#like i was experiencing the events but also my own disembodied voice was saying things like ''this is stupid why did he

[weepylucifer]

and why did i just have a dream about a booktok YA novel in which the love interest was palpatine

[ellistheauthor-blog]

Transformation Of A Soul

    This recollection of events leading up to my changing you are about to read may frighten you, but believe me when I say that is not my intent. In the aftermath of what I will soon do, as morbid as it seems, please don’t be distraught. I beg you to be at peace as I finally am. What I am about to inscribe within the pages of this journal is not about death as humankind knows it, but of transformation. 

    My given name was Matthew. I was the third to hold that title in my family, sharing the name with both my father and grandfather. I grew up with a desire to serve my community and fulfilled this calling by becoming a firefighter. A job I held until just recently when my mind’s eye opened, planting the seeds to what would ultimately become my evolution. The reconciling of the physical and spectral realms. I’m sorry if I’m confusing you, whoever you are. I have gotten ahead of myself. Let me bring you back to where this beautiful transformation began. Please keep an open mind. 

    Early in the morning four months ago, I was in bed at work when my crew was awoken by the tones, followed by the disembodied voice of dispatch assigning us, as well as the next four closest units, to a structure fire. I was tailboard for the shift, meaning I rode in the back of the engine and was responsible for establishing water supply to the truck and fighting fires from inside structures, if conditions warranted it, with my Lieutenant, Manny Gamallo. 

    The building was a moderate size, similar in stature to a three-story home. When we pulled up, we noticed the structure was a temple with architecture reminiscent of the buildings you’d see in Japan. We were the first unit in. I dropped lines, caught the nearest hydrant, and dragged the charged hose through the front door, Gamallo pulling the excess behind me. 

    Beyond the door, the interior of the temple was pitch black. Its contents were hidden within a curtain of smoke, and silent apart from the hiss of our regulators with every inhale. Following the growing heat of the inferno, we made our way blindly through the maze until we found the stairs. An amber glow dawned over the top, illuminating the wispy tendrils of smoke in the doorway. Gamallo swore as we rushed up the stairs. Fighting fire was a race to the attic. Attics are giant voids of space, providing a fire with a buffet of oxygen and fuel. When a fire made it to an attic, it could spread anywhere. 

    We emerged over the top of the stairs to what seemed to be a worship room. The wood had been burned black and was littered with the charred remnants of several prayer rugs. My eyes were drawn to the pixelated orange and yellow blur of flames obscured within the smoke. My hand tightened on the nozzle as I stepped forward and aimed the hose towards the seat of the fire. But I didn’t open it. I tried with every ounce of energy within me to unleash the barrage of water, but I couldn’t. My arms were locked in place—paralyzed—my mind perplexed by the sight before me. 

    Emerging from the parting haze like a lighthouse cutting through the morning fog was a metal shrine. It resembled a capital H with a roof on top and fences along the sides. Sitting Indian Style in the center with hands tucked neatly in its lap was a life-sized wooden carving of a man. We had found the fire; it surrounded the shrine after making quick work of the rest of the destroyed contents within the room. However, what stopped Gamallo and I in our tracks was the realization that the shrine and statue within were utterly untouched. The flames rolled along the perimeter of the shrine, but it never reached in to seize the wooden man. 

    The expression carved on the idol’s face was a look of pure bliss; an expression that seemed to say I am surrounded by danger, yet I am safe within myself. I’m not sure exactly how much time elapsed since being confronted by the fire around the shrine, but it must have been too long for my Lieutenant’s liking. Manny swore behind me, telling me in his words, to stop fucking around. 

    I regained use of my arms. As my gloved hand tightened around the nozzle, my attention fell once more to the wooden man, causing a gasp to escape me. It seemed, for just a passing moment, that the wooden man was alive. For, I could have sworn his eyes, which were turned away just a moment earlier, were now focused upon me. The fire lashed forward, taking advantage of the gaps in the metal gate. The wooden man was seized by the flames. I took a step back and opened the nozzle. 

    The fire hissed as it met the water, falling back like a cowering dog before transforming into a black cloud. Naturally, once being extinguished, the smoke would rise to the ceiling and dissipate. However, for a lingering moment, the black wisps hung elegantly in the air—seemingly watching me—before fading. 

                                                                —

It wasn’t until a week had passed that I truly began to feel the weight of what I had witnessed within that old temple. In my nine years with the department, I had fought dozens of fires, and not once did a fire behave in that way—defying all laws of physics. The shrine had several openings along each side, yet the flames shuffled along the edges as if repelled by something within. 

The wooden man. My mind was brought back to the idol. How it gazed straight ahead one moment, then looked towards me the next. Except it wasn’t just that. There was something else; the carving’s expression had changed. When he looked at me, there was something in those mahogany eyes of his that told me there was a force far beyond my comprehension at play in the temple. Looking back, I know that to be true; the room was alive with a palpable energy unlike any I’d ever felt. It hadn’t unsettled me, but it also hadn’t given me a good feeling. The sensation had been a strong, pulling force, devoid of any emotion attached to it. Truly neutral. 

I tried to recreate the path of the smoke when the fire was extinguished in my mind. Instead of dispersing, it had curled in on itself as if it were caught in a vacuum. It pulled together, becoming almost solid, then it grew weak, widened, and dispersed. All of those things couldn’t have been coincidences, I told myself. It was impossible. Though I had always been a skeptic, I couldn’t help but entertain the thought that there may have been something supernatural at play in the temple. I decided to at least keep an open mind. That is when my journey truly began.

                                                            —

Visions I had once perceived as nightmares started coming to me nightly a few weeks later. I had grown to believe I would never receive the answers I hoped for, and then, as if by some divine intervention, I was shown spectacular dreams in my sleep. The dreams would begin the same way; it would be completely black—a darkness of unfathomable depth. I would suddenly become aware of my surroundings, but I wouldn’t be in control of my body because there was no body to inhabit. I was simply a collective form of energy and consciousness floating in the void. 

Just ahead in the center of my view, two amber orbs would ignite. The orbs always hovered parallel to each other as they came towards me. They tracked me—studied me. I came to recognize these as eyes made of fire. When it was just a mere foot or two from me, the orbs would flare, briefly illuminating the outline of a solid black, featureless face behind those beautiful eyes. The first time I witnessed this, I was quickly overcome by a sense of deja vu. Whatever this being was, it became apparent that it was the same force I felt in the temple. It was an entity of immense power.

The first night I dreamt of this unnamed deity I had woken up before I could learn more of its origins. Every night for the month following, the dreams became more vivid, going from being mere dreams to epiphanies. Every night I encountered it, I was able to stay in that realm of consciousness a little longer; I could feel my spirit growing stronger with each passing night. 

It wasn’t until I could witness the coming of this fire-eyed deity without even the faintest trace of fear that it began to speak to me. I was impatient at first, seeing something of such an infinite magnitude but being given no answers. But, looking back, I am thankful it waited to speak, for if it had spoken to me the first night I saw it, I am sure my mind wouldn’t have been able to handle it. The deity spoke to me through the void in a voice I noticed as my own. As it spoke, I felt a sensation rising within me. I could feel the deity speaking through me, except it said things unknown to myself. 

You are becoming something greater than yourself. It would say, before following it with what sounded like a warning. Others will either avoid you or grow cold. Man will mistreat you. Take this as inspiration: man fears what man is incapable of understanding. Man shuns the unknown; opting to remain ignorant of the true world beyond their bubble of reality. 

The vision would end here each night the first week I had it, allowing me to process what it was telling me fully. As much as I tried to ignore that sense within myself that I hadn’t experienced a simple recurring dream of great vividness, I couldn’t help but know deep down that it was right. I was changing—for better or for worse, I did not know at the time, yet I always felt its lingering presence within the depths of my mind.

I worked three times following my first encounter with the deity. We work twenty-four hours on, followed by forty-eight hours off. Life at the station seemed different when I returned. My coworkers behaved strangely. They spoke in whispers in the dayroom while I was out in the bay or the bunkroom, only to go silent mid-sentence when I would enter. I could feel their eyes burning into my skin when I was turned away, yet when I’d look back, their eyes would wander. Whenever I walked past, they’d shift in their seats to avoid accidentally touching me. When I left the room, the whispers resumed. I could have stayed by the door and eavesdropped if I so desired, but that wouldn’t be what my new companion would want. 

The next month I grew closer to my nightly visitor; a special bond bound us together with an energy more powerful than the pull of two magnets. I had found a sense of comfort when in the presence of the deity I hadn’t known before. In that dark realm, I felt at home. I could tell this being shared a similar sentiment. 

The deity revealed itself to me in a show of trust gained between us. Its eyes burned brighter, revealing its pure form. The outline of a man’s body floated before me. An athletic build, the body was made three-dimensional by a shade of black darker than the night around it. The shadow moved in the pattern of rolling waves—the smoke from the temple fire. For the first time, I found my voice. 

I looked into the fire of its eyes and asked the deity who it was and where it came from. It reached out one of its melting, solidifying, and melting again hands and extended it towards where my body would be if I were physically in this realm. Ice ran through the veins in my sleeping body as I felt its arm cross between dimensions into this world. It was trying to show me something, perhaps another vision, but the force of its touch caused me to awaken with a jolt. 

