetops, stars, and clouds all met at a hazy horizon some impossible distance away, and she found herself wanting to fly higher. Leah threw herself into an upward spiral and felt the warm night air flow around her. She shut her eyes and let herself drift.