Artemis awoke reluctantly tired...denigrated by life’s unfairness--unafraid of what news lay in the depths of a relic device..if it meant finding a solution to financial woes. The rueful misstep of placing bets in a rounded-out education had been fruitless--her talents wasted in hourly work to place food on a table. The purview of being overlooked while the world burned to the ground had it’s upside; nobody seemed to notice her absence--outside of the inconvenience in labor shortage...Mischief Night and an Eve of Hallow had been appreciated to the fullest by a woman--dressed up as herself, snakes, wreaths and all. A day of costumes had given the world permission to be whoever they wanted to be--if only for the night. Artemis had taken a strange compliment, offered by a pale grandmother--stating she "felt sorry" for a woman fulfilling high-risk gig work between two employers...not to add grouse to it; but to reflect on what part of her life was considered worth the pity...restrained vision had kept Artemis blind to the overall state of her hopelessness.

She had everything needed to survive--comfortably adjusted to living month-to-month. Artemis only found comfort in words drafted within a device--scripted to overlook life’s many obstacles...untangling the issues worth picking-apart--its sloppy threads wove to bind integrating seams; to form a story seamless and polished...she’d become adept in the darkened narrative paved by life’s many tragedies. The art of offensive skills being practiced in the moments passed and not learned by books or instructions...had come from the hardships of title: she stood deliberative in fandom, holding only a grip of book pages and a tired torch--to be classified with the overlooked name of Blazermaniac...holding a head high from a championship title earned many, many moons ago. Much like her love-life...the desire for self-improvement; superseded the norms and lack-of-expectation that came from every direction...elders locking-in on a check-list that implied a retired athlete held nothing worth anything. Her People were always disturbed by the success of a woman with no parents--who else could they gift accolades toward, why couldn’t their community take credit for the parenting done at the hands of pale settlers? The downplay of strengths and achievements had painted them of a booming generation; they too...were taught that being louder and more obnoxious than the rest--made them important somehow. Her earned success were chalked up to antics on less-rainy days, her willingness to do the hard work was constantly diminished--compared to an entire generation born without...told to be seen and heard less, so elders could talk all around her. A myriad of issues in society would sieve past the rotten seedlings; seismic flaws resurfacing as a parting gift from a generation of posthumous egos--scolding Artemis for smiling in the territory of "their enemies"; forever attempting to damper an aura of unmovable calmness.

Artemis had won the eye of a Golden Apple in a race for immortality; unaware that the blessing was a curse of inevitability--to be a sprite trapped beneath the waves of the ocean...her story already written, fate sealed by the notion that predictability hadn’t come with its own form of discomfort--a sixth measure had already been nominated, its ballots counted...their "respected elders" had voted to set fire to the boat they stood on. Just as she had cheered on the wrong sibling for generations. Artemis and two half-sisters: had been placed in a line-up with other children and young adults--asked to trade anything in the known universe for an invaluable disclosed prize; to fight against the tide of fallacy-of-costs in their own right. A post card had been the only clue; a snow-globe portrait of an unconventional city cloaked in endless rain...its bridges crissing-and-crossing from here to there--presenting the world with a lynching moment. History would spin upon its axis; dissecting every little detail, as to what made the small metropolis to be the biggest threat to a looming dictatorship--all the while, hard-working citizens carried on with their mundane lives, stomping out small routinely set fires of a crazed Mechanical Boar...fashionable footwear and animal costumes proving their insouciance, their proud and loud calmness.

Three--half-sisters; were given the exact same opportunity to change the course of destiny--their dreams manifesting all they could possibly imagine to be true; therewith a contest progressed....to judge their tenacity and thought processes through intent and consummate self-efficacy. “It’s my shadow--I am a shadow”. She felt the subduction of words falling under one another--hands shaking...at the notion of morbid foreshadowing: the things left unfabricated...the truths unraveling in rooms filled with professionals of the mind--the crippling worry seemed insignificant...when comparing to the nerve-wrecking conflicts between her and Dianne. The terminology is limited to her young cognitive development--a loop of all that has come to be, being all that there was...meant that, this had all been done before. To be trapped in a dream within a nightmare...to be the nightmarish character in the story of another, meant Dianne had been born with complex emotions--her sleep void of such blissful calmness.

Artemis took notice of her inability to distinguish dreams from nightmares; wondering if possibly Dianne was unable to decipher the concept of nightmares due to a lack-of-empathy...kept words falling into bundles--threaded truths needing to be untangled before a bare moment of judgement had kept a younger sister busy...weaving away at story nobody had asked for. Artemis attempted to describe a book she had read aboot a fish, and another of a bear...they didn’t have a shadow. She called these fables: flatworld, taking place in the world of flat things--circular in nature: they had blurred edges instead of shadows. Artemis sustained an unmatched glare; a City of Roses had allowed a generation of metal to rain upon minority communities...the echoes of terror came with the memory of running home from school at the sound of shots fired--a warzone had been all she’d known. The corrosion of law, the cracking of law-enforcing integrity had made a small town into a playground for the elite; offsetting their image with an introduction of paraphernalia. To create a problem, and claim ownership in solving it...the pot-holes left open like gaping wounds along the pavement; reminded Artemis of how many "leaders" had campaigned for inclusive, improvements of living for the locals--abandoning all promises on broader stages; feet propped up...dissuading citizens of their role and responsibilities when working under timed constraints--hoarding wealth, reputation and more often-than-not...a criminal calmness.