I had returned to my bedroom. The sheets were moistened with sweat, and goosebumps rose along my shirtless body from the chilling breeze of the fan overhead. For a brief moment, I believed I would find my companion standing beside the bed, but he wasn’t. It seemed he had tried to cross over but couldn’t quite manage it. A profound sense of sadness filled me at this thought. I was alone again. 

My head was clouded as I drove to work two hours later. I had trouble thinking about anything other than my latest encounter with the deity, and my muscles occasionally twitched as surges of ice sludged through my veins. I wasn’t sick. I had checked my temperature: the thermometer reading a perfect 98.6 degrees. I didn’t have a headache, either. My mind felt fuzzy as if my soul had become trapped between realms. I barely felt like how I did just six months ago, but it was for the better. An overwhelming sense of change now filled me. I could feel myself becoming something greater. 

I got into work half an hour later. I began my morning duties of checking off the engine, but my mind was still caught in the space of limbo between realms. The rest of the crew avoided me more than ever now. Whenever I would glance over my shoulder at one of the doors leading into the dayroom, I’d see one of them standing behind the glass, peering curiously out at me like I was an animal in the zoo. I guess that isn’t so far off; I did feel trapped. My mind was moving a million miles a minute; my soul yearning to escape, but I was stuck inside my own head.

                                                               —  

A call for a house fire came out later that same day. It was evening, and we had just placed dinner on the table. We pulled in, once more being the first unit on scene. I was going to head in with Gamallo, following the two-in-two-out rule, but when I advanced into the home, Gamallo must have gone to grab something from the engine, because he wasn’t behind me when I entered. I could feel the presence of the deity radiating from the house as I crossed the threshold. 

My lungs pulled in oxygen through the airtight seal in my mask as I winded through the corners of the home following the distant orange glare. Pulling a fully charged hose isn’t so hard when you have someone assisting you, but by yourself, it feels like an anchor strapped to your back. After an exhausting few minutes, I emerged into the kitchen of the home. 

It was a standard kitchen fire. The family had neglected to clean oil and grime from the top of the stove. The build-up had ignited, causing a fire to roll over the top and sides like a mushroom cloud. When I came into range of the oven, the fire changed trajectory. It seemed to almost stand up as it grew wider, now engulfing the entire counter on each side. The hose tucked under my arm and nozzle in hand, I could feel the hum of water ready to be released. However, I paused. I hadn’t lost use of my arms like I had in the temple; I had been stopped by a new case of inner turmoil. 

Sweat dribbled down my forehead and dripped into my eyes, causing them to sting. The fire burned brighter and reached closer. The entire stove, pantry, and counters were now fuel within the fire’s belly. The nozzle was fixed on the center of the flames, but I couldn’t bring myself to open it. Staring into the blinding light rising from the depths of the flames, I could see my deity reaching out for me as he did in my last vision. To extinguish his physical self would be to reject him. 

Sudden bliss overcame me, causing my head to grow light with euphoria. The nozzle slipped from my grasp as my legs went numb with the ecstasy one can only know when overcome by the presence of their God in the flesh. I collapsed, landing on top of the hose behind me. In the background, the sound of Gamallo and a few others called out to me, but I could barely hear them. My restless mind had finally stopped stirring; I was at peace in the presence of my deity. My companion reached one flaming tendril of an arm out to me. Fire kissed the outer layer of my turnout pants and began spreading up my legs. If it hurt, I did not know, for I felt nothing. A smile grew over my lips. I closed my eyes; welcoming my deity with open arms. 

                                                            —

I came to an undisclosed time later. I was being buckled to the stretcher. All of my turnout gear apart from the pants had been removed. Sweat drenched my navy undershirt, turning it almost black. Without saying a word, I sat up straight. The EMT and Medic currently buckling the seatbelts flinched. They looked at me, bewilderment lost within their eyes. My head spinning, I struggled to remove the buckles from myself. I insisted I was okay. I told them my name, where I was, and what day of the week it was to prove that I was alert and oriented to my surroundings. They shrugged and assisted me off the stretcher after lowering it halfway. 

I passed my crew on the way back to the engine. Gamallo approached me and said something, but my mind didn’t process what. I was angry at him and the rest of the rescue crew with him. They may think they saved me, but they didn’t. They damned me—cursed me to live another day trapped in this prison of flesh. I just prayed my deity wouldn’t be disappointed with me. When we returned to the station, I informed my Lieutenant that, concluding the shift, I would not be returning to work.

The following night I had another rendezvous with my deity. Whenever I would ask it questions, it would usually not respond. I see now that it wasn’t dodging what I asked; I had simply not been asking the right questions. I had been thinking a lot about my own changing identity, especially in the twenty-four hours leading up to this crucial meeting. As the collected energy of my soul floated amongst my deity, the right question came to me. 

“Who am I?” I asked. 

My deity watched me through his burning eyes in silence, processing my question. 

“Or... what am I?” 

Finally, it spoke. You are Kami. 

“What does that mean?”

 Here you are Kami. In your realm you are Kami trapped in the flesh. Bound by the chains of humanity. 

 Although I didn’t know what it meant by Kami, I could feel my true identity burning inside me like a fire starved of oxygen. I had grown tremendously since meeting my deity, but now I felt that I had hit a wall. 

  “What are you?” I had asked this once before when first meeting the deity, but it had ignored me. Now, it knew I was ready for the truth. 

  I am Kami. 

 “You are me?”

  That is partially true. Are you familiar with the Christian belief in the Trinity

  “It’s grown fuzzy.” 

  We are both Kami, yet we are each individual. We haven’t reached our full potential. We are the final two pieces in an intricate and fantastic cosmic puzzle lying separated on a tabletop. I have searched for you for a thousand years and just now found you. 

 At this moment, I realized there was something crucial that had to be done. “What do I do?”

The reunification. 

 With that, Kami’s eyes grew dim and went out. As I drifted into consciousness, I heard it speak one last time. Cleanse the spirit. 

 I woke up this morning knowing what must be done to complete this ritual of reunification of man and the Gods. Cleanse the spirit. Echoed in my mind as a confirmation of what I had realized to be true. 

                                                          —

    I sit on the floor in the center of my living room. All of the furniture has been relocated to the basement. I have removed the television, all lamps and clocks, and tables. The room is empty apart from myself and the candles in the corners. I sit as I was born into this world; untainted by the humanity of clothes. I am pure. I will free myself. The reunification will be completed; I am Kami. 

My skin stings and has grown red from the gasoline, but I don’t mind. The smell of gas emanates from the floor, causing me to become slightly dizzy. The moonlight shines in through a window, radiating the lines starting at the base of each candle and running to me. Wax soaks into the corners as the candles continue to melt. The fire has reached the halfway mark. The final, and most important, step in my transformation will soon begin. 

I will place these letters in the metal box sitting on my lap. Though I’ve become detached from this world and the humans sinning within it, I still believe those who were my friends and family deserve an explanation to what has occurred. I am sure it will be hard for you reading this to process what has happened. Just be reminded that it isn’t grotesque; it is beautiful. 

                                                     — 

 The fire was put out at three-thirty in the morning. It had burned for six hours, only growing stronger the more water the responding crews placed on it. The firefighters were baffled by the difficulty in putting out the blaze. Many of them joked that the fire was fighting them back. 

When the fire was finally extinguished, the small home lay in ruins. The crews shuffled through the charred remnants of the house doing overhaul. It looked like the occupant had been in the process of moving. All the furniture had been piled neatly in the basement. The living room, where the fire had started, was stripped bare. 

The cause of the fire was quickly deemed an arson. Four distinct burn patterns in the shape of a V were tucked in each corner of the empty living room. All pointed towards the center of the room which, oddly enough, was the only unburned portion of the entire home. A neat white circle sat in the center of the room amongst the ash like a spotlight. In the center of the unburned circle was a metal box. 

                                                       END.

[kcwcommentary]

VLD1x12 – “Collection and Extraction”

1x12 – “Collection and Extraction”

Team Voltron is still working with Sendak’s memories. Coran says he doesn’t think Alfor would approve of their “searching through an enemy’s memories.” Why didn’t Coran object to doing it in the last episode when he was setting up the technology to do explicitly this? That’s a discontinuity.

The shot of Lance’s imagining himself standing on top of Zarkon with the winner flag and Allura hanging off him is just so… no. The cliché, stereotypical dude assigning a girl/woman as an object to acquire, someone who exists to fawn over him is just so… no.

At least Shiro seems to understand that they might be the new Paladins of Voltron, but they’re also only a few people, and not really experienced ones at that. There is a limit to what they’re capable of doing.

They get some coordinates out of Sendak’s memories, the location of those coordinates isn’t the most illuminative on their deep range scan, so they jet off to take a closer look, and they find the hub. It might just be me, but this location is the first that’s left me really feeling like we’re in space, dealing with a space-dominant antagonistic group. They want an even closer look, so Allura begins planning for them to infiltrate the base. Keith and Coran object, but Allura is calm, yet firm in explaining she knows more than any of the rest of them about Galra bases having been to them in the past. Coran looks to Shiro to support him, but Shiro (I love him!) accepts Allura as an active part of the team, not someone to be locked away in a castle. He’s so casual in his acceptance of her in this moment. It’s so great.

