Deep contempt for the victimized criminal, a beaten and battered beastly bird-of-a-man--beaked and corroded with the compression of time: the tale of such a cuck, like Chris--was easily boggled by lies and deceit. Artemis would gladly leave the song of a ticking: the illusion of freedom pinned-down to a single moment. Artemis refrained from spells of lies and half-spun chants--wandering off to comfort two sad grandparents, a brother, and a best fried: each finding a way to exist in a world holding no name for such a negative value in emotions. Homicide caused irreparable damage, indebted to time itself through the surviving victims and families...all frozen to a moment of time where such cruelty was considered stranger.

His claims to be a patronage of a forgiving God kept a beast named Chris alive. Artemis had manifested an army that surrounded and infiltrated his palace of contemplation: extenuating the circumstances of her hatred for man. The moments passed slowly, as she came out of a forgotten daze, firmly holding a wooden weapon: Artemis was unrecognizable to herself whenever such moments of the high-tided blinding rage seceded. She had been shaken from the volatile mood by the arrival of a frightened stranger.

Artemis looked down at her hands, torn and scared from the extended hatred echoing from a childhood stranded in a cave. She hadn’t escaped envisage of a fate overflowing with criminality, and had been a potential accomplice to the act of beating the living pulp out of a complete stranger.

Artemis dropped the fixed weapons in her hands, and trembles of anxiety towards her own actions...were now swelling beneath her eyes in the form of blood-drenched tears. Her mind was swollen, drunk in neurological reactions: the predestined fate of a Herculean disaster had been fulfilled, and sealed by her own turning hand, tracing gold-threaded predictions from the bowels of Hades. Bankruptcy, and seizure of assets came to a few rainy drops into a bucket. To be chained to a black-box’ed prison forever; was to treat a man like a barbarian, forever threatening and cursed with becoming societies most-hated stranger.

Would a mortal, given the chance to repeat steps of a single day--take a path, lightened by only the truth? No such world existed. Chris had made the world ill with his sins; his shallow graves and unlocked latches. No allowance would be fair; no price heavy enough to undo knots intertwined with horrific true stories and Yurok lore. Artemis was stuck in flickering nightmare: a man and his mistress; inflating ego and value. Fate had allowed an enclave; a literary foundry--a simulation inharmonious in beast to rightfully embittered. Even if their worlds had been split or scrambled: the man named Chris, would always find a way to defend his right to kill the individual called wife--to preserve the spells of compendium between a wretched mother, and a "good fit". Artemis had found the lost wife wandering in a static mist--she unintentionally cursed herself into a mild-purgatory: compartmentalized by outlets of news, as a basic con-man, clutching an empty box: congested with empty promises and a label bearing a pyramid. The wife was trapped in a dimension where they declared her “thirty, flirty, and thriving.”

The woman was entrapped in fog between life and death: able to only see the past and present; unable to influence the truth. Men often worried for her spirit in passing--outright detesting her second husband...for depriving the world of competition in the title of third husband. Shan’ann was forever beautifully flawed. Artemis saw the men grow angry in spirit, and formed educated council, flaunting petition to investigate a mistress with short-term memory problems. Artemis had scribbled, finding relief in an axiomatic call to arms--the mistress held a smile that never reached her eyes; playful and blessed with momentary youth. Time being the only thing unindebted to the persistent stranger.

Artemis would gladly drag the stranger to a court room, if it meant pecking away at the pebbles of truth. A kernel of prudence; forever obtained from a mistress squirming in her lust. Artemis enjoyed steamed threads and awards requiring reasons to wear heeled fashions. The woman had a lot of unpleasant qualities, but was spared the rod of dubiety: the cane of despair--harnessing the wrath of Cindy and her awful son. The line-and-hook came whenever Cindy felt the need to take jab at a corpse-a loved daughter, and unfortunate daughter-in-law to an unwell narcissist; prodding away obloquy at an unlucky stranger.

Artemis hadn’t the decency to look into wardrobes and bedding with the same passion as others: there was an underlying feminine shame in observing the undergarments of a stranger. The cesspool of information meant no mortal was safe: their death and circumstances were no prime entertainment. A man’s commitment to morality could be measured by one’s boundary-in-curiosity toward the untimely death of a stranger.