Artemis had been the pebble in their shoes; owning up to less-responsibility in life, dawning spotlights on corruption as a journalistic hobby, and occasionally reasoning with citizens--those in need of further oversight, tax-funded assistance blowing whistles on illegal labor-law practices, advocating for union representation...whenever mistreatment became categorically prevalent. A timeline of cannibalization had manifested to sweep across the Nation--the frayed disillusion of peace had never existed; a promiscuous husband named Bill had made sure of that...sweeping women and children off their feet; lounging upon a throne fit for an emperor...holding down Jeff’s island by his damn self--Artemis thought he resembled a thumb. The edges of a timeline held them inside of their shapes and forms, but they lacked shadows in their sun-less hopelessness.

Artemis attempted to explain how the sun made a shadow, and how sad it would be--to live in a world with no sun or playful shadow. Suddenly a kind man came before her, and began to laugh; propping himself upon an elbow--in a manner that suggested that he had been darned. He began to pace the forest floor and remained silent in an intimidating fashion that left the ranks of people unable to say the first word; her skills in letting a die cast itself in a game of high-stakes betting...wasn’t without costs. A crowning sore-winner: would always find ways to destroy its opponent--to force an adversary to bend at the knee in spectacle, if it meant a public display of victory remained as a warning sign to any other potential enemies. Her own skull serving upon a spike...a gift to the citizens who doubted the graceful state of calmness.

Artemis had won life...by using a parent-less curse of living in a constant state of wanting--by taking the punches cast upon her skull by true heroes like Harriet Tubs, to be born a baby...lugged along to freedom in the dead of a foggy night--laid out cold for crying...in order to preserve the greater good. For the survival of the many--impartial sacrifices had to be made. She had fairly-traded the nameless man, for the only thing that had ever truly belonged to her--for a smile and a nervous laughter. It was their shared repentance for having abandoned the core-values of their innovative leader; he held the Western label Jobs, and she honored the Northern title of orphan...each locked-in on advancing mankind in their own ways--his passing; left the world spiraling into a world of shambles and hopelessness.

She had asked to attend a hunt of the Gods--Artemis hadn’t left behind a family...she hadn’t burnt down a loving home, unwed and unbothered...kept curiosity banging at an over-occupied door; the era of trap queens...came with untethered freedoms and a fitting orchestra. What came after Orion? She had left an emotionally abusive man with flick of a right hand--his neglect painting a bleak outlining of what would come, if a left hand was offered in commitment; she refused to be crowned a fool--chained to skills...defending a crumbling throne in a state of limerence. A man that captured an image of her during an intimate moment without her consent, and later exposing like-images to bros out of boredom...defended actions by admitting their shared images hadn’t been included in the one’s showcased to the general public. It didn’t make her feel better in the slightest--knowing captured portraits of a slew of conquests had been show-ponied to his friends with candor--the totality of his misdeeds casting a shadow over a daydream that had once swallowed her whole; replacing a caring face with a stern glare and a sigh filled with utter hopelessness.

Artemis drew a rusty sword, pulling it along an endless corridor--setting it aflame with the aide of Worakls; an overture of Anges guiding an unapologetic smile through a decade-long situation...dragged down by a man clinging to his youthful reflection, whilst avoiding a lone dance with mortality. Artemis had accepted the fate of a muse, crawling behind a man that refused to leave her standards in the past--knowing a bar had been set too-high for Orion to rise above: she persisted...laughing at the idea of him making other women unmistakably miserable, as she carried on in peace...crawling around in the dark; content with a glowing complexion and the blanket of silent sleep that came with being single...life was hers for the molding, victory: hers for the taking....nothing could interfere her prideful state of calmness.

Artemis focused on the target firm--time had needed an arrow to balance itself upon; a soft breath holding steady. She felt a push of change in the air--the contours of winds provided by leaders she pursued and admired: Harris, Warren, Malala and AOC had each done the work of ten men--she was simply a fangirl holding a sign upon the streets...holding down the public sidewalks--flashing hypothetical titties at women, for the rave of it all; an army of citizens taking her lead...baring it all in a declaration of emergency--the wheels of time spinning on the treads of a white-mans-horse. An army of naked people was hard to ignore--difficult to detain in such disarming fights. Excitement of all forms caused a tick of undress; to bear the more enduring qualities that remained steady--even in a state of sobriety. Artemis would weep with joy at the mere idea that her future children may have a fair chance at changing the world--but, also feared the idea of what they’d learn of the more feral parts of her past. She remained pensive; sitting patiently upon tax-funded benches--enveloped in a cloud of smoke....wondering why it had taken the citizens so long--to agree in holding equal generations accountable: a necessary step in order to preserve democratic calmness.

