Monster University-Rachael

Story One

Rachael

“I watch the monsters day in and day out. They never notice me the lowly human. But I watch them. I know them. I know their weaknesses, their strengths, their desires. They don’t think anybody could ever figure it out. Ha! One only has to watch and listen to see what is really going on. Nobody watches. And nobody pays attention to the dying girl. The girl that is quiet and mousey, the girl that doesn’t say two words unless she is in class or spoken too. No nobody notices the dying girl. And because of that, I can watch them. Study the monsters. And learn how to kill them. I don’t have the strength to kill them. To get rid of the evil that plagues this town. But I hope that some day that humanity won’t be lost to them. I hope that some day that someone will have the strength to take them down. But I watch. That is all I can do. Watch and record. And now I want to share this all with you. Share with you how I came to find out how things go bump in the night. And the stories of Monster University.”

Rachael sat and watched the new students. Rachael was a professional student. She chose this life because she was dying. She always knew she would die young. Terminal Genetic Conditions. She snorted. People ignored her. She was always quiet. Afraid of trying to find friends. Afraid of falling in love. Why do so when you are just going to leave them? Even her parents were distant after they diagnosed her at eight. Two years later, her very healthy baby brother and sister were born. They were the only ones she really cared about in life, anyway. She always sacrificed for her brother and sister. They were her life. She gave them everything that she refused to give anybody else. Because of that, most people thought she was lost in her head a lot. Her books, her stories, her writings and musings. That she refused to get a job, even with her many degrees. Cemented that she was a bit touched in the head. But really, she was watching. Observing. Writing what she saw. And as the new students moved in and the town got a new bar, a new restaurant, new businesses… okay, let’s be honest, not that strange. They were in a college town and people moved in and out all the time. Sometimes families moved to be with their kids; sometimes people moved to make a go of a business in a college town that would have many people for at least eight of the twelve months of the year. The bonus with this town is that it was very, very close to the larger towns in the state. And was considered a larger town in of itself. So even ‘seasonal’ businesses could make a go of things year round.

One day Rachael was helping with the registrations. And she noticed some strange behavior in a group of kids. Now it was a college campus, and strange and abnormal behavior was normal. But some of these kids were speaking as if they were misplaced out of time. They dressed as if they looked into a catalog and just picked clothing to mimic what the model was wearing.

So, Rachael did what Rachael did best and observed them. She watched them every day and eavesdropped in on their conversations. She wrote down everything. She listed everything. She discovered the truth not long after they all started. They never noticed her and talked around her. They were monsters! Vampires, werewolves, mummies, zombies, undead killers, they were all real! What could she do?

She knew she could never fight these monsters. Instead, she stayed in the shadows. She documented the monsters. She watched them day in and day out. She was dying, and they killed to live. It made her mad. It pissed her off. She watched them kill to live. She watched them kill for sport. She watched them laugh about it. She watched them live life when she would die.

She vowed somehow that people would know their stories. Their weaknesses and their powers and their rituals; so that one day people could rise and bring them down. She wrote these stories and hid them when she was finished.

She followed them. She got to know them. She probably knew them better than they knew each other. This went on for months. She would put the pieces together. And being a woman who was used to being in the shadows, she knew how to stay hidden.

One day Rachael had just finished documenting the last of the monsters in town. She found the rituals they had to perform. Their weaknesses. And their strengths. She wrote them as short stories. She left the bank to be surrounded by the very monsters she had been hunting. She had messed up just a few days before. She had known it too. She had gotten so angry that one of the women was so bored with life that she was just going through the motions. That she kept doing her rituals only so she wouldn’t have to pay the price of burning in hell.

Rachael yelled at her when she went to the bar to watch one of the last monsters. She had yelled that she wished that she could live. She wished that she had the opportunity that the soul sucking monster she was had; but she was dying. She messed up and quickly finished her documents. She had to. Her will stated to publish them. To publish them as fiction so that way people would read them. But those who were smart, those who could put the pieces together, that they would understand that they were after a while. And maybe one day hunt them down and destroy them all.

Now she stood surrounded by them. Taken into a back alley into the city. She swallowed. She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, for she knew her time had come. She asked one thing. “Let my parents bury my body…” She whispered as her world went black.

“These are my words. My stories. Read them. Understand them. And watch for the monsters hidden within our society. If you are reading this. You know my story. A girl who died too young. Her genetic condition taking her quickly as she left her ultimate piece of work in a safe deposit box to finish. These are my last words. I know when I leave this bank I will die. Be aware of the surrounding people. You never know which may hide a monster within. And if you are brave enough, strong enough, powerful enough… Please finish what I wanted to start and destroy them all…”

Monster University

I will start republishing the stories of the 1st set of Monster University Short Storiee. 1 or 2 a day.

