The magic of the bones grabbed ahold of her and infused itself with every part of her, rapidly planting its roots firmly through her. As it did, she felt every doubt and bit of logic banished from her like murky, toxic smoke escaping through the air. Her mind was blissfully barren. But not for long. Disarray, irrationality, and an uncontrollable madness seeped into the edges of her mind. Blind impulse radiated through her skin, pushing her in a way she never let herself be pushed before. She basked in its unrelenting touch fueled by intense passion, righteous rage, and a tantalizing mystery of the unknown. It was utter chaos taking over her, lighting her soul on fire. She gladly let it use her. She would use it too. It would become her armor and her sword.
The chaos couldn’t be contained. It demanded to be ignited upon the world. It sparked between her fingertips, tearing at her flesh, internally and unseen. A raw, commanding impulse and a barbaric scream released from her. The magic that burst out of her savaged all in its path. A ferocious freedom rang in her war cry. Worry and reasoning were already like a long, lost memory; something belonging to her in a past life. She could feel her thoughts going. They were like a thread she had in her grasp in one moment and were lost, far into oblivion in the next moment. Soon there was nothing left but absolute, uncontrolled impulsive power and disorder. It was morphing from an exhilarating spark within her to a disastrous wildfire that had her trapped and surrounded among its ravaging flames.
A different kind of blind impulse suddenly came over her. This impulse was one that spoke of her old spirit, the one that was a survivor, the one that would always fight if she had a breath left in her. While her rational mind had plagued her in moments, it also was an essential part of her that helped her survive all this time. She focused all her energy on letting the order back in. It was the antithesis of chaos and perhaps its only true foe.
Fighting fire with fire would get her nowhere. She could command all the elements now. She threw herself among the cascading, whipping tides, released by the waterfall above. She willed her mind to connect with it, to band with it against the relentless fire threatening to take all in its path. The formidable waves she sent through the water relinquished the fire around her. Its essence was still there with her, burning her from the inside out now.
Kelsey Zukowski is a horror actress/ writer and internationally published alternative model who gravitates towards dark, complex material full of thematic exploration.
A part of her knew deep down the true looming monster was of her own making, fueled and fed by her own mind. Her inner darkness and vicious logic had a certain power that was not easy to relinquish, but essential to control. The noise in her head- the unshakable...
A consuming darkness loomed over her like a melancholic cloud despite the blazing sun above. Crippling fear and well-meaning reason suffocated her; preying and hungry. All those years ago she ran into the depths of the wilderness far away from the familiarity of the...
