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Congratulations robw963!

canonized said:
Update coming around tomorrow or so !

Dang, I'm falling behind again, rapidly!
 
balkanite said:
thats great! im trying--and just managing--to keep up! :eek:o

And we're definitely very glad to have you with us :D do tell us what you think !

General_BT: no falling behind now XD
 
*Cracks the bull whip*

WORK!
 
Elidioemperor said:
Don't think you fool us with your announcements! We want updates! By the power given to me by... me... I demand an update!

ROFL Guilty as charged ! working on it now !

Grubnessul: Haha , alright alright ! XD
 
phargle said:
Squid knuckle?

:confused:

ForzaA: Don't ask me o.o .

Update is 40% done ! Will try to work on it after class and upload it later today before my scheduled communion and liberation dinner with friends . Oi the social life is getting in the way again ;.; .
 
I don't know if it's because the shock caused to me by visualizing general Francisco Franco and general Emilio Mola as Vicent Vega y Jules Winnfield in a new Spamish-Alzamiento-version of Pulp Fiction (don't ask about it, it isn't neither my fault nor my idea), but I begin to loose track of the last posts.

Canonized, you're working in your update since yesterday. No more comments.

xxpadrole.smileysmiley.com.22.gif
 
Kurt_Steiner said:
I don't know if it's because the shock caused to me by visualizing general Francisco Franco and general Emilio Mola as Vicent Vega y Jules Winnfield in a new Spamish-Alzamiento-version of Pulp Fiction (don't ask about it, it isn't neither my fault nor my idea), but I begin to loose track of the last posts.

Canonized, you're working in your update since yesterday. No more comments.

xxpadrole.smileysmiley.com.22.gif

Hahaha a red card ! I totally didn't see that coming XD . Okay I'm going to promise to have an update out by today no excuses on my end ! It'll be up before 11pm GMT !
 
Pathetic excuse, go either back to womanising or writing!

:D
 
The problem with being so prolific is that it sets up the expectation of continuing to be so. I'd rather wait for the good stuff than the rushed stuff...and I know you won't rush :)
 
Grubnessul said:
Pathetic excuse, go either back to womanising or writing!

:D

Don't be so rude, let's help him!

He'll do the writting section and I'll do the womaninsing part. I know it's hard, but someone has to do it. :D
 
I don't know what poor li'l canonized would do without you, Kurt :p
 
Grubnessul said:
Pathetic excuse, go either back to womanising or writing!

:D

I know ;.; ugh and i'm still late . You have no idea the whirlwind of win i've gotten myself into . If only you knew about the professor I have a crush on too haha we'll talk about that another day XD

robw963: thank you , sir XD . I've been trying to get back to the 2 updates a week track but it's been hard as hell !

Elidioemperor: exactly XD

Kurt_Steiner: ROFL . it's why you're my older brother , eh ? XD Always getting the good things !

Grubnessul: Haha , he's quite helpful !

Okay so I promised it'll be up tonight and that's going to be a hard stretch . I'm going to try my best and do it in the next hour but if not then I will get it up later tonight after the dinner . Oi so much to do so little time !
 
phargle said:
Hendrix, wow.

Yep :D well , as rob pointed out , Bob Dylan .

Update is 90% complete . Going to upload in the next hour ; just gotta add graphics and proofread !
 
chapter121tile.gif


Chapter CXXI: Scream!​

1 July 1642

Matthijs did not know what day it was, but he suspected that it was day nonetheless: the way the cube he was in lit up clued him in to the fact that at least this “day” was about to begin. The cube he had woken up in weeks ago had frightened him at first. Initially, he had thought that he was in Purgatory since the white illumination emanating from the walls themselves arrested his eyes. When he had gotten up, he could still feel his body and the clothes he wore the night he was attacked. It was then he knew he was not dead yet.

The first thing he had done was feel his back and stomach—the areas where he remembered being pierced by a sword. There was no sign of suturing; there was no sign of a scar; there was no sign of any indication that he had been run through by a weapon. There wasn’t even any pain. When he looked down at his clothes and at his hands, he thought that the bright walls were playing tricks on him. His fingernails had no dirt underneath them and his clothes were brilliant in their colouration as if they were brand new. He could feel his skin be as smooth as a bar of soap and it was whiter than it was before.

It was on that first day so many weeks ago that he had tried to speak as well. It was an accident at first. “What in the world is goin—” he tried to say before he stopped himself. Mid-sentence, he had realized that the sound of his voice was different. It seemed muffled as if his voice only existed inside the confines of his head. The only sound he heard was the vibration of his speech emanating inside of his body. A shiver had convulsed him and he frantically looked around attempting to hear himself speak. He grew frustrated each time he could not hear himself clearly: it was as if someone was sucking his soul through his throat every time he spoke.

