Paint the Wizard's Fire

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are:

goals ~ cold ~ push-ups ~ shake ~ temperature

It was submitted by: https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com

So, I had a dream like this recently, and I kinda added some details, but the bones of it are what happened in the dream. I can't explain my brain. 

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Her temperature hadn't really changed much since the last time she checked. Still over 101 and stubbornly not coming down. She knew it was a good thing, that her body was working hard to kill off whatever cold germs she'd been invaded by, but fucking hell it was never fun. Burning hot one moment then the shake of chills the next. The aches. The discomfort. She couldn't get comfortable, and the pain every time she coughed made her feel like a Sasquatch was doing push-ups on her chest.

So she took all the different over the counter meds she might need and hoped for relief. Just a degree lower on the fever was one of her only goals really. Just that much would be a drastic improvement.

The room faded as she fell asleep and was replaced by a mossy, overgrown garden.

What the...

Where am I?

I must be dreaming.

That thought relaxed her a little, so she took in her surroundings. The garden was walled off with crudely cut stones, crumbling in places and covered in others by vines. There were trees on the outside of the walls completely ripped from the ground, recently overturned, while others stood tall with dark green leaves and the power of something ancient, something that had seen what the world had to offer and lived to see more.

The garden itself was a tangled mass of spiked vines full of huge, bright exotic flowers with blood-hued stamens, bushes full of dripping berries that smelled sickly sweet, small trees bare of leaves and with blackened trunks...not a single one did she recognize.

And if that wasn't weird enough, everything was too quiet. Too still. She couldn't hear any life at all actually, and in a place like this, bugs would be thriving. Frogs. Salamanders. Newts. Toads. The silence unnerved her making the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

In the middle of the garden was a fountain. Surely something would be drinking or living in the trinkling water but it was quite a long way off. She couldn't even make out what shape it was, but something pulled her to it. There was a swirling, chaotic, debris covered walking path that led to it though, and without really understanding why, she set off.

Time dragged on, and it felt and LOOKED like she had barely made any progress towards her goal when she started hearing the whispers.

She's here. She'll kill him. The Black Wizard.

She's here. She'll free us.

She's here. She's here. She's here again.

She'll kill him.

The whispers should have been terrifying beyond words, but instead she found herself standing taller, straighter, and feeling confident in a way she never had before in her life.

She's here. We need her.

Protect her. She must make it to the fountain.

She trudged on seeming to make a little more progress while the whispers floated around her like shimmering hordes of butterflies. The vegetation grew even thicker now on either side of the path with heavy fruits bending small trees almost to the ground and ripe gourds huddled in the massive patches of vines all around the path. The smell of rot hung in the air crowding around patches of moss and clutches of wildflowers. She could almost taste it, felt it roil across her skin. The place simultaneously felt familiar and foreign. Known and mysterious.

The closer she moved to the fountain the louder the voices became until it was a roar in her head like television static turned to maximum volume. The voices talked over one another blending into a chaotic metal melody, a cacophony of pleas, hopes, and directions with one clear message.

She was here to kill the Black Wizard and set these souls free.

She must have been closer to the fountain now. In the distance and coming nearer all the time, green streaks of lightning lit up the land. A dark castle stood on a cliff overlooking the garden, looking at her with each strike, and every time she felt an intense cloud of dread wash over her. But the voices kept her determined, focused. She had to help them.

She's here. She'll kill him. rejoice she is here!!Help her. Girl, you will kill him. Please. 

She edged even closer now seeing signs nailed to posts stabbed into the ground. They were covered in...runes? Some kind of letters or symbols she didn't understand. But she also got her first look at the Black Wizard on these as an Uncle Sam stylized figure glaring out at her from under a black hat and pointing in her direction. His yellowed, crooked teeth were bared, lips pulled back in a snarl under a nose that had obviously been broken and never reset properly. His eyes were green but not the kind of green you would ever find on a human. They nearly glowed even in print and matched the color of the lightening streaking down from the castle on the cliff. His black tattered robe and long gray, scraggly beard just added more to the feelings of terror that were now causing chills to run down the length of her body, head to toe.

She knew him somehow. She was meant to be here.

She hugged her arms around her and kept moving. But now the voices cohesively chanted a lyric that whirled around her like a cotton candy blanket and reverberated in her mind, an earworm she couldn't shake.

Take the beetles, take the slugs and place them on the pyre. Take their ashes for yourself and paint the wizard's fire.

She had no idea what it really meant, but the feeling that she absolutely had to get to the fountain was stronger than ever. She was close now and could make out the shape of the thing. It had a round black marble base. The center of it spawned a large green and gold snake unlike anything she had ever seen before. It coiled around a large sword with detailed scales that glinted in the flashes of green light. It's hooded head faced straight forward just above the sword's hilt. It menaced any creature who viewed it while still managing to peacefully spit water into the pool surrounding it. Overall the whole thing was eerie but combined with everything else going on, with the lightning striking more and more frequently shining on the blood red eyes of the stone snake, the entire setting became that much more fucked up. She had no words to describe exactly what she was feeling, and to make matters worse, her brain was so cloudy with the drive and emotions of the voices. The lyrical chant pushed her and their fear and hopelessness spilled onto every nerve. She was tense, chilled, almost sick with the dread.

Take the beetles, take the slugs and place them on the pyre. Take their ashes for yourself and paint the wizard's fire.

She stood before the fountain as lightning hit one of the trees just outside the garden walls. It was almost like the garden was protected somehow from the wizard's wrath easing some of her tensions. She was safe, she thought.

You're

Not.

hurryhurryhurrynow

Take the beetles, take the slugs and place them on the pyre. Take their ashes for yourself and paint the wizard's fire.