Despite appearances, she was without the wickedness of the McMichaels for skin was cursed with an olive hue--ink’d arms had tied her to a timeline where self-expression was considered unsightly but not illegal. Artemis had requested services from a cyber council to travel back in time--to mosey along a timeline, as she wished to write a book of forewarning to a poor man named Arbery: to hold the dangling hand of a man named Trey in his final moments--for history to Reed the sins placed on the innocent. Artemis wept, and wept...cruelty in life had been all-too-familiar in the orphanages and fostering homes. She gazed up at a lifeless body; the scholar was nothing more than that...a scholar. Davion lay nearby; his body strewn in a position stating that he had wanted to shield Dominic from inevitable outcomes of loving those unworthy of love. Davion had given up his chance of being loved, the sheer luck of being adopted into a loving home--knowing that evil would always coerce kindness into the passenger-side of a deadly drive. The race for victory was paved by the tragic losses...those, gifted to mankind: the abstract stories of greatness--defined by the true shades of courage bestowed by a few good men....trapped on a timeline of uncontested hopelessness.

Little had Artemis known: Floyd would be gasping for breath--forcing a boulder to roll down a hill--calling out for his mother, as Artemis attended the other wounded soldiers. The echoes of death would weave in and around such somber stories--she had failed the world. Artemis held the man close and gazed around at her urban battlefield, she had wished to forgive the sins of Athena: the citizens had paid their taxes to the Mechanical Boar, and he had thanked them with a guard of National troops and endless mockery--shitting on the innocent and defiling the bodies of dead with harsh words. Artemis remained still as a stone; offering pity to a man, a father, an uncle...to gaze down upon the inevitible, and knowing nothing could mend, or undo the loss of sibling running a race of selfish desires--her Pixalated Kisses being all that remained of Athena’s legacy. There was no solution to Artemis’s grief; she was devoured by confusion...chained to a moment of hopelessness.

Unsteady hands began to shake with the overwhelming gruesomeness--"what the fuck is happening!?": moments of displaced aggression came with mirroring words of Athena. Her confusion turned to rage; pure and unapologetic. The world now fell ill with her sadness, standing without basic human rights and wondering why nobody cared that half of their citizens were in the direct lines of danger: the battlefield extended to include anyone that questioned a convicted rapist and accused pedophile--the era of Epstein and Donald crafted a sick picture. The world hadn’t cared for her declaration of warning in the scripting of a story without proper end--they had done little when pipelines were laid beneath sacred lands...just as they had done nothing when disgusting men laid pipes into those stripped of consent; citizens and survivors had been painted immoral for raising concerns...thrown to the wolves, and fed to cannibals...to spare a reputation of prosperity--cheap gold paint slathered thick upon three decades prior to Artemis’s arrival on an already defiled timeline: trapped in a spider web of hopelessness.

Had life always been this awful? Short--handed answers said yea...the extended answer being---absolutely...the longest of answers taking the form of a necromancy. This one in particular. The bizarre patent of criminality being painted as the norm--came with the rule of a pale family; inbred and predatory...the stand-alone leader being ripped from portraits and stories: A Princess slain at the hand of thugs--under the decree given by Andrews mother. A skip in a song, the slight irk to a melody...moved past, for the shallow sake of "indecency" of topic--to be the unspoken loss of an entire community: the world unaware that a cannon swirling around such a memorable person...would mean a timeline to be dead--the surrounding environment being useless, meaningless, and the existence of such a storyline would keep the citizens hostage to a story tied-off with a holiday bow...to be the residual characters to a tale of predestined hopelessness.

Artemis had found the Siren Lori: wailing to be free on a lowered bond--people began to shake a head no, words be damned. Her need to escape the sudden death that haunted the black-boxes had finally manifested into fear...fair-trials were considered a threat when offered to someone painted gold by their parents. Artemis found herself in saddened; sickened by disbelief as Mr. Eaton announced that Lori’s "lost children" were found in the shallow graves of a fucking stranger named Daybell. Why would anyone have looked there? Artemis had seen writings on the wall--Lori’s love of men and being loved was so reminiscent of Athena’s commitment to subside loneliness...at the expense of everyone else’s safety or comfort. To be without God, or Artemis’s judgemental stares had panned out a tale of murder; red threads running parallel to Athena’s string of gold...the bodies lay in a pile near a self-proclaimed "prophet" named Chad. Artemis had been tasked with witnessing such crimes--to stand with hands-tied...observing as an uncle dragged corpse after partial corpse; whistling an upbeat tune as he plant two children in a cemetery--there was no way to calculate the horrific nature of Lori’s selfish brand of hopelessness.

