11-11-2020, 03:01 AM
<link href='https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Playfair+Display|Mrs Saint Delafield' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'> <style type="text/css"> .rosebaytwo_container { position: relative; z-index: 1; background: url('https://i.postimg.cc/rpCTCTKT/rosebay-bg.png'); width: 600px; padding: 0 0 0 0; border: solid 1px #000; box-shadow: 0px 0px 10px 1px #000; } .rosebaytwo_container p { margin: 0; } .rosebaytwo_image { position: relative; z-index: 4; width: 600px; } .rosebaytwo_text { position: relative; z-index: 6; width: 580px; margin-top: -300px; margin-bottom: 10px; border: solid 1px #000; box-shadow: 0px 0px 10px #000000; background: #1d1d1f; } .rosebaytwo_message { position: relative; font: 12px 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: justify; color: #7f8386; padding: 30px; } .rosebaytwo_name { position: absolute; z-index: 10; font: 70px 'Mrs Saint Delafield', cursive; text-align: right; color: #9ea19e; width: 100%; padding-bottom: 30px; top: 535px; right: 15px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 10px #000; } .rosebaytwo_quote { font: 20px 'Playfair Display', serif; text-align: center; text-transform: uppercase; color: #4b5053; padding-bottom: 30px; line-height: 1.8em; letter-spacing: 2px; } </style> <center> <div class="rosebaytwo_container"> <div class="rosebaytwo_name">Rosebay</div> <img class="rosebaytwo_image" src="https://i.postimg.cc/gjMkyWtj/rosebay.png"> <div class="rosebaytwo_text"> <p class="rosebaytwo_message"> It happens faster than she would have expected.
Faster than she would have guessed.
One second, she is standing there before the creature and the next, the world has bled away, replaced by something wholly familiar and yet entirely alien. She stands there for a moment, her elegant head slightly tilted to the side as her almond eyes evaluate the world around her. It takes a second longer than perhaps it should for her to realize that this shadowy world is not her home of Pangea. She would later assure herself that it was only because the world of Pangea was so lifeless already—born as it was of the dust and ash.
Still, this form of it was even more grey, cast in shadow and murk.
She steps forward and the air moves like water, rippling around her, feeling as thick as tar in her lungs. She pauses again, a coltish leg raised before she plants it firmly in the ground once more.
The sound reverberates within her—ringing and echoing like church bells.
Another pause as she considers.
It’s then that she catches the sight of her sister, her mother, her father—or, rather, she believes that she does. They are them, but entirely other. She narrows her eyes and thinks of moving forward but she can feel the earth practically reach up to hold her back. There’s a moment when it feels like sinking. When it feels like her father’s vines crawling up her legs. When it feels like her mother’s magic holding her.
She skitters to the side and it releases its grasp on her.
There’s the solid, warm feeling of something bumping into her and she twists to see Iris. Relieved, she opens her mouth to tell her sister about the shadowy creature but no words come. Because it’s not Iris. The creature that is not her sister wears her body, but the skin is loose, the eyes rolled back. She can see the way it doesn’t fit quite right, as though hung upon a loose frame, and something like horror crawls up the back of her throat—the otherness of this place continuing to sink the teeth of reality further down.
Death, she thinks.
The place reeks of death.
She remembers her mother’s stories of the afterlife. Of the place where the veil between life and what lies beyond grow thin and fragmented—where the fabric of life becomes perverse and drains you of that which makes you whole. She can only wonder if somehow this is where the creature has sent her.
The place of her mother’s resting.
The place of her rebirth.
The place of the in-between.
Rosebay looks up again to see the pantomime of her sister opening its jaw wide and, although she feels her heart beat against her ribcage, she refuses to give up even a semblance of control. Swallowing back the scream that would form in her young throat, she instead takes a step back, finding the path beneath her.
The world twists around her, as if in response to her acknowledgement of its true form, and her family and their strange form bleed away. The not-Pangea bleeds away. It becomes nothing but fog and mist and darkness—nothing but her own heartbeat echoing back at her like the chiming of a great clock.
She cannot decide whether it is better or worse.
Swallowing again, Rosebay peers into the nothingness, feeling as though the air is pressing into her like the tide. There is a queer sensation of being underwater again, as though gravity has shifted, and she suddenly realizes that which has been obvious from the beginning: the mirror quality of this world.
Taking a deep breath, she plunges forward, the cold air splashing her face.
She emerges on the other side sputtering slightly, soaked and shivering, life flooding in her once more. </p> <p class="rosebaytwo_quote">but in all chaos, there is calculation </p> </div> </div> </center>
Faster than she would have guessed.
One second, she is standing there before the creature and the next, the world has bled away, replaced by something wholly familiar and yet entirely alien. She stands there for a moment, her elegant head slightly tilted to the side as her almond eyes evaluate the world around her. It takes a second longer than perhaps it should for her to realize that this shadowy world is not her home of Pangea. She would later assure herself that it was only because the world of Pangea was so lifeless already—born as it was of the dust and ash.
Still, this form of it was even more grey, cast in shadow and murk.
She steps forward and the air moves like water, rippling around her, feeling as thick as tar in her lungs. She pauses again, a coltish leg raised before she plants it firmly in the ground once more.
The sound reverberates within her—ringing and echoing like church bells.
Another pause as she considers.
It’s then that she catches the sight of her sister, her mother, her father—or, rather, she believes that she does. They are them, but entirely other. She narrows her eyes and thinks of moving forward but she can feel the earth practically reach up to hold her back. There’s a moment when it feels like sinking. When it feels like her father’s vines crawling up her legs. When it feels like her mother’s magic holding her.
She skitters to the side and it releases its grasp on her.
There’s the solid, warm feeling of something bumping into her and she twists to see Iris. Relieved, she opens her mouth to tell her sister about the shadowy creature but no words come. Because it’s not Iris. The creature that is not her sister wears her body, but the skin is loose, the eyes rolled back. She can see the way it doesn’t fit quite right, as though hung upon a loose frame, and something like horror crawls up the back of her throat—the otherness of this place continuing to sink the teeth of reality further down.
Death, she thinks.
The place reeks of death.
She remembers her mother’s stories of the afterlife. Of the place where the veil between life and what lies beyond grow thin and fragmented—where the fabric of life becomes perverse and drains you of that which makes you whole. She can only wonder if somehow this is where the creature has sent her.
The place of her mother’s resting.
The place of her rebirth.
The place of the in-between.
Rosebay looks up again to see the pantomime of her sister opening its jaw wide and, although she feels her heart beat against her ribcage, she refuses to give up even a semblance of control. Swallowing back the scream that would form in her young throat, she instead takes a step back, finding the path beneath her.
The world twists around her, as if in response to her acknowledgement of its true form, and her family and their strange form bleed away. The not-Pangea bleeds away. It becomes nothing but fog and mist and darkness—nothing but her own heartbeat echoing back at her like the chiming of a great clock.
She cannot decide whether it is better or worse.
Swallowing again, Rosebay peers into the nothingness, feeling as though the air is pressing into her like the tide. There is a queer sensation of being underwater again, as though gravity has shifted, and she suddenly realizes that which has been obvious from the beginning: the mirror quality of this world.
Taking a deep breath, she plunges forward, the cold air splashing her face.
She emerges on the other side sputtering slightly, soaked and shivering, life flooding in her once more. </p> <p class="rosebaytwo_quote">but in all chaos, there is calculation </p> </div> </div> </center>