The reason, is that I do want to complete the 2nd set. Throughout the next few months. I will post them as I complete them.

Newly edited.

Each with its own cover.

Exclusive to my website.

Will post 2 today.

I hope you enjoy them!

Death Presents

Flash Fiction
All Rights Reserved

I remember it like yesterday. Was it yesterday? Time seems to blur lately with my depressed thoughts. That Hollow’s Eve that ended my childhood and set me upon this road. A loss of childhood is a requirement of life I guess, but one that still comes as a surprise to everybody when they realize it is over. Those carefree days, gone forever, often times in a blink of an eye. Many have contribute to that day, many that regret the choices that led to that day.

Even as I lay here and listen to the voices talk about what is to be done with me. I listen as my godfather slams the refrigerator closed, I listen as my godmother cries, and I even hear her blasted pet bird squawk against its cage being thrown about as people went to and fro.

I close my eyes as I remember that day upon the pier when my parents said good bye to me. That day that was only a week before that terrible day, but seems so far away. The ship of iron and steel then was hit by a ship killer. And that is what that storm did. It killed the ship and along with it my parents.

So as I lay here, moments after hearing the voices talk about where they would continue raising my ten-year-old self, and try to think. At that moment I strengthen my mind, I create walls around my heart, and I make a vow.

A vow that I will become the queen I am about to be crowned, and nobody, not even my godparents, will control my ambition to show the world I am my father’s daughter.

Those voices would not be able to control my ambition to have the world fear the name, Anne Bathory.

Because while I may not be Queen of my nation, I am queen of my land and my name would be feared.

That I can guarantee in my last moment of childhood, as Death has presented me with the Queen’s crown.

Hidden

Flash Fiction

All Rights Reserved

I lay here, my eyes wide open. My life it flashes before my life. My childhood. My teen years, and the start of the path I went down. My adult years and that final act that finally lead to this position.

I lay here and wonder what my life had been like if I hadn’t made the choices I had. I lay here and feel, maybe for the first time in my existence, regret.

So that is what regret feels like. Excitement. Release. A moment of relief.

Those emotions for my life were the only ones I knew. Odd how now that my eyes are on display that I feel something I always should have all along.

Remorse. Regret. Sadness. It is a novel feeling to finally feel… human.

That part that was hidden so deep inside me.

Now out in the open and on display as my eyes see the last faces they will ever see.

They say eyes are the windows to the soul. That is why I used to wear sunglasses. Why I keep my eyes hidden from the world. So they won’t see the darkness of my soul.

See the things that I had seen. See the things I have done. See my true soul.

So I hid my eyes. Maybe I did feel, but I was so hidden. So hidden that I even hid my eyes from myself. I couldn’t look myself in the eyes. To look myself in the eyes would have reminded me of the sins I ran from. Remind me of the pain and death I caused.

But today the glasses finally came off.

Today my eyes will close forevermore, after they are bared for the world to see.

As I finally pay for my sins.

As they inject me with drugs to stop my heart my eyes wide open and on display, the world sees my soul and the fact I finally regret my choices.

Regret my life.

Regret I made my eyes a window to hell…

Raven’s Second Fall

A Monster University Story
All Rights Reserved

“Demons aren’t supposed to feel the virtues. We can feel the Deadly Sins. My favorite has been lust. Sex is something in of itself. When I was warned to stay away from the Angel, of course I didn’t. I started going to the bar and talking with her. Flirting with her. When she moved and became a cadet at the police academy, I would make sure to run into her when she came to work random shifts at the bar. Or even when she came to the diner or bar to talk to Morgan and Jo. When I first realized my lust had skidded into the unmentionable virtue and I was going into a downward spiral of appreciation and… affection, I started to sleep with anybody and everybody. I was running from the feelings, of course, I am a Demon! I don’t… love… I went home with a different mortal each night, had se, made a deal, and then did t again to keep my thoughts off the Angel. And I did this until it didn’t work, and I started calling her name no matter the body I was with at the time. So, I started causing battles with her instead… Sometimes fighting could be just as good as sex…”

Raven sat upon the bar stool at Jo’s, he had no real idea why he was here. I stopped picking up random mortals, the high just wasn’t there anymore. The Angel had destroyed him. He went from the model Demon to… to this excuse for an immortal Earl of Hell. If his minions saw him now, they would revolt, rebel, they would re-something anyways. The Angel. That was why he sat at the bar with a beer and was depressed. He sat watching her bring out her wings, it was past closing time and no mortals were in the bar. They were almost all gold, meaning she still tried to be a good little Angel. Sinning only when needed, a lie here, a lie there, about her past. Or stealing to live. There are grey’s too. Her sins she had chosen. Cursing is what she told Jo, but Raven wondered if any of them were lust. If she had given into any of the Deadly Sins. He got up and made his way towards the girls. Drunk enough now to be stupid enough to ask the question. Frank and Lucas grabbed his arm. “Let me go.” He slurred out as he tried to continue that way. He had to ask HIS Angel a question.