One peek into the fountain itself ruined her. The water swirled with creatures she couldn't recognize. Beetles with fangs, glowing and fighting. Blood in a range of colors. Small amphibians tearing into others. Slugs in blues and purples gnashing their teeth. Everything a predator, waiting to use their claws and spiked tails and serrated teeth on whatever they could.

Take the beetles, take the slugs

She reached into the mass of water and writhing beings pulling one neon yellow nearly fluorescent slug from the mass, held it above her, and watched it wriggle in the air trying to bite...

Then she woke up.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2020/01/jack-and-jamaican-jerk-use-your-words.html

Spatulas on Parade  https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-new-frosty-and-friends-uyw-jan-2020.html

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

Southern Belle Charm https://www.southernbellecharm.com

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2020/01/use-your-words-dont-push-my-buttons.html

Medicated Musings http://mymedicatedmusings.blogspot.com

Follow Me Home https://followmehome.shellybean.com

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

Vigilante Heroin

Elizabeth shifted her purse from her left to her right shoulder and quietly slipped her right hand inside searching out the cold metal of the handgun she kept there. The weight of it in the bag was comforting, but once she felt the textured grips under her fingers, the world around her calmed.

She was hungry.

She only knew of one thing that would quell her appetite, and he was walking about a block ahead of her.

She had really been curious the first time she followed a man like this late at night, and it was a little unnerving how easily it could be done. She had yet to have any of these guys notice her until it was too late. It was so different than the world she knew as a woman walking with her keys between her fingers even in the daytime if she was at the bus stop for any length of time, having illegal pepper spray because getting in trouble for that was way better than the alternative for not having it… being hypervigilant, keeping covered, never walking anywhere with headphones on or with your nose buried in a book because taking focus from the world could end with death. And that night, the first night, she just wanted to know if the world worked the same for him after she sat in a coffee shop and watched him hassle the barista for her phone number then call her fat when she turned him down. She watched her devolve into a snotty, teary mess after he threw his coffee at her and stormed out. And she followed him. It wasn’t reasonable or rational or a good idea, but deep down, this rage she had never felt before welled up blasting out of her pores. She was angry at him, yes, but she was angrier at herself for being too afraid to step up and say anything.

And by the end of the night, she said a lot.

Back then she didn’t have a gun. That was a new thing. Back then it was just the illegal pepper spray and a rape whistle. At the time, it was enough, though. She followed the guy a few blocks into a parking garage with her pepper spray in hand, and just before he got into his truck (because of course it was a huge truck), she whistled at him from just beyond the tailgate. He turned, and she got him good right in the eyes. She doesn’t even remember now what she actually said to him as he rolled on the ground screaming, but she faintly remembers threatening his life if he so much as thought about doing to another woman the way he did that barista.

The anxiety she felt afterwards was indescribable. Would she get in trouble? Would he be able to track her down? What if the pepper spray hadn’t worked? What if she missed? What if he hurt her? Why did it feel so fucking good and make her feel so goddamned happy? What was wrong with her? She was a writhing mass of emotions that ate away at her like blowfly maggots.

After awhile she couldn’t get the rush out of her mind--that heady feeling from the sheer power and control she had. For the first time in her life, she felt like she had an inkling of what it might be like to be a dominatrix, but she was also getting justice or at least that’s the way she saw it. Vigilante justice, maybe, but it still made her feel good to do something and to fantasize about doing it again. Like some kind of feminist antihero. Like Deadpool but less angry.

So when she was out at a bar a few weeks later and saw a guy grab a girl’s crotch and yell “TRUMP THAT PUSSY” she did it again. He got kicked out of the bar, and she followed, sprayed him, and unleashed a torrent of obscenities about his behavior. It wasn’t long before she had another opportunity, and next thing she knew, it had been a year and she had left probably a half a dozen potential felony charges in her wake.

But the last couple months had been different. She’d been watching this guy up ahead of her for at least 6 months getting to know his habits. He was the boyfriend of her new coworker at the vet hospital. She’d never gone after someone she knew but this was different. She had seen Maven come in far too many times with bruises on her arms, her throat, with too many excuses for black eyes and swollen wrists. The girl was clumsy, sure, but that couldn’t explain the teary mornings, the fear in her eyes when someone raised a hand near her for any reason (and never to hit her, not at work). It couldn’t explain the excuses she gave when they all went out after work for drinks, and it damn sure didn’t give a reason for the times they worked late together when he, Stephen, would call screaming at her and accusing her of sleeping with the male employees.

This was different. This time it was personal.

Maven wouldn’t leave him. They had all talked to her about it last week, had an intervention of sorts. She was too scared to leave. She knew the chances he would hurt her seriously after she left were higher than staying. She had done her research… That’s the thing. She wasn’t stupid, and he hadn’t been this obvious when they got together. She turned a blind eye to the problems when they first happened because back then it was easy to make excuses. Tying their financial accounts together seemed like a logical step, and when he spent their money carelessly then chastised her for so much as buying a coffee, she chalked it up to depression. He’d get help and take medicine then get off it when he felt “fine.” Every time she caught him cheating or in a lie, there would be a honeymoon period that made her question everything. Things didn’t start at this point, in other words. They built slowly until Maven’s life was such a tangled mess she didn’t really have hope of ever getting out of it.

What other choice was there then?

Tonight, Maven would be free, and the world would finally shift in her favor no matter the cost.

Elizabeth was starving for the adrenaline rush, for the sense of good she felt afterwards, and as much as she wanted to pretend this was for Maven, she also, down deep, this had nothing to do with an altruistic need to save. She wanted blood.

Up ahead, Stephen ducked into the parking garage near his side chick’s place.

Showtime.

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This blog post was for Sunday Confessions, a weekly blog challenge hosted by More Than Cheese and Beer. The link up is below. Be sure to check out the other submissions!

An InLinkz Link-up