Would the soul; turned in the hands of strangers--be in agreement to a husband effectively weaponizing incompetence? Artemis thought of Bella and Cece in moments where music consumed her thoughts--in shredding moments of raindrops pulling tension over slick puddles. Iridescent royal purples and mellow steely greys would swirl in her thoughts. It felt like yesterday--that she pointed at weird stout man and his victimized proponents, and declared him guilty of something. Lies and timecard alibis wouldn’t dissuade the world from worrying about a beautiful family; miraculously vanished and unaccounted for. Artemis wasn’t above sucker-punching this particular "concerned" stranger.

Artemis was forced to remain in an unremitting state of action, or risk the chance of losing mobility altogether. The bookmark of a chapter held worries at bay; hand guided by golden threads and unlimited smoke. Artemis needed to tell her niece--of the time a sibling held up a strange smile and blank stare. Artemis had a reoccurring dream of such an event--gasping for breath, as if to say “I see”. Her sobering mind was no longer able to bury the forgotten memories. Humble bragging of her ability to sustain healthy vision: unlike that of a visually-impaired biological stranger.

Dianne was synonymous with accidents--unfamiliar with consequences. A red door could paint a perfect picture: of a playful round of hide and seek gone wrong. Artemis had felt the girl press legs beneath a shelf and pressed further into the chest of those hiding away in blankets. Artemis had resisted the crushing--panicked underneath a layer of confusion, she’d childishly giving the sibling the benefit of a doubt. It was apparent that Dianne had heard the muffled pleas and panicked expressions of frantic limbs. A moment of convenience--could ring a bell, forever to be unrang by children that play wicked games. It was the first time Artemis questioned the capabilities of an otherwise ambiguous stranger.

When she awoke in the closet abandoned: Diana’s face had transformed from that of a worried child--back to that of a pleasant monster. She was hoping that Artemis hadn’t remembered the incident right, somehow and found excuses to bring forward questioning as to the account. Her eyes often danced with wicked delight, scanned the face of a prey--needing to feed off of reactions and emotional pulls. Time had taught Artemis--to break away from her imperturbable personality, and reveal any knowledge in regard to the deviousness of a related stranger.

The lack of any formal diagnosis had resulted in the surviving sibling to turn herself into a grey stone of sorts: hiding her pain away in plain-sight, past a wall of information inputs. Crimes of convenience became Dianne’s modus operandi. Artemis had abandoned the woman at the age of thirty-two, unable to recount their shared memories without distorting reality, and too afraid to argue with a detached stranger.

Artemis had found answers with those that had also chosen to forget. Faith had been restored by a brooding sibling named Athena, sanity preserved with a handful of brief conversations: to the memory of Dianne suffocating a sleeping sibling with a lumpy pillow in the middle of the night. The motors of fate had been put back into motion, as the woman with spotty-memory stirred alive in the matter of seconds. She seemed surprised by the random array of closeted memories being confirmed. The childhood memories swept under the rug and stashed away herself, and then by a witness. Artemis stitched together the viable proof needed--to let go of a sickened human that wasn’t any form of a protected patient--to continue on with her life, sober, confident, and thriving.

Her pervious moods were seen as overbearing and borderline to spells of mania even as a child; unable to go a single month untouched. Her sibling had mastered the art of saving up her sins to pave the way for a massive excuse...as though the quid pro quo for behaving her whole life could repent for the one day of "mistakes". Artemis worried the day of reckoning would come, and she’d be left to repay the debt of embarrassing a stranger.

Artemis had wanted only to arm a jury with a better understanding of the enigma of a human that lived in a victimless mindset; gliding under the radar through normalizing titles and occurrences. Artemis had finally found courage in explaining to Athena that her undeniable fear of their wicked middle sister had gave her body curses and reasons to soil the bedding in her proximity. A curse that Artemis hated, but still suffered from: a physical reaction to the dangerous presence of Dianne and her fluctuating moods...to this very day. Punishment awaited anyone that didn’t abide by the many rules of an otherwise-kindly stranger.