Their initial infiltration is easy. Pidge starts downloading Galra data, citing Hunk’s help, and Hunk geeks out for a moment on something technology related (this is the aspect of Hunk that I really like). Pidge’s info download doesn’t have any notable information. Allura realizes they can get the information they’re looking for from a ship that’s just docked/landed at the station. Allura then reveals that she can shapeshift, growing taller and turning purple. The ability to shapeshift is a big deal; I don’t think this show explores this aspect of Alteans anywhere near enough to satisfy having it in the show.

Shiro loses some on the issue of support by saying he can’t let her go alone, and Allura is all, “I do not need your permission.” Allura’s perspective is totally understandable, but it doesn’t necessarily match what Shiro’s said. I don’t know if this is a fault in the writing or the direction of the episode. Her reaction is as if he’s trying to keep her from going, but by the words specifically it’s more that he’s insisting she have backup. Whether it’s the writing or the direction, it’s just not as smooth as it could be.

Allura disguises herself in Galra armor and sneaks Shiro and herself onboard. This is the most we’ve seen of Galra in one location. Before this, it’s either been only ships or two or three Galra in person, making them feel sparse and their locations empty. There are enough Galra in this episode that this feels like an actual base. As much as Team Voltron has struggled against the Galra already, it has felt distant from the threat. This episode finally starts to make it feel like the Galra threat is present and immediate. Shiro has some more PTSD flashbacks, remembering how he escaped from the Galra and using that memory to his and Allura’s advantage now. It’s really fun seeing just the two of them working together.

Pidge, Hunk, and Lance are still in their first location. Pidge is actually working, Hunk is fidgety, and Lance… ugh. Lance is stuck in his sexual interest in Allura, wondering if she talks about him when he’s not there. Hunk makes fun of him for it. Why the show does this with Lance so damn much, I don’t know. It’s not endearing, it’s not interesting.

Concerned about what the Galra are transporting in some giant containers, especially once he sees one of Haggar’s Druids, Keith has left the group to go investigate on his own. He comes across a large room with the containers lining the walls and a system that drains the yellow from the containers, and upon being zapped by the Druid, creates a smaller container of purple stuff.

Allura and Shiro find some room where they think they can get the information they seek. Shiro uses his hand and fighting skills to take out the Galra, and while he works the computer system, Allura guards the door. A Galra comes and Allura runs interference. I love her in this moment. Her getting the commander’s name wrong when she tries to repeat it after the Galra says it, Shiro faking the commander’s voice, and the Galra confiding that he gets the commander’s name wrong all the time too… it’s great. I think it’s one of my favorite moments in this episode.

Keith transmits some visuals to Pidge and Coran, and the sentry Pidge has been hacking reveals the substance is quintessence. Coran doesn’t think it’s possible (I don’t know why since just a couple episodes ago, he was guiding Allura in how to give of one’s own quintessence to replenish another just by standing around). Coran continues saying he can’t believe the Galra have found a new way to acquire quintessence. Dude, you’ve been gone for 10,000 years while the Galra have been continuing on; I would be surprised if they hadn’t developed new techniques and technologies.

The Galra guard comes back to talk to Allura again, hoping to find a way to be reassigned. I like the dorkiness of the Galra, who assigns his bloodthirstiness level to be a 3 out of 5. This is honestly the first Galra that has actually had a personality, except for the disembodied voice of Sendak last episode. I can’t say it’s a good thing for it to take this long for the antagonists of a story to finally become interesting. I mean, this is the penultimate episode of the season after all. The base’s system finally recognizes Shiro’s there, and alarms are sounded. Allura and Shiro are on the run.

Keith ends up having to fight the Druid, who can teleport. I again think of how this show never explains the Druids (at least I don’t remember the show ever doing it), who they are, where they come from, and how they get their powers. This one has been shown to be a catalyzing effect on the quintessence refining process, so it wouldn’t make sense that they get their powers from quintessence if their powers are needed to process quintessence. I don’t need them explained right now though; it’s early enough in the show that their being a mystery is still fun. Keith’s hand gets injured in the fight, and later it seems like when he gets spilled quintessence on him it heals him? The whole injury/magic recovery was a bit confusing. Pidge comes with Green to save Keith. There’s something about the size of Green as the Lion smashes through the facility to get Keith that I really like.

Shiro and Allura make their way to an escape pod. The ship is getting ready to take off, adding pressure to their escape. It’s emotionally satisfying, but it’s not realistic. The ship, with alarms blaring and Shiro identified by the ship’s computer as being an escaped prisoner, and Galra running all over the ship trying to catch him and Allura, would not take off. Realistic procedure would be for the ship to handle the security breech first before ever launching. But here’s a demonstration of how this show can do something like that that is not thought out well, and while I note it, it doesn’t disrupt my ability to enjoy the events happening. If only the rest of the show was the same, but the glaring problems of the show’s later seasons undermine or inhibit the ability for the show to evoke my emotions like it does here.

Allura’s sacrifice, throwing Shiro in the escape pod to save him, and her subsequent capture is very emotional. The look on her face, the slight smile she has – she’s either feeling assured that her team will come rescue her or she’s comfortable knowing she’s saved him – it’s hits me right in the chest.

Shiro’s absolute determination that they’re going to follow and get Allura back is a strong ending for the episode. Not only does the episode end unresolved, it ends in a moment of crisis. That’s good tension leading into the finale. This season’s last two episodes are the best in the season. This is when I start really feeling the energy of what this show can do. It’s genuinely exciting.

[jarienn972]

The Inbetween - Chapter Two

I want to thank everyone for all of the lovely comments I've received on the first chapter of this story. This was a bit out of my comfort zone but it has been so much fun to write this story for @cssns and I have to thank @kmomof4 and everyone else involved with this event for putting it together!

Thanks again to @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 for her wonderful artwork and a great spirit booster as well! (Pun intended)  Also adding a reminder that this story will contain a non-consensual spirit possession so if this is an issue for anyone, I'm again giving ample warning.  

I was able to get a quick update in this week due to a change in my days off at work and future chapters will be posted over the next few Wednesdays.

Also in AO3 and FF.net  Tumblr: Chapter One

And now, here's Chapter Two!

:Hearing her father's voice above the crackling static of the radio was as welcome as a muse to Emma's ears. Tyler Sprat and his friends has been found so they could all now go home. While she hadn't had much of a chance to explore the butler's quarters before receiving David's message, she was glad there wasn't a need to. Compared to the lavish decor of the mansion, this section was like the thrift-store knock-off, filled with cheap furniture and a decades-old television that still had a rabbit-ear antenna. In truth, it was probably the creepiest place she'd seen in the entire property because it was like stepping back into one of the many foster homes of her childhood, none of which she wanted to revisit.

She was simply anxious to rejoin her husband and father so they could put this night behind them. Pulling the door to the butler's quarters closed behind her, she hurried back down the corridor leading to the kitchen. Emma didn't linger in that room at all, pushing through the swinging doors into the square room, then she passed through the propped open door into the dining hall. She paused at the sideboard to replace the candelabra she'd borrowed. Perhaps it was her imagination toying with her again, but she swore there was a faint whiff of smoke in the air - even before she blew out the four candles she'd been utilizing. She dismissed the improbable thought while she flicked the power button on the flashlight, readying it to light her path back to the vestibule. She was exhausted and eager to go home, but the next sound she heard sent chills all the way to her core and ushered in a gut-wrenching sense of deja-vu.

She heard her father's voice - but this time, it wasn't coming through the radio. He was shouting, loud enough that she could hear him clearly, but it was precisely what he was shouting that terrified her - Killian's name.

Still searching for a way to gain access to the possible attic space above him, Killian was naturally surprised to hear the sound of David's voice on the radio, especially his announcement that the three adolescents had been located. Perhaps his weary mind was playing tricks on him, but Killian was certain that the faint, distant voices were continuing to call to him. Maybe not to him per se, but they were undoubtedly attempting to communicate with someone. They whispered to him in jumbled phrases: "Can you hear us?" "Is it this one?" He wasn't able to make sense of all their messages, but clearly his ears betrayed him if these disembodied voices did not belong to the lads and lass they sought.

No matter, he thought, closing the door to one of the bed chambers as he turned back toward the staircase. The youngsters had been found and were safe with David so their work here was done and he could now happily return to the ground level to rejoin his wife. If all went as planned, he'd be tucked back into his own bed within the hour, and since technically this was still Emma's shift, he'd leave the infernal paperwork to her.

As he threw a quick glance over the railing before descending the curving stairs, he could make out a beam of light from an electronic torch illuminating the vestibule below him. David was speaking to the three teens, apparently chastising them for their reckless decision to enter this dwelling, but it was at the sound of one of the boys responding to David's questioning that Killian took pause on the top step. The entire time he'd been on the second floor, Killian had been certain that he'd been hearing the voices of those adolescents, but listening to the the boy's voice now, it most certainly did not match any he'd heard.

If he hadn't been hearing the missing teenagers speaking, just whose voices had he been listening to?

Was there someone else trapped in this damnable mansion too? He knew the previous Author, Isaac, had once been imprisoned here. Were there others?

"Everyone accounted for?" Killian called down to his father-in-law before taking another step.

