Written on May 13, 2015
She stared at the Woman's lifeless face with a single thought. Who the hell is Olivia?
Jolyn. |
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Written on May 13, 2015 There had been a kind of timeless darkness that she had found herself suspended in. None of her senses worked. Her mind barely worked; she couldn't perceive any passage of time, but she wasn't bored. It was like that intermediate state between a dream and consciousness. Eventually she found herself awakening from this darkness. It began as a dull roar of noise; it got brighter and brighter, yellowy light emanating from nowhere in particular but filling the space around her completely. Finally she was jolted to full awareness by a sharp bang- the foreign brain she found her mind shoved into told her it was the sound of a gunshot. She could suddenly feel, she could hear, and when she opened her eyes she found she could see. But all she could feel was cold, hard wet ground beneath her. Concrete? All she could hear was the sound of fading footsteps and pained breaths next to her. When she opened her eyes she saw darkness, but not the same darkness she'd inhabited for- how long had it been? It was instead a natural darkness, illuminated faintly by the tiniest sliver of moon in the sky. It cast even darker shadows behind- was that a warehouse over there? It penetrated mere inches of the waves rolling gently below the nearby pier. And it lit the face of the woman lying on the ground next to her, struggling to breathe given the leaking bullet wound on the right side of her chest (probably puncturing a lung, if not worse). The blood soaking into her shirt hardly looked red in the darkness, but rather a stark, oily black. The Dying Woman reached for her as she sat up, breath slowing. The Woman's last and only word before her head slumped to the ground was a name; "Olivia!"
She stared at the Woman's lifeless face with a single thought. Who the hell is Olivia?
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Written on May 12, 2015 Seattle tossed her key into the bowl next to the door, shrugging off her dripping coat and hanging it to dry. She was tiredly shuffling toward her bedroom when Phillis spoke up from the couch, where she had apparently been reading a book (A Brief History of 19th Century Seattle). "Hey." She closed the book and tossed it in the general direction of the bookshelf. Seattle stopped at the door to her bedroom, turning toward Phillis.
"Hey." "C'm'ere, dude, sit with me," Phillis urged softly. Seattle hesitated briefly, then dropped her bag on the floor and strode to the couch, plopping down and curling her legs up across from where Phillis sat, feet taking up two cushions. "What's up, my man?" Phillis looked down, then pulled the photo of the fire from the pocket of her suede jacket, handing it to Seattle. "Sophia, I really need you to explain this. You never tell me anything about your family history, about your history, about you. And then I find this, in which the resemblance is… uncanny. And I just… I don't know what to think. Is it a relative? I don't… I just want to get to know you, I guess. And it doesn't help that my research led me to Arthur Denny's diary, in which he claims to have lost his favorite wooden spoon. Which he carved himself. I'm sorry if I'm prying. I probably shouldn't've… I'm sorry." Phillis seemed to have changed her mind. She shook her head and got up from the sofa. Seattle was staring intently at the photo, pained expression on her face. She stopped Phillis when she tried to return to her own bedroom. "No, I'll… I'll explain. It's okay. Sit down." Phillis nodded serenely and returned to her seat, waiting patiently for Seattle to begin. Seattle looked away for a moment, gathering her thoughts, before looking directly at Phillis and speaking, slowly. "Every city, town and village in the world has a… a guardian. A patron spirit. They look human, but they're not. They're kind of… the soul of the city, I guess. These spirits have certain powers, knowledge- anything having to do with the city and its history. A spirit comes about when a city is given a name, and they can live for as long as the city does. There aren't many ways for them to die, and… and they don't age." Phillis had a disbelieving look on her face as Seattle held up the picture, nervously pointing to the distressed woman kneeling in the foreground. "This is me. I'm Seattle." She averted her eyes from Phillis, awaiting her reaction. After a too-long silence, Phillis responded. "Can you prove it?" She had no anger in her voice. No disbelief. Just curiosity. Seattle met her eyes. "Yes. Yes! Of course I can prove it." She was eager for Phillis' approval. "You can't tell anyone, though. Obviously." "Obviously." Seattle nodded at Phillis' promise and tentatively pulled her pocket knife from her pocket. Phillis tensed when Seattle flipped it open and brought the blade to her palm, slicing open her hand. She made sure Phillis could see that it was very plainly injured and bleeding before healing herself; a deep green- almost emerald- fluid, flowy substance patched together Seattle's hand before disappearing, leaving the blood to congeal on her yellowy skin. Phillis' eyes widened. "That's incredible!" She leaned in closer, taking Seattle's hand in hers and analyzing what's now just a thin scar, if stained with a bit of dried blood. She looked up into Seattle's eyes, nodding. "I believe you." She still had Seattle's hand in hers. Seattle nodded back to her and smiled. She had a hard time focusing with Phillis' warm hand supporting hers. "Thank you." Phillis was silent for a moment, a pensive