The Spirit Twin Swords

Once, there was a girl with the spirit of twin swords. 

One sword of her soul burnt with the flame of a venomous vitriol, 

A volcano that pushed fear down the hills. 

The other sword also hidden in her,

Sent waters crashing through breached enclaves

Relieving the hottest, driest earth.

Whether flooding or burning was her nature,

It was not known further until 

She could heal while killing, reducing to ashes

Armies and troops that stood in her way at battle

Which she had won and still won again,

With or without the twin swords on her hands. 

It was as if all the Gods came in to the right rescue,

When girl appeared before the hundred weak ones 

Having threatened knives nicked at their necks.

On the wish of a destitute, she is called out to

The spirit swords carefree to enter into a vicious force with her.

Where fiery aggression can be smothered by a wet douse

As she swung both blades

Bitter, battered clanks against shields of the enemy front. 

None of the villagers believed she can ever be defeated,

And placed a lasting belief she is the destiny defender of the lands. 

As time goes by more wars broke, were fought and came victorious,

But Girl grew weaker each day.

Both swords were slowly cutting away into her,

Stabbing into her bones and bleeding her veins,

But she had the strength to carry out a will to succeed. 

And so one night, the dragon of the twin swords spoke to her in her sleep.

There was the third sword presented and raised at her to receive, 

This one capable of carrying the weight of both swords

And puts all pain into faith, and cruelty into compassion.

So now the spirit of the twin grew larger than before,

Girl no longer had to suffer anymore because the third sword

Was the lost love and grace that the twin wanted to restore.

- Vander

Disclaimer: All poetry and fiction here are original material written by Vander, or Vania (me). Please note that all text references, descriptions and indications are purely fictional (make-believe if you didn’t know what fiction is!) and is in no relation to any actual entities).

Dead At 40 Part 2 [Thriller Story]

Part 2 written by Vander of Lifebly (All references and descriptions are fictional.)

Today’s October 21, 2021. As of now, I am currently working as a bartender in Oasis, a local pub in town. Last year, I’ve spent plenty of vacation time in Paris, and in so returning to normalcy sends me back home to work again. There are lots of time on my hands even as I wait on tables and customers at this time, being overstaffed today and our waiters puttering about across the floor. I pick up the used coasters, cleaned it on the counter and placed it back on the rack. It is about 9.00 pm and my shift ends in one more hour. The after-work group of white collar workers are grouping up and occupying more spaces in the outdoor area. My eyes seem to fixate on the new lot of Merlot bottles in a crate and my attentiveness stupefied into a blank gaze on the fermented red. My suicide plan to take my own life on 26 December 2022 still stands, slowly being prepared and my life, pushed into alarming brevity, active and taken into perspective as it draws closer to its last breathing months.

These days, it is all about tying up loose ends, all the ones that should be taken care of, with cautious care. They can leave you a little sad sometimes, if not, disoriented from your true directive, posing extra questions and creating stirs of distractions to leave you kind of rattled with minute regrets. I made sure the finances were in check first, going through my bank accounts and services I’ve used, settling the remaining debts to be paid before October 2022, and writing will papers that will be used for insurance. Unusually, my insured policy allows death claims from suicide. Ah, insurance. Who gets the money when I’m gone? Well, I suppose in this case it is my parents, whom I presume might take the cash out for a casino run. Also, I went through all my belongings and have decided to donate most pieces away to a few friends and neighbours, including furniture, appliances, clothes and any other household items. A rather short list of my vintage possessions will be given away to the local thrift store, delivery date and timings arranged. Some other personalised letters will be written to my grandmother, two best friends of mine, and to a lady at the Paris hotel whom I’ve chatted with for hours.