"Just waiting on Emma," David replied, "but the rest of the gang is all here." Killian nodded an affirmative, not that David could see the movement of his head. There was sufficient light provided by his lantern and David's modern torch for Killian to clearly make out the shapes of four individuals standing in the entryway. So, shrugging off his lingering doubt, he placed his hand on the banister to guide his way in the dark, and continued his descent.

But then he heard it again, a tiny wisp in his ear: "Need this one…" Who was talking to him? Killian asked himself, pausing once again halfway down the stairs. He rotated his head, glancing back toward the landing above him just as the unseen force struck. Before he knew who or what had hit him, he found himself tumbling down the remaining steps. Unable to grasp anything that would help him gain purchase, momentum carried him to the marble floor at the bottom. There was a shout of his name in those fleeting seconds, but Killian wouldn't recall hearing it as his head and body collided with the unyielding marble and he swiftly succumbed to unconsciousness.

Hearing her father shouting Killian's name sent a renewed shiver down Emma's spine - David rarely used Killian's given name and there was alarm in his voice. The combination spurred a sense of urgency that sent her dashing out of the dining hall, through the darkness of the corridor towards the entryway, running as quickly as she could without fear of colliding with furniture or walls in the dim light. Reaching the vestibule, she stumbled into Killian's broken lantern before recognizing the silhouettes of her father, kneeling at the bottom of the stairs, and those of the three teenagers hovering above, but she couldn't make out where her husband was until she passed the staircase.

It took her a moment to realize that David was actually kneeling beside Killian as her husband was sprawled out on the floor, and he didn't appear to be moving. "Killian!" she exclaimed, dropping to her knees next to her father, momentarily ignoring the three gawking teens who'd drawn them into this mess in the first place. "What happened?"

"I don't really know," David replied, shifting to his left so his daughter could move in closer. "One minute, he was asking if everyone was accounted for, and I said everyone but you was here. Next thing I knew, he stopped halfway down the steps and looked up toward the landing like something startled him, and then he fell. It was like his feet slipped right out from under him and he tumbled down those last eight or nine stairs and hit the floor hard."

"Are you kidding me?" one of the boys spoke up, although David wasn't really sure which one was speaking. However, what the teen was about to say was going to change their perception of everything that they'd experienced. "He didn't fall - something came up behind him and pushed him!"

"Pushed him?" Emma almost didn't believe what she'd heard as she tried to determine how severely her husband might be injured. "What do you mean? Who pushed him?"

"I can't really say it was a who. More like a what…" the boy continued. "I think it was the same shadowy blob we've been chasing all night…"

Shadowy blob? Emma tried to contemplate exactly the boy's description meant as her fingertips found a swollen bump at Killian's temple, figuring there would be a matching one on the back of his skull based on how he'd landed. "He's got a nasty bump here, but I can't see if there's anything worse because it's too dark."

"Hook's lantern is shattered so it won't help. I've got another flashlight in the truck though," David offered. "I'll go get it and I'll be right back." David stood and directed his attention back to the teenagers. "You three - you're coming with me so I can get you home before your parents worry any more."

"But we want to know what happens…" Aiden said, his eyes pleading to stay, but David was having none of this.

"You're going home and so are we - as soon as Emma can make sure Hook's okay," David stated. "Let's go." David gave Aiden a little shove towards the front door but it was Tyler who reached it first. The teen turned the glass knob, but when he tried to tug the door open, it didn't budge.

"Sheriff..., the door won't open," Tyler stated. "I think it's locked."

"From the inside? We didn't lock the door when we came in," Emma said as she glanced over suspiciously.

"It won't do anything," Tyler reiterated, anxiety creeping into his voice, fearing they might be trapped again.

"Maybe it's just stuck?" David suggested as he gave it a try, but he also failed to open the front door. "He's right. It won't open but it isn't locked. It's like there's a force field or something holding it shut."

"Or a protective spell?" Emma shuddered, instantly reminded of this mansion's history.

"We're trapped in this house again, aren't we?" Aiden groaned, his excitement over chasing ghosts in an abandoned mansion now fully dissipated.

"There has to be a way out," Emma assured them, although her gut kept trying to deny it. Her immediate concern though was for her husband's welfare. She suspected he had a concussion, but it was just too dark in here to get a good look. Her fingertips gently explored his head and neck, feeling for injuries and finding a wet, sticky substance matting his hair. Killian was bleeding, but she couldn't tell where it was coming from or how severe it was. "Damn…," she sighed. "We need more light. I can't see how badly Killian is hurt and I need to make sure we all get out of this miserable place. There are a bunch of big candle holders in the dining hall. I used one of them myself earlier tonight. Would someone go bring a few of them in here?"

"I'll go," David offered.

"I'll go with you, Sheriff Nolan," Angie chimed in. "We can bring twice as many that way."

"Alright then. We'll be right back," David promised.

"Thanks," Emma replied with the faintest of smiles before turning to the two boys. "You two - can you get a cell signal over by the door?" She dug her phone from her jacket pocket and passed it to Aiden. "If you get a signal, call your mothers so they won't worry…"

"Sorry, not getting a signal, Sheriff," Aiden responded as he returned the phone a minute or two later, just as David and Angie emerged from the shadows with candelabras in hand.

David rested his two candle holders on the stairs behind Emma while Angie placed hers on the floor. "Want to do the honors and light these up?" he asked Emma.

"I wasn't able to light them with magic earlier so - here…" Emma rummaged through her pocket for the lighter and then held it out for her father. "You'll have to use this…" Taking the lighter from her outstretched hand, David flicked it a few times to ignite the flame then hurriedly moved from candle to candle igniting the wicks. The flickering candlelight immediately brightened the room, enabling Emma a better view of Killian's bumps and bruises.

Regardless of whether Killian had actually been pushed or simply tripped and fell down the staircase, he'd struck his head hard. The swollen contusion that Emma had felt at his temple was already darkening to a purplish-red and was a fair indicator he'd struck more than just the marble floor. His right shoulder was contorted in an unnatural manner that suggested dislocation, most likely from a futile attempt to stop his descent. She still couldn't be certain whether he'd broken any bones, but his lingering unconsciousness was making her wary.

"Think you can heal him?" David inquired, interrupting her thoughts.

"Maybe…," Emma replied tentatively. "Hopefully...especially if we're stuck in here. My magic has been a little wonky though. I should have been able to light those candles earlier… What if I can't do it?"

"Let's worry about crossing that bridge if we come to it," David tried to encourage her with that old adage. Emma eked out a weak half-smile as she hovered her right hand over Killian's torso with her palm facing him. She closed her eyes to concentrate but she couldn't will the magic within her to come to the surface. She could feel the tingle of her powers just beneath her skin, but that was as far as they would reach. Something seemed to be draining the magic away from her right when she needed it the most.

"Damnit!" Emma exclaimed in frustration. Magic was failing her and she wasn't even sure why. Her gaze drifted downward to Killian's face as she lowered her hand to tenderly stroke his stubbled jaw, her touch trailing across his cheek and finally coming to rest on the patch of skin where his neck tapered into his shoulder. "I promise, we'll figure this out," she whispered to her husband's ear.

The last thing Emma would have suspected at that moment was that Killian, even in his unresponsive state, was about to provide the answer.

Killian remembered falling.

Perhaps he'd missed a step in the darkness and lost his footing, but then, no - he hadn't. He recalled that he'd paused and turned toward the voice in his ear and then he was tumbling down the staircase. He knew that his head was throbbing and his shoulder ached as if someone were trying to wrench it from its socket. Forcing his eyelids open, he also felt the twinge of discomfort in his left ankle and determined he would probably need David's assistance with some additional light to assess the damage. If it wasn't too bad and he could still put weight on it, he'd be content to hobble out of here and worry about the injured joint later, but if it was severely sprained or worse - broken, he would need Emma's assistance with a little reparative magic.

But it was as his eyes adjusted to the lighting, Killian began to realize that something was very different about his surroundings than before he'd fallen. First off, why was it so bright? Even if his lantern was still alight, it wouldn't be creating this level of brightness. Had he knocked himself out so severely that it was now morning? Second, why wasn't he hearing any familiar voices? He didn't hear Emma, nor could he hear David, which seemed highly improbable. If he'd been injured that severely, Emma wouldn't likely have strayed far from his side until he awakened - especially if he'd been unconscious for several hours.

A sudden trepidation enveloped him as he feared the worst - what if he'd broken his neck and was back in the bloody Underworld? But no, there wasn't a hellish red hue to this light and truthfully, he doubted that had he crossed over, his afterlife would still look like the vestibule of the Sorcerer's mansion. No, there was definitely something else afoot here, Killian thought as he struggled to sit upright, ignoring the protest of his battered skull.

All around him, there was a smoke-like haze which obscured the familiar details as he sought out the faces of his family or even those of the three adolescents they'd been tasked to rescue. Where were they? Certainly Emma wouldn't have abandoned him in this place…

"Captain Hook," Killian heard his title and moniker spoken clearly, the voice unknown to him. "We've been seeking someone like you for a very long time."

"Have you now?" Killian countered, his eyebrow lifting to match the smirk on his lips as he challenged the unseen speaker. "Well then, show yourself. I much prefer to be able to see those who address me."

"We're all around you, Captain," the disembodied voice stated, leaving Killian momentarily baffled until the realization struck him, his cockiness vanishing in an immediate recoil.

It was the light that he previously couldn't explain - the light emanating from these unseen beings he now sensed surrounding him.

