The Town Called Misery, 1
The Town Called Misery, 1
Let me tell you about where I live.
According to town history, Misery used to be a collection of four hamlet sized colonies, each founded by one of the four sons of Finely Misery. Because of the loss of Finely's will, the four hamlets essentially ostracized each other for a few decades until the arrival of something records call "Winter".
There is no description of what Winter actually is; all that is said is that Winter was a devastating blow to resources, and forced the four colonies to band together for survival. When Winter ended, the four colonies remained banded, and thus Misery was born.
Despite the town's supposed unity, remnants of its time as hamlets is still prevalent to this day. Four wards, or neighborhoods, each named after the four brothers, make up Misery. These wards are scattered and an organized mess, even within themselves. Even with the roads and community centers placed in between each ward, entering another neighborhood was basically like entering another city.
The only truly neutral place between each ward was the Misery School for All Ages. Equidistant from every ward, it was the center of town, and every child in Misery was enrolled there, from pre-K to Senior year. Almost like a reflection of the town, the school was actually made up of several buildings of various sizes, thrown almost haphazardly on it's hill without any rhyme or reason. The only consistent building was administration, a building the size of a trailer at the bottom of the hill. Everything else is thrown to the wind--you can have science in building J class 7 one day, and the next J7 is reserved for advanced algebra, or theoretical transmuatiom, or lenormand.
And that's just the mundane oddities. One rule of the school is that you can't look in the space in the doorframe; Principal Lee Anders even employs hall monitor like figures to prevent students from doing specifically that, who are recognizeable by the red armbands that they wear. Of note: I -did- witness a custodian slip some raw meat into the space though.
A daily event at MSAA is "Puma Time". Every building goes on lock down while a mountain lion, from Gods know where, prowls around the campus. This can last anywhere between half an hour to an entire day; in the event of the latter, guardians are called and the situation is explained. Either way, classes can't continue until the puma leaves of its own volition.
Beyond the events, such as the sudden screaming from the next room over that was suddenly cut short, and the third grader who levitated four feet off the ground for an hour [she's okay; she was unconscious the whole time], the faculty and students only add to the strangeness. One boy who shares two classes with me and refuses to give his name is always drenched--always. Hours will pass, and yet he will always appear to have just crawled out from the ocean. A custodian has to follow him around for all the puddles he leaves. Another boy, who appears to be the drenched boy's brother, always wears welding gloves. He wore them even when he helped the pre-K kids with finger painting.
A girl who had slit pupils and a tail [a real tail--she says she has Irre's Disorder] had showed me around campus. She waved to a girl who had deer eyes [the girl constantly smiles and spoke in riddles] and even introduced me to her brother, a boy who had turquoise hair and a slab of lapis lazuli in place of a tongue. Their names are Meiriam and Constant Lee Anders; they were the principal's kids.
Principal Lee Anders was a magician--through sleight of hand, he pulled a coin out of my ear. Then he turned the coin into glass, shattered it, and melted the shards into a flower shape using only his mind. Principal Lee Anders kept half mentioning events that hadn't happened [amongst which involved the time that Puma Time would happen that day, his daughter tripping over a loose floorboard, and a teacher by the name of Mr. Slins having his desk spontaneously combust. The last of these had no obvious causation, but it happened anyways] and claimed that the moon was his child. I was speechless when I left his office. More so when those events actually happened.
More Posts from Miserycollections and Others
Angels & Demons
As you know, you will only see an angel or demon several times in your life. Perhaps a black spot at the corner of your eye causes you to crash into mailbox. Or maybe you'll see a soft mote of light hover over your friend when they pass a test they didn't study for. Collectives are rarer; meeting one is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
In Misery, they are an integral part of life. No one has ever gone a day without seeing an angel or a demon; some even follow people around at two or three at a time (the townsfolk call these Collectives, fittingly, familiars). And there are enough Collectives at a large enough volumes to be considered citizens; Angel and Demon Collectives make up 2% of the town population, and there's even a business completely run by Demon Collectives. (All human employees are required to be possessed--I'm not sure why, but Micah thinks its so the Demons can practice possession).