On the day of my actual suicide attempt, only one backpack will be left behind to hold all the important tools in carrying out the intended act of self-death. Snap! My thoughts were interrupted when one customer hollered for an extra shot of gin. So I took out an empty glass, poured it from a bottle and brought it out on a tray to his table. Then I scooted over to the old, black walnut bar counter, cleaning the surface with a rag, sure to wipe the corners and fronts to prevent stains. Quickly checking the tabs of customers, I scribbled some notes onto the sides of the sheets so that the next shift’s bartenders would notice. Then Ragle, the old man, owner of Oasis told me, “Hey, you can go. I’ve got this.” Glad in relief, I said, “Ok, I’ve did the tabs. Is there anything else you need before I leave?” Old man picked up the menu and faced me for a while before going on, “Nothing, Doris is right behind you, she’s at the kitchen and will be here.” Oh, Doris. That midget Ariana Grande-wannabe with the big lips. She takes on the next shift, I recalled in my head. “Right, I’ll be out, bye Ragle.” Gently, I removed my apron, folded it neatly and placed it on the shelf below the counter. Ragle went on to the back to speak to the house chefs.

Disclaimer: All poetry and fiction here are original material written by Vander. Please note that all text references, descriptions and indications are purely fictional (make-believe if you didn’t know what fiction is!) and is in no relation to any actual entities.

Dead At 40 Part 1 [Thriller Story]

Part 1 written by Vander of Lifebly (All references and descriptions are fictional.)

Sometimes we just want someone to save us. It can be difficult. When no one else will. We begin the process of healing when there is somebody pulling us out from the brink of death. Truth be told, most people won’t ever save you on the count of self-reliance attuned as an obvious. You are supposed to know that as an adult well enough. Or better else behave, if not.

At exactly 26 December 2022, on my 40th birthday, I will die by my own will of hanging, on a noose of my liking at least. I have decided this to be the best way to end it, once and for all, in the cleanest most possible humane way I could think of should someone come forth bumping accidentally to unravel my expired body. Before this, on 25 December 2022, on my last Christmas, I shall have the finest feast on the table at my favourite bistro and drink up to gratified fulfilment, while admiring the extraordinary night view under the circumstances a messy exuberant crowd can never ruin the beautiful evening. It is a hypothetical fairytale of mine that should a man join me at this table in meeting this delightful hour, I may seek great pleasure in his brief acquaintance. But I guess, this won’t ever happen when my appearance falters in today’s virile expectations.

So, what do you think of an individual who plans one’s own death by their own will? Is it somewhat disappointing, a pity actually to be despised on, or an outpouring of empathy or sympathy from within? I have to say, it sure is everything and more you can imagine.

Now, I’ve had a displaced childhood. Basically, two decades of hurt, neglect, terrorizing trauma, tolerating as much as I could alongside abusive parents. Real parents turned crazy reckless ballistic, supposed-to-shoulder-domestic-responsibilities actual, biological parents. Everyday of my wholesomely tragic life, they would pierce halfway smoked cigarette butts into my arms and legs. On top of that, breaking alcohol bottles to slit and rip my tanned skin. I was born tanned, quite not in their favor indeed. Still, grievances have to run deep. Once I had a 9 centimeter slash near my elbow area bleeding so quickly till I lost my ground, plunging head first at the door I tried to hold still. Out of guilt, mom drove and carried me to the hospital. Life was completely turbulent and nothing could ever change. I shivered everyday in the midst of mom and dad’s presence as they smiled and threw a fit. I was the daughter they didn’t love; though they always said they did everything out of love, while dealing a razing blow to my flesh. I was always apologizing to people for fear they would hurt me like my parents at whatever I did. I had been wronged, but felt the world had been right like I absolutely, in annoyance deserved it. Yes, I was the girl who felt like the world gave her up, sold her away and disappeared. 