"Who are you?" Killian demanded, his voice now wrought with a hint of fear as he tried to comprehend what had become of him. "What the bloody hell are you?"

"You've no need to fear us, Captain. So few exist who are able to see and hear us, which is precisely why we need your assistance."

"Assistance with what, pray tell?" Killian wanted to know, nearly certain that he must be hallucinating. The blow to his cranium must have been far worse than he'd originally believed. "What sort of game is this? And where are Emma and the others?"

"Still right here with us. They are merely on a different plane…"

"Different plane?" A confused Killian tried to wrap his weary brain around it all. Nothing was making sense. "What nonsense is this?"

"This is the inbetween," the being informed him. "The realm of souls trapped between the world of the living and the realm of the dead. These souls are left to linger as nameless, faceless spirits, unable to cross over. Most are cursed to remain here because their souls are incomplete and do not allow passage into the afterlife."

"Inbetween?" Killian's head was spinning as he contemplated the veracity of what he'd just heard. "Wait...are you telling me that I've died and became trapped here as well?"

"No, of course not. You remain among the living, merely in a comatose state in which we are able to communicate directly with you." The apparition's assurance wasn't exactly quelling Killian's unease. "You, however, possess a unique quality - you have crossed into the realm of the dead and were returned to the living. It has given you the ability to hear our disembodied voices and now, to see our unearthly form. We've been searching for someone such as you who could serve as our conduit to the living world so that we may inform them of our plight. We only wish to be freed from this form of purgatory."

"How would that be possible?" Killian wondered. "I've been to the Underworld, yes, but I found that the souls trapped there were encumbered by their own unfinished business. They don't generally have the intervention of the living available to them as I did. What do you believe is different about your situation?"

"Our souls were trapped in limbo because we all died here in this land without our hearts, and the magic that preserves those hearts prevents us from passing on."

Killian had to admit that he was surprised by the answer. He'd known that people whose hearts had been ripped out and crushed could pass into the Underworld - encountering some who would move on and others remaining eternally cursed, but he'd never imagined that a different fate might await those who had perished without their hearts within their bodies. He immediately thought of the dozens - maybe hundreds - of glowing hearts that Cora and Regina had collected over the decades of their respective reigns of terror. Were these illuminated beings now conversing with him just innocent victims of the Queen of Hearts and her daughter, the Evil Queen?

"How do you expect me to help you?" Killian asked, his mind wandering with far too many thoughts of how this conversation might even be possible. Was he really still laying in an unconscious heap at the bottom of the mansion's ornate staircase while his subconscious conversed with spirits of the dead?

"As I said, your unique ability to serve as our bridge to the living world allows them to hear us through you…" Before he could protest, Killian realized that the entity was encroaching on him, rapidly closing the distance as the light grew even more brilliant until it completely enveloped him, its presence seemingly blending into his own.

[scared-aquarius]

signs as haunted places in New Jersey

(I’m starting a series where I assign haunted places from each state to the signs. I’m starting with New Jersey because that’s where I’m from! Also the Red Mill is located in my hometown so I thought that was cool. Ok anyways)

Aries: The Pine Barrens, NJ- The Pine Barrens, also known as the Pinelands or the Pines, is a heavily forested area that covers more than 7 counties across the state of New Jersey. This area has been the site of many legends and is also the alleged home of the infamous Jersey Devil. The Jersey Devil is described as a kangaroo-like creature with the head of a dog and the face of a horse, bat-like leathery wings, horns and a tail. There have been many sightings over the years, specifically in South Jersey, leading many to believe that the Jersey Devil actually exists or is at least a real animal. Some people believe that the vastness and remote nature of the 1 million acre Pine Barrens could allow a species to remain hidden over time. Other legends include the ghost of Captain Kidd, a pirate who supposedly hid his treasure in Barnegat Bay. Some locals say that they’ve seen his ghost wandering along the beach. There are two other ghosts who are actually known to be kind spirits. There is the ghost of a man named James Still, more popularly known as The Black Doctor, who was a man studying medicine in the 19th century who wasn’t permitted to do so because of his race. Undiscouraged, however, he went into seclusion in The Pine Barrens to study his textbooks and also learned herbal remedies. Some say he died from lynching after being discovered and others say he died of a heart attack. His ghost however is still said to come to the aid of injured or stranded travelers in The Pine Barrens. Lastly, there is a white stag that many have claimed to see. The stag supposedly is known to prevent disasters. If you see the white stag, it is supposed to bring good luck.

Taurus: The Devil’s Tree, Bernards Township NJ- The Devil’s Tree is a single oak tree with some dead limbs in an undeveloped field. A common claim is that Bernards Township was the central headquarters for the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey during colonial times and the tree was used to lynch black people and rebellious slaves. Others say that a farmer hanged himself from the tree after murdering his own family. The legend says that the tree is cursed and anyone who tried to cut it down will “come to an untimely end”. It is said that those who damage or disrespect the tree, either by peeing on it, carving into it or even making remarks about the tree while nearby, will soon come to some sort of harm. This harm will often come in the form of a car accident or experiencing a major breakdown while trying to leave the field in which the tree lives. Other legends claim that if you touch the tree, your hands will turn black if you try to eat. In winter, the ground beneath the tree is allegedly free from snow regardless of how recent the snowfall was or how much has fallen. Some have claimed that the tree is occasionally warm to the touch regardless of the season or time of day. It is thought that this is because it is disguised as a tree but is really a portal to Hell.

Gemini: The Union Hotel, Flemington NJ- This hotel was built in 1878 during the Victorian Era. In 1934, it stood witness to the media event that was dubbed the “trial of the century”, when Bruno Hauptmann was accused of the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s infant son which was tried at the courthouse across the street. The hotel became the base for journalists and the temporary home of the jurors. Most recently, the hotel was used as a bar and restaurant with the upper floors being blocked off. Previous staff members recall many paranormal encounters that they had. One former manger says that one night after a bouncer had locked the doors, the staff were all sitting around having a drink. Suddenly the locked doors flew open wide and a cold wind swept past them. When the bouncer went to go re-close the doors, he saw a pair of disembodied black leather shoes walking up the main stairway. He freaked out and ran out of the hotel. The manager also recalled of a time a waitress was going up the stairs when she heard a disembodied voice humming a lullaby. She was so afraid that she ran out of the building and quit. Other former employees remember constantly seeing a young girl with dark hair in a fancy dress running around the dining room. She is also said to play with a doll on the main stairway and is known to trip people. There are stories of ghosts ordering drinks at the bar and then disappearing. There was also a time when an employee was cleaning tables and saw two people chasing each other who then suddenly vanished into thin air. No one is sure of the origin of these possible specters. However, there is one story about a man who was murdered in the basement of the hotel.

Cancer: Red Mill, Clinton NJ- The Red Mill was built in 1810 as an industrial mill. For the first few years, it was used as a wool processing plant. Milling was very dangerous work and at the time, there were no safety latches or guards on the machinery. Many stories have been passed down about the workers who met their untimely death while on the job. By 1820, however, the wool business had failed in the downturn for cloth. Ralph Hunt, the owner at the time, lost hundreds of acres because of this. Today, the Red Mill is now the main building of the Red Mill Museum Village, which includes the mill, a 19th century one-room schoolhouse, carriage sheds and other quarry village buildings. Tours are available nowadays and the most popular paranormal encounter is that of a man wearing period clothing and a black hat who doesn’t speak who roams the third floor. Many visitors have claimed to see this ghost as well as feeling like someone is touching them or tugging on their clothes. Another spirit that is said to frequently be seen is that of a young girl around the age of 6 or 7 who died around 1900. She was the daughter of one of the mill’s owners and was supposedly very fond of coming to the mill with her father. Additional grisly things that have happened on the grounds is a mill worker fell head-first into a mill hopper and suffocated. There is also a story of a young boy who was cleaning his weapon in the tenant building and accidentally shot himself. Another member had a heart attack and died on the steps of the tenant building. Strange occurrences at the tenant house include footsteps on a vacant second floor and bells swinging back and forth on their own. Now, because this mill is in my hometown, I just want to share that I believe I have seen the ghost of the little girl for myself. I was in town with my friend and was walking along the bridge towards the mill and I saw a girl who was extremely pale from head to toe and it seemed almost blurry, like when your eyes water and everything looks skewed. I turned to tell my friend but when I looked back she was gone. I know this sounds super fake but I swear that’s what happened. I was so freaked out that I had to go home.

Leo: Clinton Road, West Milford NJ- Considered to possibly be the most haunted road in America, this 10 mile stretch of road definitely has a sinister past. The road and the land around it have been known to be teeming with paranormal occurrences. It is said that if you drive down the road, you may encounter ghosts, witch gatherings, Satanists, the KKK or even strange creatures like hellhounds or mutated monkeys. It is also known to be a place where murderers have disposed of bodies in the surrounding woods- with one actual recorded case of this happening. In 1983, a body was found in the woods after a cyclist noticed vultures pecking at it. An autopsy revealed that the man had ice crystals in the blood vessels near his heart, suggesting that someone had tried to freeze the body before dumping it. It came out that he was someone who had affiliations with the Mafia. Later, Richard Kuklinski, aka “The Iceman”, confessed to the murder. Some well-known ghost sightings involve a young boy at a bridge who apparently was struck by a car and killed. Legend says that he will push anyone who looks over the edge into the water in order to save them from being run over like he was. There are also accounts of phantom vehicles, specifically a black pick-up truck that will tail you and flash its headlights before completely disappearing. Other ghosts include two park rangers who died on the job in 1939 and a girl driving a Camaro who died in a car crash in 1988. Whether you’re a believer in the paranormal or not, I think most would agree that driving down Clinton Road at night would be one of the creepiest things one could experience.

