She waited in her void painted red, wondering why thoughts seemed imposed with odd and unnatural thoughts. The same way she felt whenever she was complicit in being present in the wicked words her sister. Artemis had told a close friend about what Desdemona had done in the closet at the end of the endless hallway, and her sleep became calmer and with ease. Her secrets were safe with  those she called her friends. A rational friend that asked her not to hangout with her sisters anymore. They had said kind things like, “I’m glad you’re ok.” Artemis shrugged, her trauma had never been allowed to be her own. Desdemona was always jealous screaming “why not me, why does she deserve that and not me?”, her lack of self-awareness would eventually catch up to her. Artemis knew this to be true, and knew it to be inevitable. She had told all those she cared for of a book she had written, and knew none of them cared yet to read it. Their lives were built around the assumption she would always be there, as a character in their story: the woeful maiden of sorts. Artemis was always the forethought of their dreams, the last thing anyone worried about before they went to sleep. She had nothing more than a melody, and a promise to make the out of life: a survivor of attempted murder.

There hadn’t been any reason to wallow for a childhood she was never granted, and so Artemis moved forward: leaving the pathetic and dangerous behind her. She’d spend the rest of her life saying things like “I’m not really close to my siblings”, as to shield those she loved from the terror that was Desdemona and her wicked laughter. Artemis now blushed at the daydream she shared aloud with her kind friend, wondering if she could last two more years playing on wooden courts. Artemis was ten feet tall in such fine arenas. The memories of them announcing her last name and the joy she felt when the orange ball left her hand. Artemis knew she existed in the world of sports, the world of aeronautics, and the world of academia. Her name was willingly etched into the land by strangers, and she basked in the idea that she had become immortal in her own right. Artemis could be murdered by Desdemona tomorrow, knowing the world knew her name: they once had chanted her name enough to make her smile stick permanently. They had given her crowns and sashes of royal purple and called her a Princess. A name she was destined to hold, as she believed in hard work and the power of believing in goodness in people. Artemis would always be working towards a better tomorrow, and her sister would always be attempting to drag her back to their stolen childhood.

Artemis had nothing to give, and she wished to marry Orion the next time he chose to ask her to be his girlfriend. She knew he’d take the answer of one to be a trial for the other, and was the sole reason she had skirted the issue during their last visit. Artemis knew she needed his embrace to remind her that she was real, and she deserved to be held: even in the illusion of his love. She felt his expectations to bring him a son grow by each nightfall: he only loved her smile, her laughter and anything else that could be programmed into his offspring. Artemis also knew he would hate everything about her over time, as he’d glare at her bones for cracking: her ankle sounding like a shackle to her childhood.

She hadn’t any reason to tell him that an adult in her past had once held her out away from himself, and dropped her down a flight of stairs in the basement. Artemis felt the world slip away, she felt her ankles buckle and then snap. She was almost three years old. Artemis had done something to deserve the pain. That was the only logical conclusion to that part of this fucking awful story. Artemis remembered laying in the basement: alone in the dark and stuck crying in a puddle of her own blood. Her jaw hurt from hitting the stairs, and the light at the top of the stairs disappeared forever. A woman with red hair and the smell of smoke lifted her from the dark, unafraid that she was hurt: worried that her own biological son would be in trouble for abusing a toddler. They lived in a nice house, surrounded by a fence and a massive dog: forcing Artemis to eat only peanut butter from a jar, as her jaw was “hurt” when she fell down some stairs. She sought this family as an adult, but the courts told her to fuck off, as her story was sealed away from the world. They didn’t want any record of how they had wasted the tax-payers monies by funding programs for egomaniacs and perverts alike. The few bad apples began to poison the rest of the batch. The judges being those apples stewing as a lot of rotten bladders. Artemis had been forced to be afraid of people since that day, and she forgave the family that allowed their fucking grown-ass-son to hurt an infant. Artemis called herself Karma in her dreams, seeking revenge by returning to memories she had purposely forgotten. That family would eventually pay for their role in destroying her childhood.