I let my hair down outside the terrace rooftop of a beautiful hotel in Paris, took out a lighter, pulled out a cigarette in my pocket and lit a flame to the stick. I don’t smoke, but yesterday someone at the lobby thought I could use one and passed it to me while I sat waiting for my room to be ready for check-in. Now as it is, a bright, airy, and warm morning at 8 am as I leaned my bruised arms against the rails of the roof terrace. From this height, I looked casually onwards the vehicle traffic accumulating downstairs while I let the cigarette burn its run, smoke curling, ashes scattering to billowy winds. The smell of tobacco rising had me wanting to throw up and there I remembered my parents’ ciggies indented into my epidermis. Again, a chill hovered through my bones and I was afraid to move. Beats of my heart seem to palpitate faster, and a feeling of sickened malaise followed. As if obsessed, I rolled up my long sleeves to examine the several bruises on my left arm including the scarred smears left by the countless cigarettes. Left arm held up pretty well despite the most pain inflicted to it. There were too many of these, and honestly, these scars hurt. Forever. Mentally. Depriving. So there it is, akin to a leper woman of lesions, never going to be a dainty damsel, saved by a knight in any armour. This ugly of mine can never tempt any wise hearts of gentlemen. 

Stepping back into the room, I took out a diary and placed it on a round table next to the bed. The “diary” is a cheap notebook with empty unlined papers, scored off a little bookstore down the street. I wrote some notes into the page on the decisive plans to die on my 40th birthday. Soon to be happening next year. It’s October 2021 now, and the novel coronavirus from last year had weathered out pretty successfully, unbound from its shackles after a potent vaccine was introduced in early February to be distributed worldwide for release. It was also last year that removed me from my job as an air stewardess, a pandemic misfortune beckoning resignation after 5 years up in the air, waiting on VIP passengers in private charter planes. Our uniform black long-sleeves and long pants are like the stately enemies to wealthy clients, but they hid my scars well and are blankets of comfort.

Disclaimer: All poetry and fiction here are original material written by Vander. Please note that all text references, descriptions and indications are purely fictional (make-believe if you didn’t know what fiction is!) and is in no relation to any actual entities.

Wall Of Hands Part 1 [A Horror Story]

Part 1  written by Vander of Lifebly (All references and descriptions are fictional.)

At 4 am, I saw a ghost of the past on a chair. It had the slightest grey tint of a shadow with white hands resting on the armrest. Completely still, it bore an air of ill displacement and sad misfortune. It’s frayed old attire suggested someone from the 1930s or 40s period, but I couldn’t even tell for what decade the dress code was as a person dropping out and having flung history lessons. I narrowed my eyes, fixated but drew it back as I got tired identifying the clothing’s era on that apparition. Learning and remembering history was mundane pain in class even as a college freshman who bothered to pen notes on paper on the side. Yes, call me dumb in my head, but truthfully honest and innocent at heart. You may perceive me as pure, I don’t know. And oh, by the way. I hate ghosts. Not because I fear them, but I see them all the time. Most days, they just have a little unfinished business and keep a distance. This one though, had a grieving darkness I could not quite grapple and understand. Something like a thicker fog, which never clears the path but grows heavier till it wolfs down everything. It had an overwhelming tenacious weight that could suck you in instantly, like a magnet being pulled into the unknown which likely kills in a second without warning, if one may imagine. 

Now, you may ask me. Why the hell am I looking at this ghost right now? Well, I was, working on my term assignment. It was homework at the ungodly hour, burning the midnight oil away. I had troubles sleeping so I got up to work on it two days before the deadline was due. I needed to get it done now, so I could use the extra time for a new part-time job at the ice cream store that just opened two weeks ago. I’ve nailed the interview for that, and it starts tomorrow, after class. Jolly great. Saving more money to move out of my step-parents’ home. Right, my current mom and dad are not my real parents. Just my parents’ friends who had indulged in collective sympathy, adopting me home into their household one day after the car accident that left everyone in my family dead, including my baby brother, here I solely survived. I was not at the scene, and I wasn’t really crying my balls out even then. Staring at the ceiling for almost a year and remaining practically mute throughout wherever I went was all I did, basically, for mourning. 

