09-24-2018, 12:00 AM
<link href='https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Playfair+Display|Jaldi' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'> <style type="text/css"> .sochi_container { position: relative; z-index: 1; background-color: #D1D1D1; width: 600px; padding: 0 0 0 0; border: solid 1px #000; box-shadow: 0px 0px 10px 1px #000; } .sochi_container p { margin: 0; } .sochi_image { position: relative; z-index: 4; width: 600px; } .sochi_gradient { position: absolute; z-index: 5; bottom: 801px; left: 0px; width: 600px; height: 100px; background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, rgba(209,209,209,1) 0%, rgba(0,0,0,0) 100%); background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, rgba(209,209,209,1) 0%,rgba(0,0,0,0) 100%); background: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(209,209,209,1) 0%,rgba(0,0,0,0) 100%); filter: progid
XImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#d1d1d1', endColorstr='#00000000',GradientType=0 ); } .sochi_text { position: relative; z-index: 6; width: 580px; padding-top: 10px; margin-bottom: -340px; background-color: #0f191fb5; } .sochi_quote { position: relative; text-align: center; width: 80%; color: #9d9d9d; font: 11px 'Jaldi', sans-serif; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 1.5em; letter-spacing: 1px; padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; border-bottom: solid 1px; } .sochi_message { position: relative; font: 12px 'Times Roman', serif; text-align: justify; color: #d7d7d7; line-height: 1.3em; padding: 10px 25px 20px; } .sochi_name { position: absolute; z-index: 5; text-align: center; width: 100%; font: 60px 'Playfair Display', serif; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 20px; padding-left: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; color: #0f191fb5; margin-top: 790px; } .sochi_quotetwo { position: absolute; z-index: 5; text-align: center; width: 100%; color: #3a5261; font: 11px 'Jaldi', sans-serif; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 1.3em; letter-spacing: 1px; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 865px; } </style> <center> <div class="sochi_container"> <div class="sochi_gradient"></div> <div class="sochi_text"> <p class="sochi_quote">there is a swelling storm and I'm caught up in the middle of it all <br>and it takes control of the person that I thought I was</p> <p class="sochi_message">
“<i>We’re</i> sick, you bastard,” she growls, loathing clear in every syllable. She finds her way to her belly and then stands, her legs weak and shaking but strong enough to hold her aloft. “Not that you care.” She’s surprised that she is surprised by his callous nature. She’s surprised that she ever expected anything different, as though the gray stallion before her would ever bother to be kind to mere mortals.
It is of the utmost foolishness to bite back at him, as useful as railing against the heavens, but she does so now, fear twisting through her at the dual beating of hearts in her chest. She is driven by that terror that has morphed into fury, her silver eyes snapping as foam begins to fleck the edges of her mouth.
“How about <i>you</i> sacrifice something, you coward?”
But her words, her attacks, are just gnats—they are just dust. They bounce and slide off of him, the dark magician continuing to give orders. Her body responds without prompting, the pieces of the land within her vibrating. It takes the ache of the sickness and gives it a new edge. She grits her teeth and throws her head back, fighting against the scream that works up her throat, fighting to be released into the air.
She doesn’t want to sacrifice anymore.
She doesn’t want to help him—to serve him, to be obedient to him.
But she looks around and sees the rest of them, strangers to her but trapped in this moment all the same. She will remember their faces, she thinks to herself. She will seek them out. She will acknowledge the pain that they have all experienced, the way that Carnage has torn them apart for his own desires.
She will find them because she will survive this. They will all survive this.
(They have to. This can’t be for nothing.)
Sochi can feel the pieces beginning to work their way through her, traveling beneath the flesh through the branching roads of her veins. She cries against gritted teeth, knees threatening to give out beneath her.
Was it—was it making its way to her heart?
Fresh fear brands her as she feels both Pangea and the Mountain slipping through her, faster than possible, closing in on the place in her chest where the two hearts now unnaturally rest. <i>Get it out. Get it out. Get it OUT.</i> Instinct takes over and she tries to reach down and bite at the flesh covering her chest.