Artemis felt ashamed in the company she kept up until quite recently, but the exclusion of a sibling had set her life on a bright path; free and uncaged from proximity of sarcastic threats or compiled violent jokes. Artemis hadn’t any words to describe the depths of worry that drenched her thoughts, and the pathetic nature she held in caring--for those unworthy, those standing alongside a pathos of mental health. Artemis had discovered this trait bore incriminatory stance on the dangerous relationship held with Dianne; triggered by Artemis, all systems falling from nominal to complete failure. Artemis was alert and attentive, whereas she were pleasant sibling prided dull-emotions, having survived inculpative and free-from-all forms of accountability. The woman refused medical aid at extreme lengths; unable to make contact with those trying to get her secrets. Artemis was an open book; her life barred from a less public life. Life was safer in the public eye: half-way hiding from a sisterly beast; unknowing and thriving.

Artemis avoided crying; she recalled the other time--where a sibling had held her under the soft rifting water. Time was distorted and compressed into a few minutes; clawing away at the liquefied surroundings. She had learned early on--to avoid any invitation to play games with her sibling, or cousin Chris. Fun was stripped from their version of games were--detailed, convoluted or altogether rigged. They called Artemis names, relying on the narrative set forth by adults--that she was a deer with wide eyes, or a doll to insult and break. Her body was to be considered fair collateral damage to the spoiled due, both unable to see their uncanny similarities--both stubborn and predictable strangers.

Artemis had told their legal guardian at the time--the truth of falling off a familiar trail, and Papa Jim seemed almost-frightened at what that meant. He had parented, waiting patiently until Artemis was done fidgeting, and offered advice to live by “she’s not your friend...she’s your sister.” The tale of rival siblings is as old as time, and Artemis just happened to be the object of fixation: property to be destroyed--discarded at will. The execution of such dangerous information came at a cost, in the form of pages bleeding with the worries that remained uncontested and thriving.

The ending of this story being left abrasive, straight-forward and needing to wake up anybody reading or listening to her vexed words. Artemis left a silver thread for Orion to find--knowing that he held the sullen face of a guilty man on his worst days. Artemis looked beyond her book, thinking of the man that refused to raise his gaze. She blushed at the memory of him looking deeply into her eyes--his desires for her were beyond a few words. She’d always been shameless in aiming grin towards the romantic stranger.

Like any future wife; she worried about his ability to stand on firm ground--past the extenuating boundaries of women, ready to pounce. His own fate was left at the hand of convert politeness: occasionally allowing women to categorize him as a “new toy” in the nightmare Artemis had left behind. The reading of this chapter in a marble room with twelve strangers--meant that Artemis had been deemed wicked, and “deserved to die” in the rare chance Orion didn’t manage to dodge kisses from a stranger.

Even at the age of thirty, Dianne made crass jokes about smothering or injuring Artemis. Expenditures for reactions got her nowhere--cementing impermeable facts in the theory that Artemis needed to be wiped from the face of the planet. The cornerstone to another’s misery. Artemis recalled that the Dianne spoke in closed annular conversations...that somehow lasted years and decades--occasionally attempting to pry, as to whether Artemis remembered the tick-and-tock chiming from a closet at the end of the hallway. It wasn’t safe for Artemis to disclose the details to an undiagnosed stranger.

Their childhood was filled with abuse and neglect, enough to fill a fucking book. Artemis wrote angrily...knowing any equation in happiness would mean marrying Orion in private, to gift a ceremony of comfortable celebration: if only for a day. Artemis longed for five seconds of her life--captured in the moment of decision and sealed with a kiss. To be caring, wasn’t without risks of being verbally sexualized by Dianne. Her need to consume details and know events that she felt entitled to-carved a familiar mask...to that of a woman named Lazarus. Artemis would never set out to be an inconvenience to the life of another in such a dangerous way. She also held little patience and annoyance to women needing reminder that they were a foot note to Artemis’s odyssey. Words were the least of the problems: when defending a relationship with unlimited potential to remain passionate and thriving.