Negligence, arrogance, and apathy--arrogance, had triangulated three criminals in a dance of inevitable costs; much like a lost son Colby....everyone around Artemis was okay to an extent, every step became a test; a trial of morals driven by the choices of others. The fuels of horror--kept the motors of the Mechanical Boar in motion, he flung shit from here-to-there; disgruntled and soiling himself...he began using hind feet to break down historic buildings to display tantrum to a prominent list; tied to a wide hoof for safekeeping...he had wanted the world to stop asking about the introduction of Mrs. Trump--knocking down her office in fit of disagreement. Artemis didn’t have much to say; he was a beast--untamed and unchecked. The craft of selfishness had been practiced on foreign wives; whisking randoms off to a paradise painted peach and teal--an era of rose gold compounded into a box; meant to trap an outmoded monster--a trail of white powder leading the way for his constituents: the Mechanical Boar had followed the crowd out of habit...water-logged legs moving along unknowingly; guided by braced calf devices and a slanted smile--a stroke of luck granting him access to world domination, as he chasse’d into the center of man-made trap with an unfamiliar calmness.

Artemis had seen an elder sister Athena pulling prongs and locks; claiming rules-of-law were mere suggestions--a canonized weapon of their own making...manifested into a horrific tale, when monsters tested the theories of constraint and limits. Artemis knew the cost of inaction; the true dangers of silence...she had suffered years upon years of being ignored--when reality kept Athena’s actions and Artemis’s integrity apart; often reprimanding a sibling for expecting someone to step in and halt her mistreatment of others, or offer one-hundred and ten percent of their time, fortune, and allegiance. Artemis had mastered the craft of walking away; of providing judgement with earned-ridicule, if it meant life got easier for everyone...leaving Athena with only the option of practicing empathy, or being left alone to shoulder the burdens of her darkened hopelessness.

The world’s inept ability to define boundaries: had now left two men standing at the mercy of the death penalty, as their crimes had been peaceful protesting--a handful of others seeking forgiveness in being caught. Artemis said nothing...knowing the Mechanical Boar would always make a point to ridicule or condemn anyone refusing to do his bidding--the riches of agreeance kept his swamp full and swampy...swamp-alicious. The two brave men had the audacity to stand against the sanctions imposed by the Boar, and displayed their discontent with silent attendance. Their names overlooked or ignored from everyday rhetoric: for they were to be the blood on the hands of the Boar. A journey that was thought to have been perilous--for a young crew of misfit pirates that had squandered their earnings and had little to lose; Artemis wearing Eugenie’s stolen jewels--claiming distance from a team called Oceans twenty-five. She knew what it meant to have men--claim insanity at her hand--to scream "you don’t love me" when too much time passed between love letters. Artemis and her time traveling crew had adapted to lives of simplified oddities, and forgotten their task as a crew in their dazed hopelessness.

She had came back to free the people oppressed by a flock of Mechanical Boars, and to set a record straight--to prove that condemnation of the many enablers and perpetrators of violence could, and should be a fair-enough trade off, for the head of dictator on a silver platter. Justice wasn’t necessarily swift, but it often proved to be precise when the world hunkered down on the issues that mattered--Artemis made a book into a "joke"; threatening the idea of how’d she’d like to box up a Mechanical Boar..."healthy and fit"; his health bill signed off by morons to prove a point...whereas, Stephen stood nearby; his height mirroring Artemis’s...his choice words; painting genocide as a joke...a next step in evolution...an idea ran by the masses for sport, because "nobody stopped him" and therefore it was legal by way of authoritarianism. Athleticism and aesthetic appeal had fled away from Mr. Miller; snatching his hair and further adding to his pathetic state of ego-driven hopelessness.

You see...Artemis had noticed that the dead-eyed savages had robbed her community--so she hid away in theirs. They had stolen their dignity, they had raped women, children, and AJ---they took credit for any noteworthy accomplishments, and demanded that Artemis take a knee in gratitude to the Genocide survived. They had "allowed" her to survive their endless campaigns of death. She had refused. It gave reason, for the the citizens to beat her with their fists--to stomp out pride with their feet. This was exactly who the citizens had always been--violent sore losers, cannibalistic when facing pending loss. Artemis had been a lot of things, but shameless hadn’t been one of them--shameless came from substances tearing down the walls of independence; painting them with a tacky golden paint to add insult to the state of unstable hopelessness.

A man named Thorpe had once graced the world with his athletic talents, but he was stripped naked of glory and future earnings--his battle with poison holding him captive to statistics. The price he paid for bettering the legacy of men with pale skin--had been too steep-a-cost, and Artemis wanted no part of it. A famous athlete was punished in death by having his body pranced around for the citizens to pick at his flesh...to gaze at decaying flesh--his pale wife counting promotional earning in the background; his final race being one of desecration and hopelessness.

The man had died broken...broke...without sobriety, and without his family present; to thank him for sacrifice and efforts of a stolen childhood being left behind on his path towards greatness. His victories would save thousands of young lost Indigenous Warriors (Artemis included), from meeting the fate of inter-generational trauma-induced suicide. She had seen how one man could turn the world upside down; and admired another Olympian named Mills for finding Thorpe’s stolen moccasin--sprinting to victory...locking arms with the community, as he admired the struggles of all those that came before them. Artemis had wrote an entire book--to bring awareness to this great unsettling; she was surrounded by unexceptional citizens...a giant casually disrupting the waves of complicit calmness.