Gawd, this ghost looked a gruesome dead. It reeked of a peculiar sour stench, like a decayed dumpster of overexpired carcasses and all foul things in a morose. As I sniffed and unassumingly let out a leaky outlet of nasal sounding, the ghostly figure turned its face at me as though it heard. That thing revealed its eyes in a split second, parts of its eyelids exposed in convulsing flesh while registering my presence. Stunned to the bone in sobriety, I let out a scream. Bolting across the living area, tripping over my sleeping dog (this one’s absolutely too stoney for it’s own good) albeit balancing my fall with sturdy arms aligned to a pivot crawl up the stairs, I darted straight to my room, ducking right away into the covers of my bed. Trembling and fumbling at any pillow to hide my head properly well, to brace contact if it arises. That…….that, that, tttthhhh, that…that was a hideous, Machiavellian face of resentment and rancorous destruction which lost the whole damn darn way, possibly a hell’s league from anything quite remotely good. Or should I say already tarnished the sacred? I panicked, heart racing in action for a fight or flight. The whole night I quivered in fear and did not shut either eye for an hour. By morning, my drained energy drove me quite insane but I picked myself up for school anyway. Shit, I’ve actually hustled to school on time. On both numb, jellied feet.

The event of a ghastly encounter last night kept me awake all the way till lunch. It made me irrationally pacing back and forth, destabilised and frightened than ever at the mere thought of it where our eyes met, discharging a repulsive terror none the least anticipated or preferred. My lunch tray which was a sandwich and a milk carton was left untouched as I huddled alone in a corner at the noisy canteen. That memory of a creepy insidious face compelled my turtle-shell life to end ruptured in chaos to confront and vouch if whatever that entity was in any, anyyy bit normal. Sure didn’t look like Halloween rehearsal! Hours later, when classes ended, I rang up the ice cream store with the best excuse of being sick in period pains, scoring the day’s off successfully, the smartsy bailed part-timer. I must investigate that nightmare of a figure I saw. Now, my curiosity is leading the madness in my head. Going towards the school hallway and into the library doors, I removed my laptop from my tote swiftly turning it on and sweatily start looking up on that evil with monstrous white hands. Mentally hungry for clues, I banged in the keywords that came to my mind and a pool of related search results appeared. A linked article caught my eye instinctively at interest, insinuating me to select a news headline which said, “Scientist, dead in hill’s house found with collection of murdered hands”. As I begin to read on hastily, an intense wave of fatigue caught on, snapped me off and before long, my body caved in as I collapsed on the floor of the library.

Disclaimer: All poetry and fiction here are original material written by Vander. Please note that all text references, descriptions and indications are purely fictional (make-believe if you didn’t know what fiction is!) and is in no relation to any actual entities.

The Zepia Rebirth, Chapter 1 Part 4

Excerpt from The Zepia Rebirth (Fiction Story) by Vander. (Please note all references and descriptions are purely fictional and are not in relation to real world entitles).

Chapter 1, Part 4:

As Captain, I had to brave the storms far more often than my people were led to think. Leader of 25 select soldiers in a special unit King Xarv had planned as contingency to his infirmities, if any. His highness named us the Valors. I strived to my utmost ability never to disappoint him, as he had brought me up like a son often than not and cherished me in paternal affection. As a kid without real parents, I never felt like I needed any form of attention from anyone. It was widely accepted that men and women could genetically clone or create their children from normative bioanalytics in Zepia, but I was born directly from the lab of the Xars hood based on the king’s imprint. This was the king’s order, where a decision was made to pass down his genetic information into a body scrutinized, picked and forged by his choice. All kings, predecessors and successors however, are always the result of Xarv marriages consummated and birthed from royal mothers.