As a newcomer, it was a bit....overwhelming. I have only seen three Demons before coming to Misery, and they were all motes. To have clouds of these creatures flying around was an....expirience. Further study is required--no one has seen this many Collectives in one area. It's unprecedented.
It's like something in the town is attracting them....
"The red skull favours those who consort with beasts and corpses."
~Told to me by a flagpole with a face
"This isn't magic. This is the dark science--it's perfectly quantifiable.
....It's mostly quantifiable."
~Said by a cheerleader to a goth girl on how to summon a star god for their sociology project
Here goes nothing...
My name is Story Page.
It has been three months since my family relocated to Misery, a town sequestered somewhere in the Northern Rock Coast.
And I will be the first to say it--this town should not exist.
Misery is a hub of supernormal activity. Danger stalks the night, and bloodsuckers watch their prey from the shadows. Spirits and invisible men walk amongst bakers and businessmen. Anything can be anything, and nothing is as it seems.
Out of the ordinary events happen on an hourly basis, and yet the townfolk are not only completely aware of this, they have embraced this.
Unfortunately, no one has ever tried to explain this weirdness; they've made their peace with and grown up with it.
So I've taken it upon myself to look at this town with fresh eyes. Through study and interviews, I will share what I've learned with you. Ask me anything; as long as the information gets out to the rest of the world, nothing is off limits.
REMINDER
Repeated asshatitude will result in the revoking of the Moon. Remember, I gave it to you and I can take it away.
A message forced into mine and parent's heads at 3am. The voice sounded like a cheery young woman to me, and a wizened old man to my parents.
The Mists of Misery
Misery was built somewhere on the Northern Rock Coast [not on the Horn, but close], and has two beaches--the aptly named Rock Coast to the west, which despite consisting of broken and shattered stones, remains evermore popular than the Sand Coast to the south. And maybe the town's proximity to the ocean can explain away the daily presence of the all consuming mists...but that doesn't explain its, dare I say, predatory behavior.
In Misery, every night from sunset to approximately six in the morning, pure white mist blossoms from the center of the town and engulfs everything. My neighbors claim that the mists are searching for something, but exactly what, they aren't sure.
My first night in Misery, I watched the mists' approach. It did not float, or hover, or even roll over the dimly lit streets. No, these mists slithered; they snaked over the asphalt and concrete, prowling, -watching-. As I stared, I could tell that the mists weren't vapours. They were....ethereal. The mists were barely real--they were like an optical illusion, or as if something flat suddenly decided it didn't want to be anymore, and actively fought to become 3 dimensional.
As I watched, a sharp pain grew in the back of my head. I couldn't tear my eyes away from them--my mind was trying to cope with the fact that this thing that defied the laws of physics sat before my very eyes. And as I stared, I felt something, deep within the mists, stare back.
I ran away that night, and only watched the mists from the safety of my room. But I wasn't safe; as long as those mists were there, no one was safe.
No one spoke of the mists. None of my teachers would talk about it; the library didn't have an in depth study on them. They were simply a fact of life--the mists had been here since when Misery was just a small collection of hamlets, and probably before then.
No one would explain why the mists came from the center of town, which happened to be the center of Misery's School of All Ages courtyard, instead of rolling in from the oceans. And no one would explain how they both had and lacked substance at the same time. And their eyes averted when I asked about the watching, and the hunting. They winced when I compared the mists to a predator in wait.
The message was clear.
No one talked about the mists.
How do vampires pee
Th-that's....I-I don't...
The moon was bright and full, visible even as the waning sunlight cast a purple glow on the remaining clouds.
I watched as they drifted lazily around the celestial body, and soon they covered its face, cutting off its light.
This was a mistake.
A single blade of red light fell to the ground , slicing its way through the offenders.
The clouds screamed; not an audible one, mind, but one you heard with your very soul. Scarlet bled into the clouds, creating a beautiful corpse. The moon stared at the town of Misery like a bloodshot eye.
I stared at the spot where the light fell, and I shudder to think of what would happen if it had fallen on someone.
The stars themselves cower from the moon, their light dimming to avoid offending it.
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A compendium of the horrifically fantastic going-ons of a small town
47 posts