Artemis knew these citizens would never change: their love of inflicting pain and suffering triumphed doing the right thing time-and-time again...she knew better than to place bets on their goodness; she remained smirking--doubting their need to be on the right side of history in her educated hopelessness.

Artemis had needed to update her systems to ring with empathy once more, and used a mission in filling endless pages--to seek a well-deserved break from crippling responsibilities that followed her. She attempted to see the beauty in correcting things in a last-ditch effort to make life more manageable for respected co-workers and friends...the cost of checks-and-balances came with a loneliness that kept her struggling in new ways. She worked tirelessly to be the friend she wished for, the brave auntie she had always hoped for...but alas, there was only her. The monster holding down a net of disturbed events. The world had never cared about her comfort, so a keen eye for mistreatment relinquished the excuses people often hid behind--her hourly career damaged with each battle...Artemis stood outside the box of rules and regulations--entering to pay bills, and exiting to ask questions and seek more academics to build arguments meant for auditors, judges, and witness testimony...to disrupt a timeline claiming to be built upon efficiency and professional calmness.

Artemis had wished to rid herself of Orion with a book--his overbearing ability to be loved by all; meant she’d always standing in enemy territory. The task of reconciliation was only found--by giving him a mask that showed the appearance of her many lovers: he’d only dawn such a mask when an unstoppable man arrived on a losers timeline--meant to prove when narcissistic traits consumed every minute of a man. The idea of losing her attention only mattered when the competition was marked as unfair--when someone could step-up and build a structurally-sound relationship without the drama, without campaigns of embarrassment to disrupt every-other-year of calmness.

Artemis had taken away Orion’s shoe, as she had promised to be awarded half of his belongings in a petty divorce--the final ruling offering only a shoe and a paper claiming she had been rewarded freedom. A silly inside joke that she had once threatened him with: if he had ever decided to be unfaithful in marriage--now wired into the programming of child’s game, as a means of torture and light entertainment. The Demi-God Orion, had wished to be freed from the burden of his frightening love; deeming that Artemis would always and forever...be seen as unworthy of the title of his wife. Her laughter had subsided and left her as a shell of a person, bitter and stern--the scariest changes had come whenever she agreed with Orion. He had come to hate everything about her face, and she forgot every bit of his love--their dance stopped mid-song...both glaring at the other in a stalemate--Artemis offering him a cursed mirror, and Orion offering only a signature...claiming she had been right all along. The presence of Artemis gave him reason, and his presence gave her will; neither could let go of a mistake that defined their youth. Artemis had only wanted to be happy, and rid life of existing in his shadow; crawling in the dark to a finish line that kept moving further out--the task of loving such a guarded person--kept her strapped in moment of meaningless hopelessness.

Artemis was beyond tired...beyond sexually assaulted...beyond woeful, for she had a secret that ate her alive. A monster she left behind whilst in a short Coma. She remained weeping, in the growing understanding that there was no such thing as romance or the underlying goodness in people...at least not in her reality. Her sin of wanting--had spanned to include childish expectations of people. She had been forced to abide by a social contract that nobody else seemed obliged to uphold--yet, the world still managed to spin...the stupid sun would arise each morning and demanded that the time-points be dialed back to her favorite ex-boyfriend: moments following a domestically violent relationship she’d barely survived...trapping Orion in a weary dance--forcing him to repay for painting her life with a drab shade of yellow--buttered in hopelessness.

Artemis had once fought a monster named Typhoon--a beast rebranded as Peaches; a self-proclaimed Prince of the the Diné...his mother painting him gold for clout. There was only the truths known to such neglectful parenting; to see the strife caused by allowing a son to be molested by a babysitter...cemented to the title "straight" to appease a homophobic father. The monster had held her up, pinning a neck down beneath a vast forearm against a wall. Strained feet would gently tap and clamor to find the ground beneath her, tears of fear building as a vast hand wrapped itself around her purple face. The beast knew her name, he had seen her face in the blacked-out stare of a former lover--the blinding rage of a timeline that hated its women had caged Artemis in a single moment of hopelessness.

Artemis took a breath and let herself let go of everything that held her worried and tired. He had won--the world had won. The world hadn’t cared about her for single second...a pathetic existence would be tossed in a bin of waste...the rubbish taken out at the hand of a six-foot man. She would die at the hand of a coked-out ex-lovers episode--he was offended that a night remained stripped of drama...it had all been too embarrassing to let go unpunished--when Artemis’s half-sister fell from a bar stool; laughing and jeering at a good time. The glare across a dark pub had been all it taken, for Artemis to shut down...knowing imperfections triggered a man painted gold--the mistakes of others were culminated as sins worth the punishment of death; an esthetic life came at steep costs--when the judge were a closeted man; ready to dim a light of life...his verdict distributed unfairly--without a moment of defense, or a jury for that matter. Artemis awoke in nightmares--recalling the moment she’d closed tired eyes, and prayed for life’s suffering to be over in a stolen second of sheer calmness.

