By Nikholas Svajlenka A candle gently flickers in the night as a breeze from the cool air comes through my study. For years, I have been left in my own isolation without a clue of where to truly go. For I have seen the greatest libraries of humanity, the armies that forever protect our home, docks filled with vessels of those who bring goods, then the lands of seemingly infinite crops which bring us life. All for naught as I pick up a discolored bottle, shaking it to hear if anything is left inside of it. Some gentle taps against the glass proves my hopes correct as I pour the dark red liquid into a glass. It dribbles into a grand flow before stopping into nothingness. Just gentle droplets that send out shockwaves throughout a glass of seemingly endless darkness. I pick it up slowly, swirling it around before letting my nose taste it first. I’m hit with a sweet, almost naturally fruity flavor with a hint of nuttiness at the end. Perhaps those that come with the fall season, a season I have never thought would look so beautiful. I step outside of my studio, holding a gentle, flickering candle that slowly loses wave to the heat. I walk through the abandoned halls of my grand home to see what there truly is left for me. Another breeze comes through, allowing me to notice where my old research once sat amongst what I once called my home. Each page is filled with light, inky voids that have information of lands long lost to the sands of time. They were once my work, my grand attempt at bringing about information to the world. Now, they are just reminders of my failure to do what was needed.
Continuing my journey, I make it outside to see an old stagecoach that I used to travel around. Where horses once stood, only here are memories of what carried me to places I was called. My family’s house crest sits on the side of the cart, with paint having long faded. I walk over to it, putting my hand against it before feeling a chilling breeze once more. This one was different from the others as I notice whispers of a time long lost. They call out to me, demanding I notice who they are while figures begin forming in the edges of my vision. No longer do I hear the sweet symphony of nature, but the grand bravado of my panicking heart. The beats fill my ears like drums being rattled throughout my skull as I flee into the safety of my house. I slam the door behind me, placing down a simple wooden board that will give me some time. I begin fleeing up towards my studio, passing by a letter from the heir to a nearby mansion. It flutters away in the winds of my body, seemingly chasing me despite it having settled there for ages. Candles begin to blow out around me as my heart is replaced with a grand drum. Using my shoulder to push through the door, I make it to the safety of my studio while the letter from before gently lands onto the table. I use one of my empty chairs to block the door, placing its damaged head against the knob to prevent it being opened. My hands scatter throughout my cluttered table, knocking over textbooks, tomes, scrolls, or whatever else that once contained the knowledge of humanity. A small statue found from lands across our own imagination falls alongside it, shattering with ease as fragments fly across the floor. My vision blurs as I pick up a rusty knife I once used constantly to open letters. Now, the blade nearly falls off once I touch it with my sweaty palms. I slice open the top, removing the parchment inside before tossing the knife away. It lands into a potted plant, shattering in two as the blade separates from its handguard. I walk around, reading every word of the old letter as I pass by the destroyed crops of my personal garden. Its once proud crops, reduced to nothing more than a festering bed for weeds to prosper. Then it all comes to an end as I reach the door once more in my pacing. Silence. That is all I can hear as the sounds of nature return to the now empty halls of my studio. That is, until a ghostly apparition breaks my door into shards with sheer force of an angered spirit. His gaunt face looks down at me, a hand on the missing section of his chest. Before my eyes can even recover, I hear the voice of someone I lost long ago. “My protege…my friend. It has been far too long.” My eyes focus onto his face, its once gaunt texture lost as it reveals a youthful face of the man who taught me everything I know. He offers his hand to me, allowing me to stand up before walking towards my old window. It would be nothing more than a place for plants to grow around as I’ve never cared to look outside. The kingdom I once knew as home has forsaken me for what I wanted to tell them all. Without a word, he motions me to look out to see what I have turned the lands into. The great cities and sprawls of humanity, turned into nothing more than burning pires for those desperate to use. Years of generations now lost to the fanatical minds of those who claim their lives to the fires around them. Armies, once proud of the ideas of a dreaming general, forever left to wander a forest I would go through with my mentor. Their general never to awaken again, left to dream for the rest of time as his men march. Docks, filled with bustling voices and ideas, lost to a strange infection that had come from the ocean. No longer do the waters listen to our commands, but the water commands us. Then facing the crops, I see how they are lost to some type of eldritch infection I brought about. My hand balls into a fist as I try to figure out why he is showing me this. Then, he begins. “My protege, my friend…you have lived in the ignorance of your mind for years since you threw me to the side. I once wanted to protect you, to aid you in finding out how one can learn of what this world is. But now, I want you to no longer be left in a dark shadow of who you were.” He motions to the now repaired carriage with assorted people waiting outside. They look to be those that no longer have an idea of what there is for them. “Now, you are not alone in this journey of self discovery. They will be your voices of fury, your hands of justice, and your assistants in the coming climb up the mountain.” His gaunt hands motions to the tallest mountain I once knew as a grand spectacle for those to watch. It sits now as the home of my darkest desires. “You must unshackle your mind from the chains of denial you have put around it. Let your chest finally be freed from a seething sigh of all your anger. Have the faults you once locked forever onto what you did wrong finally close. Free yourself from a ravenous reach you forever put around you.” He gives me an iron torch, placing a gentle flame that soon ignites the entire torch brazier. “Let you use this final piece of hope to finally slay your body of work. All to finally climb the darkest dungeon.” He fades away as I hold onto the brazier. I look out at the cart, beginning to go down to it. Knowing I must gain retribution through strife. Comments are closed.
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LRHS Literary Magazine StaffEditor-in-Chief:
Alejandra Jones Senior Editors: Sariah Meeker Lee McCormack (fall) Artistic Editor: Bryson I. White (senior) Instagram Editor: Rania Brown (senior) Editors & Staff: Sophia George Blase Harriss Meaghan Kelly Chloe Meeker Adrian McCall Liliana Palermo Estefania Quintino(spring) Katelyn Ranheim Maria Rodriguez (spring) Mario Rodriguez (spring) Livia Weekley Spring 2024 Table of ContentsArtworkPoetryFictionFall 2023 Table of ContentsArtwork~"Jellies" by William Lemaster
~"Mini Landscape" by Richard Bui ~"Leesville Lion" by Bryson White ~"Zuzus bday 4 skool" by Rose Van den Troost ~"A Study in Winter" by Chloe Meeker ~"Les Plaines Liminales et Étranges" by Bryson White ~"Night Sky" by Richard Bui ~"Sunrise" by Elizabeth Cawley Fiction~"Retribution Through Strife" by Nikholas Svajlenka
~"To a New Frontier" by Nikholas Svajlenka ~The Storm's Echo" by Meaghan Kelly ~"Lines" by Meaghan Kelly Poetry~"Sailor" by Caitlyn Kiefer
~"Walk-on" by Caitlyn Kiefer ~"Connection" by Riley Butler ~"The Sun Rises in the West for it Falls in The East on Many" by Nikholas Svajlenka ~"What if" by Sariah Meeker ~"Dark Cold Alone" by Jeanne Baker ~"Deceiving Heart" by Jayana Russell ~"The Life of a Wave" by Sophia George ~"The Melting Snow" by Sophia George |