He had attempted to run: he did not exactly know where he was going. What maddened him more was that his footsteps were not returning any sound to his ears. He could only hear the sick thud of boot and flesh in his shoe transmitting up his body. He felt like he was drowning. Reaching one of the brightened walls, he pounded on it. Again… it was just the squish of his flesh as if he was clapping his hands and there was no wall there at all. That’s when he began screaming. There was nothing that returned to him except the ringing inside of his head from the surge of air vibrating through his throat.

After a few days, he had cautiously accustomed himself to the madness of the room. But it was not just the strange lack of echo or sound that disturbed him. The first “night” was almost as insane as the “day.” All at once, at some unknown hour, all the light from the walls, ceiling, and floor disappeared leaving Matthijs completely devoid of most of his sense perceptions. By then, however, he had exhausted himself trying to find an escape and the darkness did not surprise him. He had almost welcomed it the first time and was lulled into a fitful sleep. When the lights flashed on again the second day of his imprisonment, he had noticed a plate of food near the center of the room.

The food was strange, but somehow, his instincts told him it was food. The smell and the texture informed him that it was something he could eat. Its appearance, however, was the only deceptive measure of it. The items were round and red like perfectly spherical beads. When Matthijs touched them, they were soft and almost gelatinous. The aroma was intoxicating. It was as if someone made pearls of port wine. The texture felt like a combination of fruit and meat.

At first, Matthijs was suspicious, but soon the needs of his stomach forced him to taste. The hairs on the back of his head had risen at the immediate flavour. In a few minutes, the whole plate was clean and he felt as if he had dined at the banquet table of a local lord. Flashes of flavour danced on his tongue as if it tasted of herring one minute, then apricots then, then barley and ham afterwards. He could have sworn he tasted a bit of tobacco mixed with chocolate in there, too.

It had been like that day after day. He had almost gotten used to the whole routine of waking up, eating, and pacing around the solitary illuminated cube before falling asleep at night. It was on perhaps the end of the fifth day that he realized that he had not felt any need to go to the latrine. At first it terrified him just with the other surprises that accompanied being in that cube. He questioned it out loud as well although he probably could hear himself better if he had just spoken in his head. How was this happening?

Nevertheless, this was how he was surviving the past few weeks. On this, yet other “day” he eased himself to the center of the room towards where the only sign of colour aside from his clothes dominated the snowy, ethereal glow of the cube. He was arrested by yet another surprise as he approached his red breakfast. Something was different! Next to the plate was something new—a strange box of sorts. Atop the box were small figures and blocks: like some kind of toy.

13-Puzzle-web.png

It seemed easy enough to understand: place the weird shaped blocks into the spaces left behind on the platform… but Matthijs knew that this wasn’t sufficient. There were too many blocks and he already knew—somehow—that even if he took away some of the blocks, they would not cover the entire top of the template. He sat next to the item while popping one of the food globes into his mouth. Despite the treasure of flavours, his mind was focused on the puzzle left in front of him.

Placing his fingers on the items and manipulating them, he felt a surge of intuition. “This was easy…” he said to himself as he crunched on another sphere. He piled up the puzzle pieces in a pattern and created a kind of pyramid with the blocks that covered the entirety of the platform. “You just have to put them on top of each other…” he said out loud forgetting that once again the room sucked up his voice. He shrugged to himself as he finished his breakfast. At least his captors were giving him something to entertain himself with, he thought to himself.

Stretching his legs and standing up, he began to walk towards one end of the cube and then followed its perimeter. The energy from the meal propelled him faster and faster and he began a running jog. No use letting himself become lethargic in capture, he thought to himself. Each run that he took every morning, however, felt like a strange dream. The corners of the walls—considering they were all illuminated evenly—were hard to find and many times he felt like he was running off to nowhere. Add to that the fact that he could not hear himself run except through the sensations through his flesh. Many times he felt as if he wasn’t running at all. Nevertheless, he had gotten accustomed to the strangeness of this silent room.

---​

Covington felt the warmth in his fingers tingle at the tips as he sat opposite the publisher. This kind of sensation only happened when he was thoroughly engrossed in his role. The publisher himself-- a man by the age of perhaps thirty five-- was nervously wringing his fingers to hide the small shudder they resorted to every now and then. “I had no idea that an English Lord such as yourself would be interested in choosing Antwerp as your place of publication. I would have thought London was the main place to--”

“Antwerp is a hotbed of political movement,” Covington interrupted him. Giles knew that if he could keep his air of superiority about him, he would be able to cow the poor publisher into believing he was the Emperor in Madrid. It helped that Vermeer was acting as his hired Walloon assistant. “Plus,” Giles said with such a magnificent air that it was almost as if he was speaking Dutch and English combined, “I have always loved Antwerp. There is something about the city that has enchanted me.”