Artemis felt the reader wonder, why didn’t you just tell Orion these things, as though they felt he deserved her love in any capacity. She began to roll her neck from side to side, aware that it wasn’t her place to force him to care: Orion only loved his mirror. It was easier to be right, be murdered by Desdemona with the assistance of Orion’s friend and know that her child would be safe from all three monsters. Artemis had crafted a beautiful tapestry that would only become more valuable by the day, by the hour, as Artemis had little time left to enjoy those she loved. Her life was nothing more than a scorned woman asking the world to care a bit more, and her family telling her to shut the fuck up and stop being awful. Artemis had left the world out of her poems, as they didn’t seem to fucking care anyway. She had done the impossible: made the world believe in a color. She had wept tears of hope with them as the Scales of Justice began to tip fairly towards the republic. Artemis cried and laughed to herself knowing she was right for believing in people, and that they had done the right thing for ignoring her pleas for fame.It’d make her book priceless upon a trial that was yet to come, and the proceeds would probably go towards funding a future for her nieces and nephews. Something that’d piss Athena off, but not enough to object. Her sisters were funny like that. They called Artemis ugly, mean, annoying, and merciless, and wondered why she left their lives so easily. Artemis had found friends and family that believed in the world in the same fashion she did, and they showed it by always returning to her side without having to be asked. That was love in its essence. Artemis had traded all the wickedness in her heart for the family that healed her broken childhood.

The reader asked why she cared not that she was murdered, and Artemis shrugged knowing that she’d never really known a life that wasn’t surrounded by fear. Desdemona lived in a different reality, and Artemis wasn’t about to be the catalysts for a conversion that the public should have had with Desdemona a long-ass time ago. The law didn’t exist in her world, and neither did rational thinking: common sense wasn’t her strong suit. Artemis needed the world to see her true mask, and she explained it in a sentence. Desdemona had attempted murder twice upon Artemis as a child, and she obviously needed professional help. Artemis was dead. She hadn’t a single breath in her body to remind her readers of Occam’s Razor, and nobody seemed to care that their judicial process was broken anyways. Artemis had wanted to watch Orion and his banshee suffer, she had wanted the world to see them for the fucking ugly dynamic duo that they were. Artemis wasn’t alive to defend them or pretend that she even cared what they did alone. Artemis was rudely indifferent to his Banshee lover, as she and Desdemona were of the same female mold in her mind. Artemis would mix up their names on purpose, and watch as Orion grew angry at the comparison that was quite Justified in its ruling. They had probably fought over giving his banshee a key to their home, and Artemis had objected and stated that she’d “rather not be murdered”. She knew his soon to be mistress, would always use Desdemona’s jealousy as her own personal weapon and proved so by giving away a key that wasn’t hers to give. His banshee mistress would say bullshit things like “we were just friends, and you know how she is…”, and implying that the impartial jury was stupid in their lack of understanding. Any woman with a brain could see through her thin character moral. Artemis corrected this with weapons of her voice and face, as she knew that she also deserved to present in her day of court. This was left to only Lyon and Mama Bear, as they were the only two people in her family that Artemis openly cared for. Artemis had hoped at least one of them had made it out alive. They didn’t deserve whatever “minor” damage was brought on by Orion’s banshee mistress, as she was always self-proclaimed to be "silly and blameless”. Artemis laughed out loud and smirked to herself, as she had asked a neighbor to install eagle eyes directing at her house without the “approval” of Orion. Artemis was left to defend the home she had built with care. She had done it to protect him, for whenever his fucking scrawny and slimy “friend” decided to set him up for murder.

Artemis didn’t need descriptors, the woman was eighty kinds of bland to her. She didn’t need to insult the unintelligent, the uninspired, and she felt bored by his choice in mistake: knowing he had thought he was killing two birds with one stone. Orion didn’t even like his “friend” most days, unless he needed someone to share the hatred of his wife with. Artemis found it funny that they had used her existence as an excuse to have dry and awkward sex. She wondered what had triggered his need to commit adultery, but she assumed it was the simple surprise greeting towards a striking Viking. Artemis had probably said something rude like “It was nice to see you”, and meant it as she avoided his gaze out of politeness for the presence of her husband. Orion would be able to read her attempts in hiding her youthful blushing and probably punish her with a simple conversation with a banshee. He had let Desdemona kiss him in a “rage”, and thought to himself “what’s the worst that could happen?”. He had done so knowing full-well, that he’d wasted their marriage calling her “crazy and paranoid”, and never asking once why she was so afraid as to why her sister was so unwell. Artemis watched him laugh at Desdemona’s “jokes”, of Artemis being pathetic or lazy and say nothing when she moved to insults as to why she existed. They agreed in a kiss that Artemis was the only obstacle for "their love" and it gave Desdemona her final solutions: in completing her life-long task in seeking validation in committing murder.