Artemis filled her niece in on the last of such sordid details: describing the threats and trauma survived. The unending battle between siblings bore resemblance to childhood stories of the incarcerated person named Paris. His mask was as thick as Dianne, and his word had slapped Artemis back into reality. He had said “kill charity’s children”, and accidentally transported Artemis back into an unremembered closet of terror. Dianne had one said “ I will kill everything you love”, as a “rational” reaction to Artemis not sharing. The specified reaction was imbalanced to a childish one of taunt. These were the things she had noticed in the limited time the siblings had shared: Artemis loving psychology, and the other being a stranger.

Artemis returned beside the slain wife in the fog of the forgotten. They were in the place of death, as Artemis had used to empathize with the qualities found in the man she called her husband. The woman had wanted to believe things should be simpler, easier, more-fun; in a sense. Artemis wholeheartedly understood her gusto for life, as chronic pain had painted her world a whole new color. This awful book contained more death than any one person could handle, cloaked in the mistakes of mortal men, and inked in a technologically savvy world; thriving.

Artemis fell into a daydream of the memories of the nightmares she had survived. Why was Orion in question? What had he done? It was the first question people wanted to ask him most days, and now his whole fucking life was on display. She had warned of a inimical sibling; one holding the reflection: Brando, negative-one, with provisions willed in words. Life was crafted around the open secret of keeping a half-blooded relative willfully ignorant as a contented stranger.

The initiation of caged freedom, became the only ploy was all that was needed to bring out the emotional spikes of those emulating mere mortals. For the Mechanical Boar; his nominal access to power, would always be limited to the confines of a serving term. To rattle the cage of the imprisoned: would mean cruelty to a beast already leashed to a foreign adversary, and overlap the last line of defense. Self-hanging, or hanging one’s self...the world was slathered with colors--bleeding over into reality. To be kind to the wrong people: could tip the world over into chaos. Nothing could cap the range of stupidity provided by a nation--famed for its glittery glory and capitalistic values thriving.

Artemis had once walked away from weaponized incompetence, dropping the hand of Orion--unable to step into a room holding his reality. Her heart ached so deeply after the homicide of Buckles: nothing felt right in the world, love had been a word used to enjoin those suffering in grief to the silence the befell an extinguished candle. A vision to be understood in theory, melted away by the ticks-and-tocks of time sluggishly passing by. Artemis had felt Orion’s hand slip away--too weakened by life’s circumstances for a single day: unable to hold herself as a priority in his presence, for fear of being deemed an invisible stranger.

Artemis tucked away visual notes for Athena, and a crown that covered her ears. She knew the traumatized woman responded well to seclusion in visual forms: Artemis had set a trap, just in case Dianne had framed Athena, or Orion for a violent murder that now stood trial. To awake in a marble courtroom: to oversee ones own death, would be the strangest of occurrences. Mama Bear had found the pendant filled with images and stories of a charmed sibling, holding trident of information stacked from the past,present, and future and bestowed upon a caring niece. The drafts of less personal stories were just the start: a stone rolled away from a cave, allowing mortals to take value in a scriptures adventure--too twisted to praise. Artemis was often pictured smiling; forever the silent introvert in a family where chaos and war remained thriving.

Artemis stood behind those she she trusted in moments of vulnerability. Indigenous Warriors, and knew the value of well executed tactics during times of warfare; given only a small token of forgiveness to someone otherwise living in a dreadful dream. Pebbles and stones, were all that could heal a wound so violent; and a perpetrator hated in new ways. Artemis hadn’t anything but pity for a person in a firm grip of a delusion-in the lottery chances that an early death came along a trail, where ivy remained invasive and thriving.

Artemis had tried warning the Lyon, crowned a doctor: verbally confirming that she’d been caught stalking a man famous for his laboratory and being a Son of the Law. A teacher had confronted Artemis to this event, (as parents were now involved). She felt confusion to the hierarchy of the world in that moment, as the teacher seemed beyond afraid in approaching and possibly upset Dianna. Artemis informed the adult that their guardian should be informed of her inquiry, and watched as her face shifted in reply. Silence welcomed the concerned instructor as to the aimless blame that befell on no one; two helpless individuals recognizing a situation where common sense wasn’t valued of thriving.