The publisher could only nod his head rapidly in agreement. The man barely kept his hands on the desk as he sat on the edge of his seat. Giles had pushed himself all the way up to the bureau that if someone was to walk into the room at that moment, it may not have been immediately discernible which one was asking to be printed. “We are most pleased to help such an upstanding gentleman--” and here, the publisher could not help but look at the sack of money that was sitting on his table; Vermeer had planted it there a few minutes earlier when the charade began.

“I do enjoy doing 'business',” Giles let out an artificial chuckle, “I'm sure this initial payment will be enough to secure me a few hundred copies by this evening?”

Initial payment?” the publisher looked stunned as he shot glances from Giles to Vermeer and back again as if to make sure that this wasn't some kind of jest. It was only after an awkward second did he return to his good business manners. “Why of course! The template you've submitted has already been sent to the pressmen. I—” the man quickly rose up but then hung halfway up from his chair suddenly realising his rudeness, “if you'll excuse me that is... I will just make sure that they are going as fast as you'd like them to, My Lord.”

Giles gave a pleased nod and the young publisher sped out of the office already beginning to shout down to his workmen. Giles could hear him calling his assistant to pull the current assignments out of the presses in the back and to put Giles' message as top priority. “The way you carried on with him,” Vermeer quietly said to Giles, “you almost convinced me that we had more money to spare on this.”

“Once the messages are complete, we won't need to bother to return here. I'm sure he'll be happy enough with that compensation we gave him,” Giles replied benevolently as he rose from the wooden chair and moving himself to the brightly lit window of the office. He could see the docks from his present position and smiled at the miniature pandemonium that was affecting the area.

Although it was several blocks away, Giles could still make out the outlines of shipmasters and their crews crowding around the warehouse offices complaining about the recent shut down. Spanish regulars had to be called in to maintain the peace. “Due to increased privateer activity,” Giles was imagining the harbourmaster explain to the angry merchants, “we have to shut down operations until the patrolships can secure the Westerschelde.”

Giles knew it was a flimsy excuse, but he knew it was good enough to have the harbor shut down at least for an evening. He also knew it was just fishy enough to alarm the revolutionaries holed up in their hotel. His plan was moving forward accordingly. By week's end, he would be ready to make his move.

A knock on the doorframe broke the calculating silence and Giles swerved around expecting to see the publisher although it would have been strange for him to knock on his own door. To that end, Giles was justified considering that it was now the visage of a young lady which stepped into view in the frame of the doorway. She was a stunning vision in the morning-- almost all white in her outfit, she also sported a parasol. The only colour on her face were concentrated around her head. Blonde curls framed rosey cheeks and dashing eyes which peered at the two gentlemen with cautious curiosity. “I'm looking for Mr. Van Dijk?” her voice asked meekly. It instantly betrayed her Russian origins.

“I'm afraid the good publisher is on the floor attending to his workmen, mademoiselle,” Giles was the first to respond.

“Are you associates of his, perhaps?” the young lady asked without stepping into the room.

“No,” Giles smiled at her, “we're just customers of his. Perhaps my assistant here can go fetch him for you, Miss--”

“Ivanovna. Katarina Ivanovna.”

Both Vermeer and Covington recognized the name and both held their ground despite the surprise. Giles had originally suspected that the girl was perhaps the Russian young lady that had last seen Van Der West but he had not been sure. This was an unexpected advantage for him; now he was familiar with her face.

interlude2.gif


Interlude​

It was only after the scream that Trey recognized that he was facing a familiar face from across the glass. Framed in some strange furry mane, Trey identified Natasha's face-- the young lady that aided Dr. Fitzgerald. Something seemed different about her, however; Something about her appearance was off...

Trey was suddenly embarrassed as the young woman on the other side was slightly taken aback by his scream. For two seconds or so, both of them stared at each other through the glass, before Trey could collect himself and rushed to open the passenger side window. “I didn't mean to startle you,” Natasha laughed with her usual thick Russian accent.

natasha.png

Natasha's eccentric jacket had nearly given Trey a heart attack

“I-- It's alright,” Trey stuttered. He stopped himself as he looked down and could tell that Randall was yelling for him through the fallen mobile. “One second,” Trey said quickly to Natasha as he reached down for the device and fumbling it against his ear.”