She starts to claw at the flesh, her body more flexible than usual. Her paws reach for her flesh and find purchase, the skin sloughing off easily—too easily. The pain is incredible and she howls against it, but she doesn't stop. She can’t stop. There is a dull roar in her ears, something that is only drowned out by the thumping of the hearts, the sound of them increasing in volume with each passing second.
Another howl escapes her as she desperately claws at her own chest, breaking it open.
The skin peels back, torn and tattered. Tears run down her cheeks. She wasn’t meant to die like this. She wasn’t meant to be ripping out her own heart at the bottom of the ocean on some godforsaken piece of land. She wasn’t meant to be bending to the will of some coward of a magician, sacrificing something so that he could have something. This wasn’t meant to be the end of her story. It wasn’t. It wasn’t.
She snarls as she reaches ribs, the hearts pounding, the pieces of dirt somehow wedged behind them.
She claws at the ribs and they crack, but they don’t break.
She stumbles to her feet, blood leaking out the edges of her mouth, froth gathering more in the corners of her mouth. She lurches and slams into whatever is nearby—tree, rock, <i>anything</i>. The water around her is syrupy and stained with blood, but she can’t think enough to process it. She just keeps slamming into whatever she can, until she feels the creaking of her ribs as they give way like ancient wood.
Finally—finally—the ribs crack, no, shatter. She gasps against the feeling of it, stumbling—crawling—back to the crater. She spits up blood but more leaks from her chest. The pieces that she had been ordered to sacrifice fall out of her, followed closely by the eerily green heart and then her own.
Sochi’s eyes go wide, a strangled noise coming out of her throat as she tilts forward and falls near Pangea's heart, bleeding out of her now empty chest, the congealed, alien blood making its way for the final gift.
Minutes pass.
Hours pass.
Days, maybe.
She doesn’t know.
All she knows is what when she wakes, she’s breathing air and not water, there is sand beneath her—
and everything has changed.
<i>Everything</i>.
</p> </div> <div class="sochi_name">sochi</div> <div class="sochi_quotetwo">it comes and goes in waves; it always does, it always does <br>we watch as our young hearts fade into the flood, into the flood</div> <img class="sochi_image" src="https://s15.postimg.cc/str7xmp3v/shifaaz-shamoon-300079-unsplash.jpg"> </div> </center>
XImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#d1d1d1', endColorstr='#00000000',GradientType=0 ); } .sochi_text { position: relative; z-index: 6; width: 580px; padding-top: 10px; margin-bottom: -340px; background-color: #0f191fb5; } .sochi_quote { position: relative; text-align: center; width: 80%; color: #9d9d9d; font: 11px 'Jaldi', sans-serif; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 1.5em; letter-spacing: 1px; padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; border-bottom: solid 1px; } .sochi_message { position: relative; font: 12px 'Times Roman', serif; text-align: justify; color: #d7d7d7; line-height: 1.3em; padding: 10px 25px 20px; } .sochi_name { position: absolute; z-index: 5; text-align: center; width: 100%; font: 60px 'Playfair Display', serif; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 20px; padding-left: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; color: #0f191fb5; margin-top: 790px; } .sochi_quotetwo { position: absolute; z-index: 5; text-align: center; width: 100%; color: #3a5261; font: 11px 'Jaldi', sans-serif; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 1.3em; letter-spacing: 1px; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 865px; } </style> <center> <div class="sochi_container"> <div class="sochi_gradient"></div> <div class="sochi_text"> <p class="sochi_quote">there is a swelling storm and I'm caught up in the middle of it all <br>and it takes control of the person that I thought I was</p> <p class="sochi_message"> “<i>We’re</i> sick, you bastard,” she growls, loathing clear in every syllable. She finds her way to her belly and then stands, her legs weak and shaking but strong enough to hold her aloft. “Not that you care.” She’s surprised that she is surprised by his callous nature. She’s surprised that she ever expected anything different, as though the gray stallion before her would ever bother to be kind to mere mortals.