Artemis had told her new friend of this fear, and they laughed at how Orion manipulated her thoughts with his words. She had done all she could to warn the people, to store up for a winter ravaged by a virus. Artemis felt woe for herself, slain and probably discarded in a fashion that required intensive search methods. Desdemona thrived in situations where she was the leader, and she could distract the masses with her rehearsed tales of their “equally tortured childhood”. Artemis shook her head sadly, as Desdemona had smothered her far earlier than Artemis dared punch back. The facts being that this evil was born long before they had met, whenever Desdemona and Athena were left in the house with a dead body. They had never been friends, and now Artemis would have to spend the remainder of her life lying to her. Dulling it down with simple epithets like “same old, same old”, listening to her repeat how her Lyon couldn’t believe she existed out of arms rage of Desdemona’s smothering grasps. Artemis had no mercy for this woman and her sick jokes of murder. She hadn’t the patience to document the strange occurrences where Desdemona woke up with harming another being on the frontal lobes of her mind. It consumed her until it built up as fat beneath her skin. Desdemona was sickened with how she looked, and therefore it made others sick with their inability to approach her dangerous weight gain. Artemis had tried, she had even gained thirty pounds to “bond” with her sister. One day Artemis saw her portrait and simply put her fork down and substituted it for intermittent fasting and a fermented tea. She had a way of saying “no thank you”, to her brain in a way that could help science, and she hoped her sister hadn’t destroyed her corpse beyond retrievable sample pieces. Even in death: Artemis only wanted to help the world as much as she could. She worried that her lost voice meant that the world had given up on her at last, finally asked her to stop talking about the person stalking her from a traumatic childhood.

Artemis had become pragmatic because of this, as she had told Hera and her Papa of Desdemona’s violence, and they agreed that she had somehow deserved it. The same way Orion felt she deserved the mental anguish and exhaustion she felt from holding up a childish voice to appease Desdemona’s psychosis. She used her real voice around the rest of the world, but Desdemona always forced her dawn a strange childish voice. Whenever she calmly objected: Desdemona claimed that she was “pretending to sound smart”. Artemis wasn’t allowed to say it made her uncomfortable when she said such rude things, and so she allowed her sister to let her mask slip away over time. Artemis wasn’t allowed to change from that innocent girl that Desdemona had seen emerge from a closet without "her permission". She was stuck in that moment of anger in her inability to cover her tracks: Desdemona was just another form of Barry. Artemis saw her anger in his eyes, wondering how much Desdemona would talk about her past with “the victim”: blubbering on publicly, and peeking behind open fingers like Patsy. Artemis had placed her most prized chapters last, knowing that Desdemona had little attention span for words on pages. She had wanted to lure Hera from her moist cave, and put a face to name: the child abuser would dig her own grave by lying to a jury of her hand in child abuse. Hera had once used Artemis’s rage to beat the shit out of Desdemona, crossing her arms and moving her jaw slowly as she gained obvious euphoria by watching the underage children fight. Artemis had ended the fight, looking around and wondering why the “adult” was forcing her to do such wicked things: Hera was hoping that Desdemona would have “an accident” and Artemis’s fists would be at fault for murder.

Artemis spent her adulthood apologizing to Desdemona, saying “mean” things like: “I should have never hit you”, and  “you could’ve really got hurt if you hit your head or something”. Desdemona heard none of it. Artemis deserved to die. That was the final verdict since she felt the need to fucking survive in “her world”. Artemis felt herself detract from such violent words, and she asked her Lyon why she was so angry. She hadn’t the heart to tell him that her absence in their lives was due to how sick Artemis “made” Desdemona. Artemis was without family, just a beaten orphan trying to make the most out of nothing, and Desdemona had plenty of family: needing others to always give her more. Their Papa had once called the three sisters, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Artemis was the ugly: she had a hunch in her back and could breathe fire. Athena was the good, as she often had no intentions waking up: probably just mildly confused as to how she survived their fucked up childhood.