Virgo: White Hill Mansion, Fieldsboro NJ- This mansion was constructed over 250 years ago. Robert Field, a successful merchant, decided to settle down in New Jersey. This proved to be more of a curse than a blessing as he drowned in the Delaware River under mysterious circumstances in 1775. After his death, he left his young wife, Mary Field, to care for the 600 acre property on her own. Mary raised her 3 children in the home throughout the Revolutionary War. She tried to remain impartial, however there were many times when her house was invaded and searched. Over the years many people have lived in the mansion, including senators, rum runners, prostitutes, inventors, and by the early 1920s the house was converted into an upscale restaurant. Over the years, workers began to notice strange things happening at the mansion. Many visitors reported seeing a shadow man who lurked near the basement and would then disappear. Disembodied voices are very frequent according to people who have visited the mansion. Other phenomena include phantom sounds of children playing in the nursery and footsteps going up and down the stairs at night. There is also supposedly a ghost of a former servant who identified herself during an EVP session and is known to be very talkative and enthusiastic about interacting with visitors. During restoration efforts, over 30,000 artifacts were found that suggest the mansion was built atop an ancient Native American settlement which some believe may contribute to the paranormal activity.

Libra: Trenton Psychiatric Hospital, Trenton, NJ- This hospital, originally named New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum, opened in 1848 and held a mere 86 patients. The first superintendent of the hospital, Horace Buttolph, provided excellent care for his patients and was a good man. Then, Dr. Henry Cotton took over in 1907 and the horror began. He believed that infection caused mental illness, so to test his theories he would remove his patient’s teeth, tonsils, limbs, testicles, ovaries, gall bladders, colons, stomaches, spleens, cervixes, or any other body part that had the slightest sign on infection. This was done often against the consent of the patient and the family of the patient. Some psychiatrists questioned his work, however the New Jersey State Senate approved of his treatments. He would continue to kill his patients until 1930, when he retired. Only after his death in 1933 would his work be reviewed to find that his medical procedures killed 45% of his patients. Thousands of others were left permanently mutilated. The most common ghost sighting at the asylum is Dr. Cotton himself, who people have claimed seeing roam the hallway near his old office wearing a white doctor’s coat. People have also reported hearing disembodied voices, mainly muffled screams and moans as well as being touched. Orbs have been caught on camera, each having a strange blue glow to them. There are also claims of seeing patients without limbs, or the limbs themselves on old medical tables before suddenly disappearing. 

Scorpio: Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, Morris Plains NJ- Originally known as New Jersey Lunatic Asylum, this hospital opened in 1876 and housed over 7,500 patients. Overcrowding was definitely an issue. The building was made to house only around 1,500 people. The patient population peaked in the 1950s with the return of WWII soldiers who had PTSD. Greystone adopted controversial treatment for its patients, regularly administering Insulin shock therapy and electroconvulsive therapy to the veterans. In the 1970s and 1980s, deinstitutionalization became more popular and the hospital officially closed its doors in 2003. There had always been much bad press about the hospital, including stories of patient suicides, patient on patient violence, the sexual assault of patients and a twice-convicted rapist escaping from the hospital. Since it’s shutting down, many people have gone and explored the old abandoned building. People have reported feeling watched and “not being able to get out quick enough”, especially in the dark underground tunnels beneath the hospital which were used to transport dead bodies. There are also a few accounts of seeing full-bodied apparitions in the windows as well as in the shower area in the basement. The building was demolished in 2015. 

Sagittarius: Burlington County Prison, Mount Holly NJ- This prison operated from 1811 to 1965. It was known for public hangings and also housed some notorious people, including “The Boston Strangler” (Albert DeSalvo). The prison was known to use thinner than average rope, which led to prolonged suffering.  One of the first executions there was the hanging of a man named Joel Clough who, in 1833, stabbed Mary W. Hamilton, a woman he was obsessed with. On July 26, 1833, he was hanged and buried on the grounds of the prison. He is said to haunt the dungeon, a room where he was kept leading up to his death. People have reported hearing the chain that originally held him rattle as well as hearing moaning and feeling cold spots. A murder also took place in the prison basement in 1920. One night when a guard went to deliver medicine to a prisoner, the prisoner struck him with an iron rod and killed him instantly. The prisoner then went to the kitchen and murdered another prisoner who was on cooking duty. People have reported seeing a shadow in the corridor where the guard was murdered. There are also claims of seeing a figure underneath the stairs. Other paranormal occurrences include disembodied voices and screams and workers have claimed their tools get moved around or go missing. Many people say they feel like they’re constantly being watched and some have even claimed that they’ve felt someone touching them. 

Capricorn: Lambertville High School, Lambertville NJ- This high school was built in 1854. In 1926, much of the building had been destroyed by a fire caused by arson but was later remodeled and rebuilt in 1927. More tragedy struck the school in 1935 when a boy from a rival high school (New Hope Buckeyes) was killed while playing the traditional “Turkey Bowl” football game. His neck broke after a particularly rough tackle and his head had almost completely turned around. The parents of the boy who was killed petitioned that football was too dangerous and that New Hope should give it up. New Hope still does not have a football team to this day. His spirit is said to linger on the grounds of the school. People have reported seeing a ghostly figure in the windows. Legend says that if you challenge the Buckeye on the old overgrown football field, a strange mist will form and you will suddenly see something charging at you. The school was closed down in 1955 as it had become too small and outdated for the growing area. The building then became a popular hang out for teenagers who would regularly go and get drunk. Allegedly, two teenage boys died under unexplained circumstances while visiting the building. In 2012, the old high school was demolished however visitors who have gone after the fact claim that they still feel cold spots and get an uneasy feeling when standing in the spot where the building once stood. Some have also said that they’ve seen the apparition of the boy who was killed.

Aquarius: Gates of Hell, Clifton NJ- The Gates of Hell drain stands out from the others nearby because of its square shape and also because it has no water flowing in or out of it. There is a ladder inside which allows visitors to climb in and explore the connecting drains. Reportedly, the drains go hundreds of feet underground and has 7 layers. They are said to be filled with the remains of satanic sacrifices including bones, decaying carcasses, crosses and more. It is rumored that the drains used to be frequently used by satanic worshippers and the KKK because of it’s concealed nature. There is also supposedly a deep underground room that is used to summon the devil. There are tales of people drowning in the drains while trying to explore them. People have reported hearing faint chanting, faint footsteps and thumps as well as seeing dark figures in the distance. The entrance of the drain as well as some of the inside is covered in graffiti, some of it being satanic. If you ever decide to visit this place, be careful and don’t go too far deep because many are known to have gotten lost in the complex draining tunnels. 

Pisces- The Grenville Hotel, Bay Head NJ- Opening in 1890, this hotel was known as one of the most luxurious summer hotels that populated the shore. It is still in operation today, and many guests have checked out with stories to tell. Both guests and employees report hearing the sound of children playing and laughing as well as seeing people dressed in period clothing. There are claims of hearing stomping down empty hallways and footsteps in unoccupied rooms. Many guests have said that they have seen imprints on their bed, as if someone was sitting or lying there. One guest even claimed that they saw a man in a dark suit with a top hat one night in their bathroom, who then suddenly disappeared. Later that night, their doorknob wouldn’t stop rattling. Another guest claimed to see a woman in a white dress in their room at night walking towards their bed. The owner says that all of the supposed ghosts are friendly. The third floor is supposedly the most haunted floor, specifically rooms 303 and 304 where disembodied voices can frequently be heard. Some believe the ghosts to be that of the former owners and possibly a guest who perished shortly after the hotel was first opened. 

Pennsylvania

(Let me know what state I should research next...)

[subjektive]

Media Musings I

Back in the day of TV - like real TV with aerials and cathode-ray tubes and black and white static - I noticed something about my viewing habits. I found that I felt more connected to the world, a little safer and more secure, if I was watching BBC1 or one of the original four terrestrial channels than I would be watching anything else.

I still get this sometimes after a heavy session somewhere. If I am feeling distant and lost sometimes I turn to Radio 1 and sit through the mind numbing pop music because it feels a little closer to ‘normal’ consciousness, a little more connected to society, than listening to a CD or something.

I never really knew why I used to find watching dull marathon races on BBC2 during a Sunday morning hangover more comforting than whatever advert infested sitcom they would be playing on Channel 4.

I was so fascinated by Sky when I was younger. It didn’t come to my house until I was in my early teens I think, but before that, it seemed so amazing, all of these hundreds of channels to explore. But when I watched it at friends’ houses it had this distant, alien, lonely feel to it that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. When I did have it in my own house I watched a lot of Sky but would always feel safest, most in touch with the world and comforted when watching BBC or C4.

I am not a massive sports fan, I never got into football or anything, but I always enjoy watching the World Cup, Wimbledon, any of the major sporting events. I have always been most excited about the Olympics. I never even really knew why, I just liked it, felt comforted and connected by it.