It is of the utmost foolishness to bite back at him, as useful as railing against the heavens, but she does so now, fear twisting through her at the dual beating of hearts in her chest. She is driven by that terror that has morphed into fury, her silver eyes snapping as foam begins to fleck the edges of her mouth.
“How about <i>you</i> sacrifice something, you coward?”
But her words, her attacks, are just gnats—they are just dust. They bounce and slide off of him, the dark magician continuing to give orders. Her body responds without prompting, the pieces of the land within her vibrating. It takes the ache of the sickness and gives it a new edge. She grits her teeth and throws her head back, fighting against the scream that works up her throat, fighting to be released into the air.
She doesn’t want to sacrifice anymore.
She doesn’t want to help him—to serve him, to be obedient to him.
But she looks around and sees the rest of them, strangers to her but trapped in this moment all the same. She will remember their faces, she thinks to herself. She will seek them out. She will acknowledge the pain that they have all experienced, the way that Carnage has torn them apart for his own desires.
She will find them because she will survive this. They will all survive this.
(They have to. This can’t be for nothing.)
Sochi can feel the pieces beginning to work their way through her, traveling beneath the flesh through the branching roads of her veins. She cries against gritted teeth, knees threatening to give out beneath her.
Was it—was it making its way to her heart?
Fresh fear brands her as she feels both Pangea and the Mountain slipping through her, faster than possible, closing in on the place in her chest where the two hearts now unnaturally rest. <i>Get it out. Get it out. Get it OUT.</i> Instinct takes over and she tries to reach down and bite at the flesh covering her chest.
She starts to claw at the flesh, her body more flexible than usual. Her paws reach for her flesh and find purchase, the skin sloughing off easily—too easily. The pain is incredible and she howls against it, but she doesn't stop. She can’t stop. There is a dull roar in her ears, something that is only drowned out by the thumping of the hearts, the sound of them increasing in volume with each passing second.
Another howl escapes her as she desperately claws at her own chest, breaking it open.
The skin peels back, torn and tattered. Tears run down her cheeks. She wasn’t meant to die like this. She wasn’t meant to be ripping out her own heart at the bottom of the ocean on some godforsaken piece of land. She wasn’t meant to be bending to the will of some coward of a magician, sacrificing something so that he could have something. This wasn’t meant to be the end of her story. It wasn’t. It wasn’t.
She snarls as she reaches ribs, the hearts pounding, the pieces of dirt somehow wedged behind them.
She claws at the ribs and they crack, but they don’t break.
She stumbles to her feet, blood leaking out the edges of her mouth, froth gathering more in the corners of her mouth. She lurches and slams into whatever is nearby—tree, rock, <i>anything</i>. The water around her is syrupy and stained with blood, but she can’t think enough to process it. She just keeps slamming into whatever she can, until she feels the creaking of her ribs as they give way like ancient wood.
Finally—finally—the ribs crack, no, shatter. She gasps against the feeling of it, stumbling—crawling—back to the crater. She spits up blood but more leaks from her chest. The pieces that she had been ordered to sacrifice fall out of her, followed closely by the eerily green heart and then her own.
Sochi’s eyes go wide, a strangled noise coming out of her throat as she tilts forward and falls near Pangea's heart, bleeding out of her now empty chest, the congealed, alien blood making its way for the final gift.
Minutes pass.
Hours pass.
Days, maybe.
She doesn’t know.
All she knows is what when she wakes, she’s breathing air and not water, there is sand beneath her—
and everything has changed.
<i>Everything</i>.
</p> </div> <div class="sochi_name">sochi</div> <div class="sochi_quotetwo">it comes and goes in waves; it always does, it always does <br>we watch as our young hearts fade into the flood, into the flood</div> <img class="sochi_image" src="https://s15.postimg.cc/str7xmp3v/shifaaz-shamoon-300079-unsplash.jpg"> </div> </center>
![[Image: sochi.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/rs3xFJR0/sochi.png)
I was less than graceful, I was not kind
be out watching other lovers lose their spine