“You are drunk,” Lucas drawled. “Sit down.”

“I gotta ask the angel a question!”

“Why?” Frank didn’t really care, he was just trying to delay him from going over there and embarrassing himself. Anybody with even a half of brain can figure out the Demon fell once more, this time for a Fallen Angel that had the power to say no to Satan.

“Because she makes me a worse demon than the one in the book she has fallen in love with!”

“Which one is that?” Lucas sat back with his hands behind his head and smirked.

“That one! Where the angel, who really revels in the deadly sins, and the demon hid the fact that he reveled in the virtues. The pair she calls the ineffable husbands! That demon is a disgrace to demons! Cares about kids, kind regards of what he says, in love with a blood sinning angel! And I gotta ask MY Angel a question! While I am drunk! Or I won’t be able to ask her!”

Lucas let go, “well, go on, I am curious what question could make a demon nervous!” He laughed as he drained the rest of his beer.

Frank looked like he wanted to protest, but he let Raven go; it would at least give them some entertainment while his mother and Bo were out spoiling his daughter.

Raven stumbled over there. “Angel! Angel!”

Alyssa looked at Raven and tilted her head. “What is it, Raum?” She still insisted on calling him by his real name.

He smirked, “You want to keep calling me by my name, perhaps I should call you by yours, after all your signal is still branded upon the back of your neck.”

“What is it you want, Raum?” Alyssa sighed, it wasn’t like anybody couldn’t look up who she was, it was obvious after all, her signal, as she kept her hair short.

“Well, Anael, I was wondering, if any of your grey feathers are because you have had sex?”

Alyssa spit out her drink. “What? No! And the feathers would be a deep rich royal blue if I gave into lust. Even if there is love behind it. Alyssa was growing flustered at the questions. She knew he was just picking another fight, and she didn’t feel like fixing up the bar, again. “Leave me alone, Raum.”

Raven sneered and then jumped. “Come one, Anael, you think you are so much better than me! We are both FALLEN! We are both the same!” He threw her against the wall, it buckled under the force and broke the frames that were upon it.

“WE ARE NOT THE SAME!” Alyssa screamed as she used her wings to push herself from the wall and push him back. Before she took to the air and used gravity to come down upon him with her full strength, pushing him through the floor.

The fight was destroying the bar, Jo was a bit peeved, but it wasn’t anything that hadn’t happened before. Raven moved and finally got an amulet around her neck. And with that it gave him the boost he needed, along with his connection to hell, to get her on the ground.

“It is the eleventh hour, what will you do dear Angel?” Raven smirked as he held her throat in his fist.

“Let me go, Raum!” She struggled to be let go. “Where did you get this amulet?”

“At my eleventh hour, I had implemented plans A thru Z on how to get over you, I had gone into apocalypse mode and put all my avoidance skills to the test. But I can’t get you out of my mind or heart. If I can’t have you in a romantic way, I will have you thinking I am the enemy. After all, fighting can be as good as sex, when one wins dominance.”

Alyssa used what strength she had, though it was being contained by the blood stone forged in hell, a blood stone that was once the soul of an angel made diamond, corrupted by hell, around her neck. It was just enough to push him back, and his back hit window busting it, but not going through it.

“If you want me come,” Alyssa panted out, it had been three hours of none stop battling and it was now the Devil’s hour. “Come and get me.” She stood but swayed.

Raven paused and smirked, he rubbed the sweat and blood from his face and kept his hand upon his chin as if in thought. “Want you in what way, Angel? Don’t get me wrong, both involve ropes, but it is an important distinction to make before we proceed.”

Alyssa blinked, “what on this forsaken Earth do you mean?”

“Think about it a moment Angel, what else could I do while I had you tied down?”

Alyssa’s eyes went wide, and she sputtered. ‘You think I mean sex?” She dropped the pool cue she had been using. “I can’t have sex! I am an Angel! It would mean giving in to the Deadly Sins!”

Raven moved closer, “you are a Fallen, Angel. That means you can give into any sin you want. Including the Deadlies. I think you would look perfect with Royal Blue Wings. Only sin a deadly can’t over take is murder. A few black with the Royal Blues, maybe some Violet for that Pride of yours.” He was right up close to her, his own pool cue, long forgotten. “Come on Angel, join me in the Sins.” He unleashed his own wings.