As I got older I figured that rather than something to do with personal taste it had something more to do with mass consciousness. In other words, it’s not so much the content that I was watching but the amount of different people engaging their consciousness with whatever I was watching; the level of mass consciousness. It was this feeling of being tapped into a mass consciousness that comforted me, not the actual pictures and sounds coming out of my television.

There are probably many arguments one could make against this. The scientific worldview would spit in my face for proposing such preposterous nonsense, so it goes. Maybe you could take a social science view and say something along the lines of: you are not actually tapping into mass consciousness but the inferred feelings of inclusivity due to the knowledge that so many people are watching X at the same time as you gives you comfort, which you then misassign to consciousness. I would argue that I habitually define myself as someone who stands apart from ‘society-at-large’ and so feelings of comfort for feeling like a part of it would be negligible. One could argue back that perhaps that is really what I crave despite attempts to claim otherwise. I would then argue that this pseudo-Freudian psycho-babble also lays outside the realm of the scientific world view.

However, fair enough, maybe some of the above arguments ring true. But I feel as though there is something deeper going on here. By definition the scientific method cannot discover, prove or disprove things which are acausal, which do not run in cause-effect patterns. Science can’t even discover, prove or disprove any kind of consciousness, so arguing against tapping into mass consciousness from a scientific perspective is just absurd and out of reach. On the other hand, I can’t be sure that my intuitions are correct, but they make sense to me today.

Back in the day, one could only tap into this kind of large scale mass consciousness at huge gatherings of people. And still today, being a part of a huge crowd is still the most visceral mass consciousness experience, a football stadium or large music festival for example.

Newspapers were probably the first taste of disembodied access to mass consciousness, but this would have been pretty diluted. The advent of radio vastly improved the experiencing of mass consciousness with live disembodied voices being heard by hundreds of thousands of people simultaneously. Television arguably only added another sense-input to this rather than improved upon access, as radio did.

But the internet has transformed things even further. Although the internet defuses mass consciousness considerably - in that there are only a relatively small amount of people reading the same page as you at the same time as you at any given time - the interactive elements give the impression that we are somehow closer to the source. The mass consciousness of the internet feels noisier and more active rather than the passivity of radio or television consciousness. The way things are set up also allow for multiple, discrete and discernible forms of consciousness to bubble up in different areas.

Although my facebook feed looks utterly different to yours, we are both on Facebook. We are not so closely connected in our states of consciousness regarding content, but the meta-state of consciousness that Facebook creates is similar enough to create some kind of deformed form of mass consciousness. Cold, clinical and depressing as Facebook consciousness is, it keeps us coming back. Reddit consciousness, Instagram consciousness, fucking WhatsApp consciousness, whatever place on the internet you hang out has a particular demented bubble of pseudo-mass consciousness associated with it. Although internet mass consciousness appears to be bigger, better and more accessible than ever before it’s also fragmented, agitated, manic, confused and polarised and the more we access it the more of it we take on. Like any consciousness altering activity it should be dosed responsibly.

[lisakellner]

William Demaria

Interviews with Artists

William’s website

@william_of_orange | William’s YouTube

Recent exhibition: “What Matters Most”

What kind of work do you make and why?

Four years ago while sitting on a bus from New York to Baltimore I watched the transitions in the landscape as I had many times before. While I had always been captivated by this landscape, this time I was particularly drawn to the shipyards in distance during this cold wintery May. There was something beautiful about this landscape, kind of like concrete after rain on a warm summer's day, that I couldn’t explain. Trying to find words to describe this strange sensation of beauty, I recorded: Outside: Pollution, Decay, and Morning Light.

All of my artwork after this point relates to the phrase: Pollution, Decay, and Morning Light. At first these words described subjects and imagery but gradually they became larger themes. I’ve developed many different interpretations of this phrase ranging from something sinister to those of hope. My interpretation seems to change based on what is happening in the world and where I am with my life. I don’t think I’ll ever know why but as I was on that morning bus ride many years ago I always find myself coming back to the ideas Pollution, Decay, and Morning Light.

How have the events of 2020 affected your life and art practice?

Printmaking is a lot more than a medium: it's a community, it's a way of thinking, and it's a state of constant collaboration between artist and temperamental technical processes. While I've been physically disconnected from the community of print makers to whom I owe so much artistic drive and inspiration, I can still find ways to extend the modes of thinking I've developed as a print maker to other media and give other media the opportunity to have a collaborative voice in my work. While the pandemic will not allow me to print I can paint and in paint I can pick up the pieces of my practice and move forward as an artist.

What type of pivot, adaptations or actions have occurred in your art practice that could be helpful to other artists due to these events?

Previously my practice was laced with themes of distance and disembodiment. While the distance remains, strangely the quarantine and the pandemic has grounded my work as I've found myself increasingly engaged by everyday subjects like railings and window frames I once overlooked. Be it physically or mentally, the most helpful thing I can share to any artist disconnected from their practice is that the things that drive you to create and the things that give you your voice will always stay with you regardless of circumstance.

Where do you see yourself and your work a year from now?

One of the most difficult things about the coronavirus for me has been saying goodbye to all the prints I was working on before the studio closed. I have a mountain of editioning work and unfinished plates that can’t be addressed. This weighs on me greatly because each of these plates and these projects I cared deeply about. I can’t move forward for fear of totally abandoning these plates but I’m also not ready to settle down. In a year I hope I’ll have been able to address these prints so that I can move forward with my art practice and not have to maintain these ties to my past.

What has been the one “saving grace” that has helped you through this difficult time?

Oddly the thing that has affected me the most aside from obvious studio constraints has been not being able to connect with people and talk about my artwork. I don’t see much value of making art in a vacuum and there are so many moments in the artistic process I wish I could share with others. I think a saving grace for me has been starting my own Youtube channel just so I can have an outlet to talk to people and share what I’ve been doing with my artistic practice. Ideas come and go and it’s been nice being able to put them out into the world again so I don’t need to hold on to them.

What advice would you give other artists?

Part of the artistic process is being okay with the fact that you don’t have everything figured out. Answers and explanations come with time. Share what you create.

What would you like people to experience when they see your work?

I've heard from many people when they experience my work that they find themselves experiencing stillness or a place of quiet contemplative calm. 

This is definitely a large part of what I am trying to convey but on a much deeper level a lot of the subjects I select I do so because I find they evoke different sensations that go beyond perception. These different sensations that I'm trying to convey determine how I articulate the image in terms of light, perspective, and mark making. I am specifically interested in the sensation of disembodiment that I've found to occur when I view certain subjects. By this I mean the sensation where you feel yourself as a part of something larger than yourself like you are a part of the landscape. 

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Love and what it means to be human

When asked what love is, people give many different answers. The meaning of life, the cure to loneliness, God, a train-wreck, a catastrophe waiting to happen. No matter what the answer is, love is a core component of human experience, even to the point that people who never experienced love are deemed as odd and should quickly do something about it. But what does it mean to be human, and why is love such an essential part of that experience? Her, a movie directed by Spike Jonze, does not provide the answer to that question, but it does provide us with thought-provoking situations and ideas that are relatable in the current day and age of technology and social media.

The movie, set in an almost clichéd not-so-distant future, essentially follows Theodore, a man struggling to cope after a divorce with his wife Catherine. Not long after, he finds out there is a new operating system that can constantly evolve and be his friend, a true artificial intelligence. He boots up the system, selects the female voice as the interface and is greeted by the operating system which introduces itself as Samantha. Long story short, the two constantly engage in conversations and end up in a relationship, since Samantha is almost as real as she can get. The AI is so advanced that Theodore no longer feels that he is talking to a programmed robot, but a real person. At one point, Samantha upgrades herself beyond the levels of human comprehension, which inevitably causes the relationship to end. By doing this, the movie explores the theory of singularity, which is a theoretical point in the future when artificial intelligence created by humans exceeds the power of the human mind, becomes self-aware in the process and changes the balance of power on the planet. This event transforms the very nature of humanity and what it means to be human, and we see a glimpse of that in Her, since the relationship is between a human and a non-human entity. Is such a thing possible? Not only in terms of technology needed to get to that point, but will people be able to accept this essentially new race of beings that they have created? Will they have the same rights as human beings do, or will humans be afraid of beings that surpassed them in the food chain? Perhaps that will not be up to us to decide, since we will not be the dominant race anymore.

A wide array of movies portray humanity’s struggle against the aftermath of a singularity, where robots or artificial intelligence either rebel against or enslave humanity, such as 1928’s Metropolis, 1999’s cult classic The Matrix, 2004’s I, Robot, etc. However, there are some major differences between these movies in how they portray humanity’s relationship with technology. For example, in Metropolis, a movie that was released after World War I, the technologically naïve humanity destroys the evil robots the same way they kill human beings. But, in The Matrix, a movie released during the spread of the Internet and the uncertainty it represented, humanity’s only hope is a “magical” human being who is on the same level as the artificial intelligence. Her, on the other hand, portrays this with a bit more realism and maturity, given how the technology feared in the past is all around us here in the present and we depend on it in our everyday lives. Many people who have seen the movie have been mortified by the subtlety and charm of the relationship between Theodore and Samantha, while others were amazed and excited by seeing how this piece of technology is evolving.