Desdemona was the baddest of them all. She hurt people for fun, and demanded compliments for doing the bare minimum. She threw Athena in the spotlight, yelling about how violent she had been to their cousin: the one that had spent his life in a closet. Desdemona had refused words of kindness and found only comfort in the hateful words of Hera. Both women needed to talk about their sexuality constantly, as they were part banshee, just as Orion’s friend. Vulgarity and crassness was the shared middle name of the three banshees, Artemis crafted them each an identical self-portrait of a woman enjoying randoms throw phallic shaped meats into their gaping mouths. Artemis hadn’t any other words for these people that claimed to hold class or poise, but suggested the jury take their time in securing the protection of the citizens. Desdemona needed professional help, as to reduce the risk of being called Nanna: her comfort zone was being surrounded by the wicked. Hera was probably alive, because she was like a fucking cockroach that scattered around the same piece of wood. Artemis hoped the jury would find the chapters where Hera had forced Artemis and Desdemona to strip naked, or force fed Desdemona food until she became obese. Those on her red channel had given her hope one day, reminding her that there was a special place for a woman as vile as Hera. Artemis had shared her shame with a community that supported obesity, and she apologized for existing when her mind thought such awful things. She told them how Hera had taken away her food as punishment, and reminded Artemis that obesity was a huge problem in “her community”: Artemis told them how she used this same form of discipline whenever she felt bad, and how she was afraid of the idea of obesity. They hugged her with words, and she knew they had felt her shame: they heard her embarrassment in abnormal brain functions, after she admitted that her sickness made it hard for her to look at certain strangers. They condemned the child abuser on the spot, and Artemis felt safe in knowing she had taken the proper steps towards reprogramming the way her brain felt on the subject. She was tired of carrying around the trauma that lingered from her non-existent childhood.

Artemis loved Orion, but she hated the panic attacks that came from being near him. He sucked the air out every room selfishly, and one day he decided Artemis didn’t deserve air at all. He knew deep down that there was something wrong with Desdemona, as other people pointed out her inconsistencies in character. It was easier for him to say nothing and look guilty, than to let the world know that he was lazy in his self-perseverance and a fucking asshole for not “believing” his wife. One day he would hate everything about her, the way her chest heaved heavily or the manner in which she sneezed. He’d think to himself, “I could do better” and give his “friend” a key to the house that guarded their child. Banshees move in packs, and Artemis had told him such facts: he felt as though he deserved to have his penis licked by a stranger, more than he needed to be a father. Artemis left artifacts with her family, and asked they help raise her son: Orion was probably in trouble for fleeing or improperly disposing of a corpse. His docile personality would finally be his downfall, as he hadn’t enough self-respect to care that his wife was dead. He had nothing to take from her, nothing of value to hold above her head. He had no worry as to what would happen to their home, their belongings, and all the people that had once come to cared for Artemis. She didn’t deserve to exist in his world, and he wanted to prove it. He wanted to show the world that it was better without her in it. He allowed Desdemona to corner him at last, kissing him and breaking the last tether she had to reality. Orion deserved whatever the jury decided, as his actions often said all the things he couldnt’: he had absolutly every fucking chance to walk away from both those women, and instead he chose to be set up for murder.

Artemis grew stressed by the thoughts of the court’s rulings. She wished there was more time in the day to express all she had experienced, all the other interesting facets of her life outside of these three individuals that terrorized her for fun. She had done all that could, and given all that she knew: reminding them that she had met Desdemona’s “monster” as a child, and named it Burke. Artemis worried that she had seen Desdemona trying to find justification for why Mama Bear didn’t deserve to live in “her world”, and so Artemis crafted a book for her niece to read to her siblings for whenever she was gone. Even in death: Artemis had kids to raise. She couldn’t spend her death knowing that she hadn’t supplied those around her with the proper weapons and tools they needed. Artemis would create story corners with Mama Bear, leaving her clues in a handful of conversations. She knew Desdemona wanted to be better, as her words often said so: they were always somehow empty because she was in denial that she was a person. Nobody had apologized for what Hera had done to her body, and no one had cared enough to explain social norms to her. It was an excuse that Artemis attempted to fix, but failed at to no avail. It was pretty common sense that jealousy born from psychosis wasn’t fit for society, and frightened Artemis to think of the day she’d have to tell Desdemona that her hypersexualized words made her uncomfortable. She wasn’t allowed to point out flaws in Desdemona’s personality, because she was “the perfect specimen” in her head. Hera had told her so as a teen religiously, and then called Artemis bleak looking and barked at her for choosing to have a criminal face. Hera had set the presidence for this murder.

Artemis looked around, there was nobody to care that she was dead: nobody to weep that they missed her. Just her thoughts on how it made her feel, knowing her life was to be forever lonely and broken. Knowing that she had been terrorized by a monster as unpredictable as DeAngelo, screaming openly and being praised as a “good person” for their occupation. Artemis had found him, his record of being caught stealing hardware tools and animal repellent for his crimes in nineteen-seventy-nine had made her laugh. The justice system had returned his silver badge and he transformed himself into a mechanical boar, raping and slaughtering citizens on two different coasts. He used the male “code of silence” to confuse the nation, and the world went on turning. Desdemona had tried to smother Artemis twice, and the world still called her “perfect”: further giving her reasons to finish the hack job she had commited to. The woman was obsessed with proving that her younger sibling was "too evil to be alive", and that Aretmis was without value unless it was within her fucked up memories of their very differently experienced childhood.