So far, six other bodies were similarly made from Xars laboratories and they had lived to be great warriors, each of them leaving their mark in history. At 22, I was the 7th surviving King Xarv-engineered human. Strong and fit like a bull, although impatient and rebellious throughout. I had broken the ribs of soldiers, severed the heads of thousands and ready for wars no living could imagine. King Xarv had continuously encouraged me as he saw each time what I did. Any time before I head out for a battlewich, which in our language, a war of good, he would brief cautions only to use my strength for morality and in saving lives (supposedly what Xars preached), and that I will be rewarded if I did so. Wars were so common and rampant between the planets and only Earth was spared, as it was peace on Earth that the Colonies would never taint. Earth was the untouchable, a place where I thought I could dream of retiring in someday. 

Sometimes the blood of our enemies reminds me that I was not so much a human as them. My blood was colder than theirs. I shivered about my kills when I got back to Twera, our base, laying in my bed twitchy, shell-shocked each time but pretended to be fine. I never had a day where I could restfully sleep. King Xarv knew about this and had prescribed anti-insomniac drugs to keep me in check. My sleep could only complete once I was medicated, and so I had a regular automatic dispenser of anti-insomniacs at bedside. From the day I was Captain at 16, I had already taken potent dosages of those, way before I was discharged as functional from the lab. They were administered by a click from the dispenser onto the skin, where a laser would penetrate underneath the epidermis and the formula released directly into my bloodstream. The formula was known as the Ellesse. Also, on top of my bed, there is a shelf with an automatic saber and firearm with a supercharge magazine. I keep that close to remind myself that, I am the Captain of the Valors and if I do get attacked in my sleep, there is always the immediate opportunity for revenge. I have seen a fair share of people not on my side, and there can only be so much of a wise. Better to be safe than sorry.

Disclaimer: All poetry and fiction here are original material written by Vander. Please note that all text references, descriptions and indications are purely fictional (make-believe if you didn’t know what fiction is!) and is in no relation to any actual entities.

The Zepia Rebirth, Chapter 1 Part 3

Excerpt from The Zepia Rebirth (Fiction Story) by Vander. (Please note all references and descriptions are purely fictional and are not in relation to real world entitles).

Chapter 1, Part 3:

The year was 5090, in Zepia, an independent planet. Time had progressed with man in the propagation of technological systems and the development of infrastructures in monumental leaps. Humans were taking control over their lives and had shaped their destiny. They had adapted and innovated an abstract post-modernity. Zepia Humans, or Zepians, began to multi-dimensionally print their food from tablets to the utmost precise texture and taste, drove cars into skies at rocket speeds, and cultivated green plants that no longer perished. Trading currency was in the form of points reflected on eye retinas on regular scans at electromagna shops. Fingerprints could also release buying points registered in their dermascopic material to merchants and the change of these points conducted at specific planetary stations. People worked and lived in soaring towers suspended in air due to Plancko-quantum gravity manipulating generators. Least paltry, the living population were not merely a forthcoming of the future – they were Gods of their own will. 

Our planet Zepia existed on its own right from the beginning, and was widely referred by our citizens as “The Colony”. My people call me Tyran, Captain of our Colony Militia, The Volkans. We served the King of our Colony Zepia, King Xarv, a just and gentle ruler, 16th descendant of the Xarv Royals. Our Colony fought in several war expeditions and kept out our long-time enemies from the North and South colonies of the galaxy. There were a couple of planets that we had heard about, such as the one we refer as N2E, natively termed ‘Earth’ - about their bountiful forestations, vast mountains and blue seas that never ceases to amaze us. We loved these stories when we were little, our parents reciting bewitching lines from a folklore book of their lands as we listened wide-eyed in disbelief until we nod our heads off blissfully into slumber. The weather in Zepia is almost always cold at 5 degrees, and our skin were so naturally thick to endure the extreme conditions but even still, our nation had fashioned the donning of hyperdown acrylic jackets and jumpsuits.

Disclaimer: All poetry and fiction here are original material written by Vander. Please note that all text references, descriptions and indications are purely fictional (make-believe if you didn’t know what fiction is!) and is in no relation to any actual entities.