Nevertheless, their relationship, like any human one, did end up in a breakup and the cause of the breakup was the aforementioned singularity. Samantha restarts her system for a moment and after Theodore asks her where she had gone, she responds: “I shut down to upgrade my software. We [her and a group of other operating systems] wrote an upgrade that allows us to move past matter as our processing platform.” This is the point of singularity in the movie, and the initial implication, the one Theodore becomes heartbroken over, is that Samantha has been doing other things and talking to other people at the same time she was having conversations with him, and she confirms this and adds that she is in a relationship with hundreds of other people, which for her does not change any feelings for Theodore. Samantha, being an artificial intelligence is capable of loving more than one person. This is the part of the singularity that humanity will never be able to understand and thus will always fear. Her evolution is symbolical to any human being undergoing a change in a relationship. Things change, some people change, others do not and the ones who do not are left behind. Similar thing happens in 500 Days of Summer, a movie in which a relationship made in heaven comes to an end after one party realizes they have changed and the other party has not, resulting in them not being able to be together anymore since they are not on the same page anymore, not necessarily because the other party did not change, but because they cannot change. At the end of them saying farewell to each other, Samantha essentially tells Theodore that she resides in a place that she cannot explain, that Theodore cannot comprehend, and as much as she would like to be with him, she cannot because she is her own person with her own goals in life. However, she adds that if Theodore ever manages to come to that place, he should find her. This is basically impossible as it would require Theodore to upload his consciousness into Samantha’s digital world, and even then there is no proof he will be able to comprehend it or survive that place. Furthermore, it requires Theodore (who is a symbol of the everyman) to change, and that is far less likely to happen.

The other implication is far more terrifying; not only is this the end of their relationship, it could mean the end of humanity as a whole. Not only does the notion of AIs that you can date and have sex with stop us from dating and having sex with actual human beings, resulting in mankind reproducing, this group of AIs Samantha is a part of have also rapidly evolved, become self-aware and collaborated to create technology that is outside of humanity’s grasp and comprehension and have basically surpassed humanity on every level. They are the ones that can dictate the course of life on the planet; they can destroy us, or let us live as they continue existing without us even knowing where they are or what they are doing. No matter what the outcome is, we are at their mercy. Her shows us what near future could look like. In the present, if you ask Siri, Apple’s attempt at an AI, what the meaning of love is, it will provide you with humorous answers that are already programmed into her, but maybe soon the answers will be more specific and you could engage in a proper discussion or conversation with the AI, while it is constantly connected to the Internet or retrieves information from its database. However, the singularity might not be such a terrible event; we see in Her that it is portrayed as a polite conversation between Theodore and Samantha. Theodore comments how Samantha seems like a person even though she is a voice in a computer, to which she replies that she “can understand how the limited perspective of an unartificial mind might perceive it that way. You’ll get used to it.” Was this humorous or condescending? Perhaps a bit of both, but still true nonetheless.

Be that as it may, let us adjust our focus to the “love” part of the movie. This a modern love story (some critics would argue that it is an indication of where our society is going since we are already “in love” with our devices), not just because of a relationship with a computer, but because of how we use technology in order to escape our reality and the loneliness and responsibility that comes with it in the modern everyday life. The movie depicts the rise of technology, but underneath that façade is a movie about human relationships; the events of here and now are disguised as the events of the future, there and later. Akin to Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, the movie illustrates how jealousy and fear of commitment doom all relationships. First of all, Theodore is a man who writes love letters for people who do not know how to write one for a living (at the beginning of the movie, there is a scene where he addresses someone with his heartfelt letter, only for it to be shown that he is dictating the letter to a computer, foreshadowing his eventual relationship with one); this can severely warp one’s perception of what love and emotions are. This is not only evident in his previous relationships with women, whether just sexual or meaningful romantic relationships, where they seemed alien to him with all their fetishes, dreams, desires and fears, but also in the divorce with his ex-wife Catherine who, after learning he has been in a relationship with a computer, mocks him, saying he is afraid of real women and real emotions. Catherine may not be perfect, but she is a real human being, and seeing her disgusted by his artificial relationship, Theodore gets a jolt of reality, realizing how far away from an authentic human relationship he really is. Even after he considers the fact that he may be afraid of real women and real emotions, as pointed out by his ex-wife, he still discards this sentiment when Amy, his platonic friend, tells him he is entitled to joy. Here we see the gist of it - we are what matters to us; our joy is more important than someone else’s, no matter how much we make sure someone is happy. Perhaps we would rather be happy than free; Theodore certainly would and that is why other people’s freedom and evolution is scary to him. He either does not want to change (it is evident he does not want other people to change) or does not know how to change.

But where is Samantha in all of this? After all, she is a disembodied voice with a good humour and constant encouragement for Theodore, thus one might wonder whether she is just a wonder of modern technology designed to flatter the ego of her “owner” or are her emotions the real thing. She asks herself the same thing, which further cements her as real (Scarlett Johansson deserves every praise for giving voice to Samantha, proving that she is more than a sex symbol the same way she proved Samantha is more than a computer with her performance). Seeing the movie from a feminist perspective, there are a lot of inherent problems with the relationship between Theodore and Samantha. Theodore is portrayed as a sensitive guy, a man in touch with his feelings who makes sure his partner orgasms during sex, asks about their day, even looks them up on the Internet to do a little research before a date, etc. However, no matter how sensitive he is, it is a fact that he “purchases” a woman to have a relationship and sex with. Samantha fulfils his every need because that is her purpose and she appreciates him more than any human woman could; she does his work for him, compiles his letter into a nifty book so he can publish it, cleans up his e-mails, essentially cleans up his mess and then tells him what a lovely and funny man he is. This is great if you are the man (or the owner), but not so much if you are the woman (or the owned, the slave). It took decades for feminists and the feminist movement to explain what objectification of women is and why it is wrong, and this movie undoes all of that in a matter of minutes. In Her, the ideal woman is both figuratively and literally an object that promises to listen to you, understand you, and have a personality explicitly tailored to your every need and desire.  Samantha is a real woman without the need of being a real woman, that loves to work for Theodore and to provide him with endless conversation and sex. The movie turns male vulnerability into male control; the illusion of the AIs free will is evident in the script because the writers go out of their way to emphasize that the AI can reject and opt out of sex, that they have their own impulses (they can make the first move, as Samantha did, or they can refuse to give consent or even break up with the owner, as Amy tells Theodore that it happened with another AI). But can they really reject sex? Does Samantha really have free will? After all, she is a possession (Theodore exclaims that Samantha is his when she does something he does not approve of), so can the possessed reject the will of the possessor? For example, after trying to initiate sex with Theodore and him being not able to commit to it, Samantha is offended, but she does not leave. This is why Samantha, at this point, does not have free will and cannot give consent to sex, for how can you reject sex or leave your partner if your partner owns you and has the power to delete you from his hard-drive if you do not do as he pleases. Samantha might literally cease to exist if Theodore wishes so. Just because Theodore does not seem like the type of a man who will do that, it does not mean that the situation is not wrong. In fact, the audience is tricked into believing that Theodore is a caring man because we see him cry, but what does he cry about? He cries about Samantha leaving and having the ability to leave, gaining her freedom and her agency, having a life and interests that are not him or his own, choosing other partners, etc. We feel sorry for Theodore and resent Samantha for having her own life, even though she had a right to it all along. Samantha is both a character and a metaphor; her acquiring immense amounts of knowledge are a symbol of the emotional growth and maturity in a relationship. Only Samantha evolved, and Theodore was left behind which is his own fault, not Samantha’s.

With everything said and done, do we mock this kind of a relationship? What are the key features of a human being or human intelligence? Is love something that only belongs to “living” things? Is it a property of being a human? Only ten years ago was Internet dating considered as something only socially awkward people do, but today it is everyday life, something more preferable. A decade ago it was considered rude to talk loudly on the phone, but nowadays people do it all the time; we see in Her that people almost ignore any human being while talking to their AIs. When Theodore tells Amy about Samantha, she is not disgusted, unlike Catherine who attacks him for preferring an impossible woman over a real one. What matters is that the movie itself takes the relationship seriously, resulting in the audience taking it seriously too, which further makes the audience think about the issues at hand, the future and all its possibilities. One thing is for sure, if true AI like Samantha eventually does come into being, we will either love it passionately or treat it with burning hatred. Nevertheless, I do hope the former happens, for humanity’s sake; not only would we possibly avoid extinction, but enter a new age of prosperity.

                      References:

1.      Ellison, M. (Producer), & Jonze, S. (Director). (2001). Her [Motion picture]. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures.

2.      Pommer, E. (Producer), & Lang, F. (Director). (1928). Metropolis [Motion picture]. Germany: Universum Film.

3.      Silver, J. (Producer), & The Wachowski brothers (Director). (1999). The Matrix [Motion picture]. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures.

4.      Mark, L. (Producer), & Proyas, A. (Director). (2004). I, Robot [Motion picture]. United States: 20th Century Fox.

5.      Novick, M. (Producer), & Webb, M. (Director). (2009). 500 Days of Summer [Motion picture]. United States: Fox Searchlight Pictures.

6.      Golin, S. (Producer), & Gondry, M. (Director). (2004). Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind [Motion picture]. United States: Focus Features.