Both monsters had lived in a place called Contra Costa, and Artemis would have given anything to have helped catch at least him sooner: the monster used a fake frail voice and was spared the penalty of death because of his age. Artemis would’ve gladly injected him without hesitation, but that was the wickedness she harnessed openly speaking. She hated this human in a way that haunted her dreams. Remembering a life with white hallways and silver oblong doors. Artemis was the psychologist on a skyboat that danced amongst the stars. Her patient had begun lying to the crew, using his standing appointment as an alibi, until Artemis had to correct his lies with visual proof as to his absence. The man had glared at Artemis and she had known within an instant, the higher ranking official had casually began to murder passangers and crewmembers. Artemis had told everyone that she was retiring from her position, as she needed to speak to an authority on her suspicions beyond the obvious doubt that her crewmembers supplied. The only person that believed her was the Viking, and it caused Orion to hate her more. Artemis was tired of being their lame excuse in discord, and so she decided to take the matter into her own hands. She was afraid the Viking would tell her that she didn’t have to, and that Orion would say nothing: agreeing with his silence. She began to lure him out and into a room that was meant for storage of equipment: her plan was flawless. The man threw her up against the wall and began to choke her, and his mask of polite and stern jeer was forever broken. Their room had a wall meant to appease a crowd, and they came in droves screaming and banging on the hatch she had secured from the inside. They had wanted to help her, but only after she proved them wrong. Artemis was a dedicated civil servant, and she knew there was nobody intelligent enough to protect her crew: she began to smile as her airway collapsed beneath his smaller than normal hands. His petite penis was erect as he strangled her: until she began to laugh. Artemis was a poet even in times of danger. She began to twist and turn beneath his grasps, the crowds no longer cheering her on. They had acted as though they didn’t care that there was a murderer loose and now they were all participants in what their apathy had provided her life up until that exact moment. She looked over to see the Viking and Orion attempting to break down the door, and turned and nodded her head goodbye one last time. Artemis had positioned herself to be thrown against a wall with a red button in it: an escape hatch. She raised her left hand and left her crew with a final farewell salute, laughing frantically as she swung it heavily downward: pressing eject. The doctor and her patient were thrown into the darkness and turned to stone within an instant, Artemis was forever to be a strange memory for the crew that had agreeably come to despise her. She hadn’t the wherewithal to explain her hatred of being right, especially when it came to such serious topics like murder.

The reader asked “what about now, the present?”, and Artemis was forced to live in the reality where she was still being hunted. The court proceeding she was absent for had nothing to do with her, as they were meant for Desdemona to learn accountability for her heinous actions. Artemis shrugged, she knew that the jury wanted to understand what had happened: unable to decipher Desdemona’s half-truths. She assumed they discarded Hera as a character witness, so that was cool. She assumed that the banshee that wandered from the North was absent, as she pretended to be patriotic or homesick whenever anyone told her the word “no”. Orion had probably told her that it was his "one-off" meant only to piss off his wife: claiming it was “a mistake” once he remember the real personality of the banshee. The man had thought his life would just be one fucking huge lie after that and was excited to brag to his wife of his ability to destroy his own home. He was too embarrassed to admit that Desdemona had kissed him, and worried his other banshee wouldn’t even kiss him after that. Artemis shrugged her shoulders “they look like identical twins to me, man.” Which is how he got “so backwards” in thought, as he now had a wife and two women asking him to be present and in the moment. He told Artemis what he had done, and his face of excitment in attempting to gain a raise form her was met with fear. Artemis left for a few days without contact: securing eagle-eyes and drawing up papers for divorce. Artemis was beyond upset, she was afraid. Her son was now in danger by two women born without the bare minimum construct of fucking boundaries, and Orion didn’t seem to care. She returned home finally and described what was in the manila envelope she had been moving around from here to there: packing her sons things and preparing to leave the country. He had decided she was formitably “crazy”, and attempted to take back “his son”: needing to gain control over her life once more. He left her alone crying hysterically, saying nothing and stealing their child away into the night. Artemis would never get to see her child again, and it had left her soul lost in limbo. Orion often punished her with his absence, but this time would be the last, as he had also decided to decalre her as an unfit mother glaring at her with disgust: excited to leave her unprotected and ripe for murder.

Next Chapter: *[ LVI ] Artemis and the Cursed Tapestry*