Athena had came barrelling in; ripping a giant off Artemis--screaming in his face and ignoring the woman laying in an oxygen-deprived heap. She felt the world pummel past thoughts: that person had never met Orion, and there had been no good time to describe such terror...to a man that cared about everyone else’s feelings before her own. Artemis had deliberately hidden away her horrors in a discreet book--out of the range of Orion and his romanticized hopelessness.

Artemis was neither dead-nor-alive: a person living in hiding of a domestically violent partner--her name borrowed from a culture obsessed with image. She had been a part of a victim’s club with the endless names: loser, loner--unfit for parenthood. Reckless disputes followed her every step: each being intertwined with her abuser somehow--he had faced zero consequences for the act(s) of violence...even after he had robbed and stabbed a stranger in Lawrence. The glad-handing of a violent criminal had forced Artemis to live upon stages--to become a public figure, as a strategy of defense...Vantino’s misdeeds and endless crimes had nothing to do with her brand of hopelessness.

Artemis felt the world slowly turn their ears away from all that they had Heard...she had slammed cupboards as the world cheered for the "victim": harboring substances and mental health issues, over verbal elaborations and cheap acting. Artemis had come back to this time in history to “save the cheerleader...save the world”, and display her favorite rock for the world to admire. Her courageous words would Cruz through dimensions, and give her a wingspan that covered multiple layers--the truth had permeated a path of integrity in world lacking of such. Artemis had always been the first person to say “nah”, and address situations in the moment--the "bummer" to a party vibe when crimes began unfolding. Humbling everyone around her--with the morally "righteous" energy that had been learned from growing up in a nest of booming arrogance: granting access to social awkwardness in mass quantities--to be displaced for a moment of comfort, if it meant doing the right thing for herself instead of adding the title: "morally compromised" to the mounting pile of hopelessness.

Artemis was "foul and disruptive" with purpose--criminality was practiced behaviors...enabled by flawed systems of ruling. The mistakes of booming generations had nothing to do with her...their corrupt greed would catch up to them...their legacy drafted by their own actions; linked to a man name Billups--his love of betting drawing a curtain call for reform, when bottomless wealth was no longer enough to feel alive. Her ability to wield wording and phrases, was only fortified in enhancing the scariness of an unmovable demeanor--the sound of pointed heels tipping and tapping along the marble tiles of the Benson: there was no citizen that was more powerful than the rule-of-law...she had no reason to care about lazy individuals and their sloppy crimes--their dedication to eroding morals remained separate from her version of hopelessness.

Artemis had written about her many problems for public speculation: doubting if anyone she knew would read published works--the shadow thrown over a younger sibling by a narcissist became a trait of passivity. Artemis had warned friends, lovers and teachers of her sister’s lifelong battle with moody demons--it had all been for nothing, in a nest overpopulated by the like. The only person in comparison stood in the East, but was named after the winds of the West. Fame had only worsened his conditions--a Mechanical Boar; lost and disoriented, became forgetful with the battles won and lost--attempting to weave victim-hood into stories of triumph. The Gods had fallen out of favor of the solutions recommended to contain his moods--all he had to do...was not desecrate an East wing. The House of the People was forever tarnished by small hooves, and a smaller dick: age had been so unkind to an elderly balding man--scuttering about in a quest to be rebranded as impactful...his moron thugs reigning back every moment of climax--a quivering mouth turning into a hiss, the citizens held hostage to the unforgettable image of their leader, sweaty and unsatisfied by the available pleasures offered up--titillated only by chaos and hopelessness.

Artemis sighed with similar exhaustion to his episode(s) of grandeur--his obsession with building a bunker and grifting loot from the tax-payers had been the longest con to-date. The thread of truths strung between stories reminded her of a time; emotions stranded...begrudgingly worried aboot the health of her eldest sister Athena. She felt as though people such as Orion-- would always hold Artemis in contempt for such kindness: letting thankless people like Athena walk all over her, under the merits of familial love and affection--there had been so much optimism in the poems of yesterday; back when there was only the option of living week-by-week...how could things ever possibly get worse? This flaw had left Artemis in a glowing chair, crying in pity for Athena...fighting endlessly to learn how to walk upright over and over again: despite the growing medical diagnosis that reassured her, that the worsening condition screamed nothing but hopelessness.

Artemis had always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt, and Athena was no exception to this concept. She requested from the Gods: a plant of wisdom and shelter, as to regain the strength in remembering. Athena preferred the absence of stories--if it meant gaining control of a narrative with endless unbound threads; she could pull back on the reigns whenever a story bore a dim light; insight wasn’t worth sharing--when the world had forgotten three sisters had been trapped in house double-and-wide. Together they were the muses of desire--spite-filled, "Ruth-less" and living proof that a Nation hated its women; the task of healing a honmoon filled with death, rage, and hopelessness.

Artemis bounced from side to side as she hyped herself up with a famous quote “Ah shit, here we go again”--unaware the stage was set with the entry door to a morgue; locked-in a moment of gazing down upon an elder sister--her enraged sobbing setting a "comet" with three i’s into motion--alarming the furthest reaches of the galaxy that nothing was to be classified as okay. The heartless horror had once been named Typhoon: now transformed into the monster they had called Charybdis. Artemis gazed upwards as she remembered abandoning a planet that fell consumed to the might of the monster they now faced with unarmed hopelessness.