Some teacher was out there in the world, attempting to make sense of how an entire town could gaslight the fear and discomfort of a boy--and moved past the occurrence with ease. The teacher was left asking another teenager to interfere, and told matching conclusions that confirmed her fears: nobody was in charge. Artemis had her hands tied, and seemed both surprised, and unsuprised at the story of Dianne breaking and entering a house of person she was fixated on. No right circumstances could lead to casual crimes on trespassing on another’s property--no point to pivot blame in the midst of enabling titles and normality provided by such accolades. Artemis had shrugged her shoulders with a loss for words. There were boundaries in a house built around a golden child, because willful ignorance was to be rewarded, expected...to keep a family name and reputation thriving.

Silence filled in the understanding that proper authorities should have been called-everyone was without resolution, left to observe as the topic was swept under the rug. The world bent itself around the need to preserve imprimatur standards for those fostered with a secular scale of expectations. Oddity and concerns for a boisterous personality was the line where the shore of insanity tickled the shores of reasoning. Artemis wondered if this random teacher--may have seen the ceremony where the delicate mask was silently passed between Dianne and Hera. The fight-or-flight response triggered somehow in a single conversation; resulting in a teacher taking consultation with a studious stranger.

Artemis found her own tone weary, the drawn-out narrative--derivative in how pretentious she felt while laying an elaborate trap. Out there...in the world: were a handful of Jury members--that felt the traces of what it felt to be hunted, or influenced by the will of Dianne. The woman loved feeling important, to be given responsibilities that implied respect. She’d be dismantled by the threat of strangers undo-ing verdicts, or combing over Jurys where her vote and held value. Artemis held plenty of one-sided conversations about a citizens priority to uphold a social contract. Dianne didn’t have the slightest understandings of the Justice system. Discipline and procedure meant nothing to a person never held accountable; because such a theory remained improving itself--implementing change in order to evolve, flourish and remain thriving.

The high-cheeked woman didn’t really like difficult subjects, if it meant she had to follow rules herself. It seemed lonely--to live in the belief of being barred above the law. A trial around Artemis’s premature departure from life; would mean that all of Dianne’s efforts in playing jury were to be undone in real-time, unraveling within the split second she decided to decimate everything impeding her pathos of selfishness. Dianne was forever left out of conversations at her own doing, moaning of her woeful life and suffering alone--unable to repudiate a criminal expectation given by Hera as a child. Artemis was forever the trained specialist...told to stay out Dianne’s way; guilty of just trying to anchor her to reality, and abandoning a vacant goal. Artemis refuse to cow to an otherwise abrasive personality, and accepted that such an all-consuming person warranted their own orbit to lay abash to. Her penchant to do the right thing, at steep costs--kept Artemis isolated, protected from the dysfunctional genome of an unpredictable stranger.

Artemis planted a blossom with a doctor on the topic of familicide, and specified the looming fear--succumbing to act of fratricide and being discarded upon a running-trail: she had covered tracks diligently, tapering the truth in a chapter that was avoided, delayed at extreme lengths, and put to the test through a few types of distant diagnosis. Dianne considered herself a fraction-of-a-person; with the other side of her mask built up with perverse idolatry given by a house filled with Artemis’s horrific childhood. Dianne enjoyed words of half-truths, or admiration--built-up to display her own interests, and to reflect a childhood that seemed unexceptional in the context of her own experience. Environs had wrapped Dianne’s life with set-expectations, and every chance to for a bright future--every sharp or wobbling angle, directed towards assisting Dianne with thriving.

Artemis could sum her discomfort into a single question: asking Dianne of the frequency, and what age in which people, adults--took it upon themselves to "pants" Artemis. Much like Jodi: Dianne found herself to be the most interesting person in the world, and such a simple questioning would leave her hissing at close-ended questions; peeved by the traumas of other females. Artemis wanted the public to prioritize safety, and knew a twist in fiduciary evidence would further help in swaying a hypnotized jury. Dianne needed professional help--her calmly clasped hands would look menacing in shackles, and displayed her unapologetic piety in belief. Artemis had wanted to offer the Jury the suggestion of an institution that catered to her needs...to make sense of the denial in reality, in lieu of a potential career as an imprisoned criminal: thriving.

Next Chapter: [ LV ] Artemis and Suspect One