Alyssa gasped, she saw the Wrath Red, Lust Royal Blue, Sloth Sky Blue, Gluttony Orange, Greed Yellow, and Envious Green. Al of them mixed black. It made her swallow. They were gorgeous. She backed up and her back hit the wall.

Raven smirked as he sauntered towards her and pined her between his arms. “See what they could become? Come join me, Angel.” He brushed his lips against her skin. “You are a Fallen. You can do what you want. You are a free agent. You aren’t even bound by Hell, not like I am. So, join me, join our own side.” He smirked, he could quote her favorite book. “You ruined me you know.” He placed one hand on her hip. “I can’t even be a good demon. I am stuck in this look of that unmentionable virtue, a downward spiral of admiration and affection.” He kissed her neck again. “Join me…” He kissed up her neck until his lips hovered over hers. “Join me in our second fall.”

“Raum…” Alyssa bit her lip. He was tempting her, so tempting to let him lead her down that rabbit hole. “I… I was…” Alyssa swallowed, “I was always the purist of Angels. I fell for my love of humanity. I fell to save a human, because I loved them. I love these damned broken souls. If I give in, them that angel I was is truly gone. And never coming back.”

“That is a good thing!” Raven placed his other hand on her hip and pulled her towards him. “Do you want to be that angel that followed orders like a good little girl? Do you want to be the angel that stood by and watched as the beings you love were hurt, killed, tortured, or destroyed? Do you want to be her? Because I didn’t like her! I didn’t love her! I fell for the angel that is becoming a cop. I love the angel that is secretly getting justice and vengeance for those who hurt kids! The spells and the curses and leading our monster family towards them! I never in all the eons I have been alive, as an angel, or as the human that got tricked into making a deal with the devil, or as a demon, ever let myself feel the virtues. Then you skid into my life and destroy me! Not because you are an angel, not because you are GOOD,” he spat the word. “But because you have a set of standards, of rules, you live by! You FELL, because you couldn’t do it any longer. When I was an angel I fell because I didn’t want to choose a side! I became human because I didn’t choose a side, reborn loads of times, before I made a deal with Lucifer, and gave him my soul. I became a demon and remembered everything. You stand for something, I fell for anything because I didn’t. That is why when I fell the second time it was without noticing! It was without resistance! I fell Angel, and it is for who you are now, not who you were then, for this woman standing in front of me right now! With her anything but white wings! With wings that will go from this gold to a deep rich blue, to a deep rich black as you embrace the Fallen Angel of Justice and Vengeance you are! Don’t be afraid to embrace the change… because you are leaving the shallow end, you are leaving the sand, join me! Join me in the ocean of desire, join me on the mountain top of love. Join me Angel in this fall!” He then kissed her with all the lust, want, affection, appreciation, desire, and love he felt for her. When his lungs screamed for the air, he didn’t really need he pulled back. “Join me, Angel. My Earth Angel, join me.”

Alyssa swallowed, she looked up into his eyes, through her lashes, her hands had found their way into his hair during the kiss. She took a breath. She never felt anything like she was feeling now. “Show me.” She straightened and with more confidence stated. “Show me how to Fall.” She stated as she pulled his head back down so she could run her lips over his, whispering, “show me how, Raum.”

Raven pulled her closer and kissed her again and he flapped his wings and used his abilities to disappear from the bar, he felt her powers repair it. He internally chuckled, his Angel would always have the streak of having to do what was right. And he would never change her core being, he just wanted to bring out who she truly was, and that was HIS Angel.

He fell the first time because he was a coward who didn’t want to fight. As a human he made a deal he never should have, and had always regretted, especially after getting his memories back. He no longer regrets it, for as a Demon he finally found his completion, in a Fallen Angel who, was just enough of a saint to hide among the humanity she fell to protect. No, he would never regret his choices, because this second fall, was worth every pain and moment of hell he had ever gone through.

For he fell to meet his Angel.

The Damned Saint New Title

The Damned Saint will be getting a new title. A new cover. It seems social media sites don’t like the word Damned in the title. And I want to be able to promote the novel, that started as a short story almost 25 years ago (25 years in November).

What will this new title be? Not 100% sure at this time. The short story was titled Damned. The novel was supposed to be titled The Damned Saint.

Leaning towards a simple Fallen Saint to The Fallen’s Grace or The Grace of the Fallen.

What I do know is Vapula, Raziel, Sophia, and Botis will have to face unknown enemies and help Michael realize not everything is black and white.