She felt the wind shake violently with the anguish of those that had lost loved ones, and the outrage that percolated while grief carried every boring day forward--it felt too-risky an experiment; to test whether self-destruction would occur...if a single speck of decorum fell from her basket of thoughts. Artemis had planted a seed-of-doubt in her own mind: life had taught the undeserving lesson--that nobody cared about her many, many fucking feelings. A great-great grandmother had once unwisely offered the citizens a blanket to warm their cold breath--and even apologized for having once wished that the world would suffer as she had; the citizen found her words jarring...offering up the "prank" of returning winter blankets with their traveling virus’s laying beneath its wool--to be a formidable response to the discomfort of such words, how dare she pity their circumstances. The sins of caring about the wrong people had thrown an entire race into a state of Genocide-drenched hopelessness.

This place had been Hades all along; to be surrounded by evil spirits--all plummeting onto a single timeline. A grief that echoed in her heart; pumped life into a book filled with sorrow. She stared upon a tattooed arm--frantically remembering the harrowing stories: of her elders being pinned down and stabbed with unclean needles; their numbers meant to imprison them to lands reserved for war refuges. Labeled--with their attendance numbers; a family tree permanently etched onto their flesh, by the loving and charitable men and women in black robes--peddling race-fueled rhetoric, sexual abuses and decades of complete hopelessness.

Artemis had spent life--fleeing from the long-reaching arms of forced sterilization, law-encouraged brutality, and now these dead-eyed savages had awoken to find themselves sitting smack-dab-and-center...upon her same page of life. The citizens had woken up--realizing there was no help on its way, unaware they’d raped every ally; each Tribal Reservation offering bombastic side-eye and less empathy this dictator around. There had been little-to-no payoff for the good-deeds offered on a Western trail, and the Indigenous Warriors knew better than to confirm-or-deny the concerns gifted by the citizens; repackaging known problems of deep corruption, child sex-trafficking, and women oppression...to be filed away as new and suddenly prevalent issues that needed instant solutions by tomorrow. They would always stop shy of asking their own government to wank-off whenever their new draconian decisions extended past their bodily rights--fighting a pandemic, a season of famine and poverty simultaneously--a united community drowning in an otherwise unfamiliar hopelessness.

The Mechanical Boar had begun spewing nonsense to ease the citizens into their expected deaths--declaring them “warriors”: forgetting that he had once called Artemis and her people ungodly and unjust...attempting to remove the capitalization of duty, but reminding Artemis of the importance in title. The Mechanical Boar had severed ties with his voting constituents--claiming to enjoy only the company of less-smart voters, plain-of-face crowds; his disappointment spun to fit the visuals provided in a decade of darkness--sandwiching a leader; reeking of nepotism-driven hopelessness.

The swivel of narration for a death-inducing virus--swelling up and taking the lives of elders, and immune compromised citizens would scar an entire timeline. Winning: was provided by observing how two unfit leaders took turns doing less and too-much for years at a time. The Nation called the sixty-thousand declared dead--a necessary sacrifice: evidence that a Mechanical Boar was unfit for a throne; squealing from his chambers as he demanded the dying citizens return to work. He wanted the underpaid, and uninsured--to carry the Nation back to a resemblance of a functioning society...anything to ease his anxiety in the plummeting rates of approval. He stomped his wee hooves as they objected, and pointed blame to the predecessors that had warned him of a hypothetical pandemic with a remarkable calmness.

Wearing a mask only to spite the stats of a hungry Joe--the dead-lock between two elders brought unmistakable issue of terms and servablility in a candidate into the center line of attention. These officials backing both morons had set the world aflame, at the expense of the republic--the only thing worth protecting hadn’t been a delicate Democracy, but the names scribbled down in list form by Jeffrey. Twas’ a heavy price to pay; to paint one’s self ignorant--cheapened by false gold and an almost-admirable combativeness to the overwhelming truth as to such inevitable hopelessness.

Artemis had needed the words of brevity written--to sense the dire proofs given when she walked steadily into the darkness: accepting her awful existence as a spider. The clicking of forearms hitting the floor had meant that Artemis had been too evil to save--her timeline ripped to smaller and smaller portions with each surviving seizure. She lived with the pain that had once easily been inflicted upon others--the weight of her sins...deserving a hunched shoulder and neck with stride; her horrific pain masked by a focused calmness.

She requested a plant of wisdom--the warmth provided by a smoldering flame to a copper torch; the hope in a better tomorrow offered shelter to regain strengths. Time had given her a thread; to a life she no longer knew. A half-life of desperate Machiavellian squalor--ruminating on the reliefs given to being single by choice; A modernized cemetery worker--filling ditches over the corpse of her ambitions...looking over the ledge and tossing in hard- earned cash: the debts of scholarly dreams--foggy and unmemorable, whilst Artemis attended to dead-end work day-by-day with an un-reassuring calmness.