look on her face. "So that spoon you have in your room… is that actually Arthur Denny's spoon? The one he mentioned in his journal?" Seattle chuckled. "Yeah. Yeah, I stole his spoon. I was only a few days old and really needed some silverware, okay?" Her voice was pleading but there was a soft, genuine smile on her face. “That's incredible. I never really pegged you for a thief. A drug dealer, maybe, given all the cash you seem to rake in, but not a thief." "Pshhh. Please. It's been 150 years. I don't think you can prosecute someone after that long, especially if it happened before the state it happened in was even incorporated as a state." "Wow…. I hadn't thought about that. So.. You lived through a lot of stuff, then, I suppose." "Yeah, I did. Lots of wars, movements, watched celebrities and the like come and go. I got to live through the invention of computers, the internet… Never did get to meet Alan Turing, though. I'd have liked that." Phillis couldn't do much but sit there in awe, still invading Seattle's personal space and clutching her bloodied hand like a secure anchor amid this sea of new information. She subconsciously was leaning closer and closer to Seattle's face as their breaths intermingled. Seattle got the hint and whispered, "Did you know Alan Turing was gay?" as she, too, approached Phillis' face with her own. She couldn't help but glance down at those damn beautiful lips of hers. She got a whisper in return. "Yes. Did you know that I'm gay?" Seattle was intending to reply but was kept from doing so when their lips finally met. It was perfect for a first kiss; soft, gentle, and brief. When they separated, they were still mere inches apart as Seattle thought up a witty response. "I do now." She earned a chuckle from her partner at that. Phillis gave Seattle a pat on the arm as she raised her voice to normal speaking level and retreated to average conversation distance. "So, Soph- Seattle. How about a dinner date?" “Sounds perfect." Written on May 6, 2015Rain puttered about on the sidewalk, dripping off the glass overhang of the Seattle Public Library which shielded Sophia and her history book. The sounds of the city surround her; cars, construction, the steady stream of rain. She perched on a cement planter outside the front door, awaiting the arrival of her "students" and reading up on the mortals' description of the Great Seattle Fire, looking through the few black-and-white pictures. Her pupils began trickling in one by one, finding seats on the damp ground or beside Seattle. She checked her watch when it felt about time; it was, so she shut her book and looked around at the heckle of college age kids around her. Her eyes strayed on a particularly familiar face, but one she hadn't seen at one of her unofficial classes before; Phillis sat cross-legged directly in front of her on the mostly dry sidewalk, a strange smile on her face. "Phillis! I didn't expect to see you here, are you joining my class? I was about to begin," Seattle said with a genuine smile. "I might, actually. I have a question first, though. I was doing some research here at the library- looking through some archives and such, some pictures- when I found this particularly interesting photo." At this she pulled a small photo out of her pocket. It looked a bit faded, and was definitely older than Phillis was, but was in otherwise spectacular condition. It depicted the Great Seattle Fire; a few people in particular working hard to fight it, while one kneeled among them, clearly quite distressed. "Do you know who this person is? I thought she looked familiar, and you're a huge Seattle history buff, so I figured you might know," Phillis asked, pointing to the woman sitting on her knees with her hands gripping her silky black hair. Her face was just barely visible in the photo, lit by the flames. It looked like Seattle. Hell, it was Seattle, but of course there was no way for Phillis to know that, mere mortal as she was. And Seattle wasn't sure she could tell her. "No idea," she responded. "Really, Sophia? I don't know, man, she looks awfully familiar. Take another look." Phillis' tone told Seattle all she needed to know; Phillis was sure it was her and was angry that she wasn't owning up to or explaining it. Shit. Seattle lowered her voice so only Phillis could hear. "…Alright. I'll explain when I get home. When we're in a more private setting. I have to teach my class now." Phillis took back the photo and nodded curtly, already turning to leave as Seattle commenced her informal lesson about the history of the Seattle Underground, burn scar aching on her side at the memory of the Fire. Written on May 1, 2015 Seattle stood in the middle of the street, hands nearly ripping out clumps of her black hair, watching her city burn in front of her eyes, wetted not just by the smoke. Everything around her was a flurry of motion, people working to put out the relentless fires. She felt sick- not just figuratively, but literally sick. She swayed and dropped to her knees. Between her lightheadedness and the relative darkness of the night, brightened only by the flames, she could see very little of what was happening around her. A flash of white light informed her that a picture was taken (probably for the Seattle Times) just before she blacked out completely.
It wasn’t until the city itself had recovered that Seattle was completely healthy again. She still retained a bit of a burn scar, which decided to situate itself just below her ribs on the left side of her waist. She still wears it with pride as a reminder of what remains as the Seattle Underground. |
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