“Trey! Trey!” Randall kept yelling from the other side.

“Yeah, I'm here, Randall,” Trey said back quickly while passing a glance at the young lady who was curiously leaning into his window. Her eyebrow raised when Trey said Randall's name. “I'm fine, don't worry,” Trey reassured the one on the other side, “Something just surprised me. But listen, Randall, I've seen that person you were describing before. He was at the party last night.”

There was a short pause and Trey awkwardly looked up to the patient Natasha who merely investigated the whole affair with an aloof grin. Trey could hear some distant talking on the other side before Randall finally queried him, “Do you think you can meet us back at the party house?” Randall asked. “The detectives said they'll want to check it out and ask you questions when we're there.”

Trey thought about it quietly while Natasha's eyes seemed to bore into his temples. He had not forgotten why he felt so awkward around her-- she was beautiful even in that silly jacket. “Yeah, I can do that. I'll meet you there in half an hour or so.”

“Alright, see you soon,” Randall said quickly before hanging up. Trey closed his phone and now looked up to his visitor.

“Sorry about that...” he said to Natasha a bit bewildered.

“It's alright,” Natasha giggled. “I recognized you driving down the street and saw you pull over. I thought you might have been in trouble so I decided to pull over too and see if you were alright.”

Trey wanted to say something but could only manage a silly half smile. “Thanks, but I'm alright. Randall was just telling me something important so I thought I'd stop...” Trey was already cursing himself for saying stupid things in front of Natasha.

“Speaking of Randall,” Natasha huffed while shaking her head slowly, “he was supposed to meet me this morning: we had an appointment at the hair salon.” That's when Trey realized that Natasha looked different because her hair was slightly lighter... it wasn't the stark black he remembered. “He promised me he'd go in with me and get his hair bleached while I lightened mine.”

Trey stared at the soft brown tones that were barely peeking out from underneath the furry hood. “It looks good,” Trey finally muttered smiling awkwardly before looking at her eyes again. When she smiled at that, he felt like he was going to lose his grip on his steering wheel again. He didn't even realize that his headache had faded.

“Thanks,” she added before leaning back and away from the window. “Well, if you're alright then I suppose I'll let you get going.”

“...Yeah,” Trey reluctantly stuttered while probing his brain for excuses to get her to stay.

“I'll see you in class then,” she said with a generous smile and a small wave of her hand. Trey merely smiled back and watched helplessly as the young lady receded from the window. Replacing her frame was the cold air that rushed in. Trey sighed heavily and slowly began to roll up his window. After a minute, he put himself into drive and pulled back into traffic.

---​

When Trey walked out of the living room of the party house, he saw Randall sitting in the lobby area with his head leaning back against the wall. Randall's eyes were hiding themselves in a feeble attempt at some sleep. Trey plopped himself down on the chair next to him. “They took a while with you,” Randall said drowsily as he dug his cold hands deeper into his jacket pockets.

“They had a lot of questions,” Trey replied pensively. He was still going over the strange set of inquiries the detectives had asked him.

“I heard you bumped into Natasha this morning,” Randall tried to change the subject.

“Yeah,” he replied, “she was downtown. Apparently, you stood her up on a salon date.”

Randall grinned to the ceiling while keeping his eyes closed. “Blame the police,” Randall grunted.

“Are you still going to keep your promise with her?” Trey asked.

“Which one?”

Trey paused at the possible meaning of that question. “To change your hair.”

Randall was still while his face was still parallel to the floor and ceiling. He took a deep breath and replied an exasperated, “yes. It'll probably look good on me, don't you think?”

Trey shrugged audibly enough with his jacket that Randall could hear him. It was then that one of the detectives entered the lobby. Randall straightened up groggily and opened his eyes. “You two can go back now,” the detective told them while giving some superficial sign of thanks.

“Well,” Randall stood up with a sigh, “I better head out to meet up with Natasha. I'll see you later tonight.”

Trey nodded and waved Randall off. Trey took a moment to rest his elbows on his knees and rub his eyes. What a long morning, he thought. When he released his eyes from the massage, he stared down between his shins and onto the floor. After a whole minute of quiet meditation, something strange caught his eye. A glint of colour that wasn't supposed to be there. It was on the edge of his shoe-- a dull scarlet. He bent his left shoe slightly and looked onto his sole. He stopped inhaling. There was a stain on his sole; a red one. Thick and dried-- he had seen that colouration before this morning-- he had seen it with Lei, underneath his shirt. He knew he was staring at blood.

Chapter CXXII: Blood (coming soon)