She watched as the Mechanical Boar began to target those of colour in their Congress, and demanded that the four women known as The Squad: crawl on all fours and grovel at his hooves...canonizing their legitimacy as a failure worth forgetting--he yelled and spit in an ignorant rage…demanding that they “Go back, and fix their crime infested places in which they originally came”. To this xenophobic sentiment, Artemis drew her metal weapons once more to defend the citizens--setting its dull blade aflame for sport. She cried, and cried--at what he had said to these strangers, as they had been publicly elected into office; she knew what it meant to sense that nothing would ever be enough for others to leave her alone...a bare-minimum request turned into a feat in moments where others marked themselves as responsible in disrupting miraculous moments of calmness.

Artemis had turned to stone--to run away from her destiny: knowing it was better to run herself, as opposed to letting the Albino Snake attack in twenty: twenty-four. To be frozen in debt, overlooked by the statistics common and dull--needing to break out of a mold by becoming a literary juggernaut: a scholar hiding in the reeds of misinformation--constructing bridges and entire worlds with a few swings and slashes...often forgetting how easily people feared women that wielded weapons with a smile. The world had nothing to offer her vision of equality, unionized employment and battle with mental spells of insecurity and hopelessness.

Artemis took standard hobby kit clay: found with her newly formed gaggle of wee Aggies. A disappointment to her own ability of teaching and directing: had left her depleted of all energy--the task of teaching people unwilling to learn from the past had caught up to her. No amount of earning offered was worth the disrespect; no amount of mentorship was worth letting other teachers contort reality...asking if the skill in teaching was "tempting", when surrounded by teenage boys and their hormones running amok. "No, Mr. Davis". Had he hired her with that intent in mind, or was he just wishing out loud for her failure? Pale privilege had kept her mind anchored to the weird shit people said in locker room banter--holding a sigh and glare, firm as ever...Artemis was undoubtedly upset--narrowly missing a catastrophic meltdown dictated by those in charge. She forfeited the mere notion of refrences--breaking ties with the loss and wandering off on her own...if it meant bad leadership didn’t get to add further difficulities to life. The surplus nonsense in a world ruled by a king pervert, and the people in charge of contracts strung to her legacy; kept the tears flowing...the world spun tirelessly on her breath of hopelessness.

Artemis had plugged the hole in her basin with clay and carried it upon her back as she crawled: a trick she had learned from her sister Athena...it was simpler to release a valve of tears in moments of privacy. The woman had become immortal simply by running: fulfilling her destiny at birth, as her Yurok name was...runs-on-clouds--leaving her children behind...sprinting across a metal deck--needing to disencumber herself from the traumas of life, and an auntie impassively plummeting into the unknown to spare their expectations. Athena’s children had wanted to believe their mother would always garner help and success; unaware Artemis had held her up most years--uncaring to the notion of sacrifices offered to coddle a woman trapped in the throws of her own reflection, or knowing what childhood had been written out before their birth. Data had proven their childhood wasn’t worth surviving, and Artemis had been right in knowing the unbearable torments of life...to be deemed unworthy of love, forced to function in a room lacking in respect and drag one’s feet without a single day of calmness.

Artemis had once watched Athena trip in the last stretch of a race--cheered her on from the sidelines...looking past a sibling crawling in a panic beneath a stampeding of unforgiving spiked shoes. The young woman had come in the top five of that race--the gift of speed had placed Athena--so far ahead of the pack...it had given her a chance to crawl past a finish line with dignity. Such stories and memories--Artemis prized as her own, the belief that they didn’t get to give up had been an illusion. A lie she told herself day after day. Athena had been an amazing mortal amongst common men--their shared need to desire greatness made them allies, and sometimes enemies by way of Artemis’s jealousy in Athena’s physical mobility. They endured endless ridicule at home; a jester fostering parent announcing their entry into the rooms--condemned as "the good, the bad, and the ugly". Jokes that would warp reality for Dianne; needing narrow boxes to place people in--their childhood had been ink’d by the unhealthy starvation of attention, a man-made quandary of comfort and expectations...the sparse words; had placed three sisters into a competition of wits--to hold a trial of moral sanctity at the hands of whoever first succumbed to such fatal hopelessness.

Artemis had spun off a story; to save the world...from a Kushtaka named for being Sun-filled...her introduction to a golden sibling had made the patterns recognizable from a kilometers away: instead of running away from issues, Artemis waved an uncaring hand...saying "give him the world, and watch how a third-world-war is extinguished: when holding him to the single rule--the obligation to serve one’s Nation--held accountable in the same due respect as his peers for only a few months." The world had been saved from a timeline of "Entitled" craven blokes and lassies like Andrew, his bearding ex-wife Ferguson, Sunshine, and Athena--by diverting away from privileged leadership...forcing one to take up arms, to inspire the world with a baseline form of leadership that remained forever at arms-length away...mostly done by highlighting deference over the ink’d efforts of others. To wield a rusty weapon with pride; had been a feat available to anyone and everyone, but only Artemis had taken the challenge seriously...dragging a lumpy tip along a cave floor with indisputable calmness.

Next Chapter: *[ XLIV ] Artemis and Orion*