Why do you make me watch these scary movies when you know I have a hard time sleeping after?

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Into the Dark
Current Date: May 19, 2023

Character: Suet Tine
Race: Demon – Ice
Age: 34, physically about 24
Current residence: Tutunendo, Colombia
 

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Why did I dream of this? Why has my past suddenly decided it wanted to surface? It isn’t as though I have a telly out here, the electricity works but it’s spotty and I mostly keep track of whether it’s working or not for the sake of one or two lights I need when night falls. That’s about it. That and the fridge, yeah. I picked this place because it was a slight distance off of the nearest, bigger place, but it’s still slightly off of the tracks and that’s why I’m out here. I had to get away from the world and here was perfect.

Here, still to the point, has no need for television. I don’t watch the news, I’m sure that if I could be bothered to, I’d have access to the Internet via a phone but that’s also not a necessity of life. There’s no one for me to reach out to, no one that might want to get in touch. It’s not necessary and it remains something that I will not bring into my little home.

When I was so much younger, when that one all-important ‘he’ was still part of my life, I lived in much bigger places. I’d roamed for a while before discovering that one spot and meeting him. It’s through time spent with him that I discovered so much about the world that I hadn’t really been aware of and, one of those things so happened to be movies.

Movies of all sorts, comedy, drama, fantasy, horror.

Horror. I don’t know why I even thought that watching these would be a good idea. Not that I’d ever had any reason to believe it wouldn’t sit well with me. Especially the sort of high-fantasy horror ones when it was clear that the thing creating the whole vibe in the movie was not human. I faintly recall watching a few movies that were more the sort of slasher types with an all-human crew.

Slasher movies didn’t bother me; for some reason, it was more the movies about the things that went bump in the night that bothered me. Maybe because I roamed so much. Maybe because I spent so much time out after dark; I don’t know. I was never all that fond of them but we’d watched a few and I always had a hard time falling asleep after them. I don’t think I could be blamed for that.

But that’s what this most recent dream was about. I know I dream plenty; most of the time, when I wake up in the morning, there are small bits still clinging to my memory but they’re just roaming dreams more than not. Last night, the dream was closer to the nightmares I used to have after I watched these horror movies that made it hard for me to sleep.

Though, in a way, in the dream itself, I was watching a horror movie, which then seemed to lead to having a dream, within the dream, about something rather horror-like; followed by a morning scene complaining to my own reflection—still in the dream—that I didn’t know why I had watched that movie since it had made sleep difficult to achieve.

A dream, within a dream; it was a first for me and let’s just say that I don’t feel as rested as I could be but, in a way, I feel as though this is mostly because I woke up in the middle of the dream; I was startled awake by a harsh rumble of thunder that had possibly followed lightning and it was so close that it startled me awake and out of the bad dream.

Thunderstorm or otherwise waking me up mid-dream, I still don’t think I would have been feeling much rested after that odd sort of dip back into a past I haven’t had anything to do with for more than a decade. It’s been a strange thing all around and the more I wake up, the more I’ve been telling myself that I’m all right and that it was just a bare little something from my past trying to resurface.

I know that in a few hours, I’ll be fine. In a few hours, this is going to be little more than a faint, faded memory and I probably won’t even really remember any of it; so I’ll take this as it happens and that’s what it is. I’m not about to let such a small part of my past haunt me all day until I start questioning why it surfaced at all. I’m out here to live my life in peace and bad dreams are not about to change that for me; oh hell no.

I’m the boss of my own life and my dreams can very much so go down a swirling drain to never be seen again.

Final Word Count: 812

Love might be in the air right now, but all I can think about is the chocolate.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Into the Dark
Characters: Suet Tine
Race: Demon – Ice
Age: 32, physically about 24
Current residence: Tutunendo, Colombia
Final Word Count: 767 words
 

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I don’t know why people fawn over chocolate. I don’t know why they make grabby-grabby hands about it and just want more and more and more. I’ve never understood the appeal, even before I moved here. Most chocolate I’ve ever tried was too sweet and it left a weird aftertaste in my mouth once I was done.

Earlier this year, the one guy I wish had never found me again somehow ended up taking a fairly long vacation in the nearby village. I still don’t know why he picked this place, other than it’s stupidly far from where he lives. I suppose that he might have been the type to throw a dart at a world map and go wherever it landed.

If that’s the case, I hope that the next time he does that, it lands in the middle of the ocean, and he gets stranded out there. Cruel of me, I’m sure, but the guy has just pushed me too far and I can’t take him being anywhere near me ever again.

Just before he left again—I thought he would never leave and even securing my door didn’t seem effective against him—he told me that he was sure he was in love. That he didn’t know what to make of it. That he’d met this beautiful woman and that there was a connection there, between them but, in a way, he couldn’t focus when she was around because all he could think of was the chocolate.

I didn’t really know what to make of that statement of his. Was her skin as dark as chocolate and that made him think of the food? Did she somehow smell like chocolate because she possibly ate plenty of it or maybe she worked with it for a living? I don’t know. It’s all he actually said on the subject, but it was so out there, even for him, that it stayed in my mind.

Considering this also came from the guy who claimed that love was for fools and all that would ever interest him was the fine female form, it was just weird. The guy was also weirdly racist in his own way, picky as hell about the proper skin tone his female partners should have had, and the perfect look of them and how anyone with a skin tone darker than he had any interest in wasn’t natural and, well, all in all, it was weird.

Those things he said, they usually made me pause and it didn’t take me long before I was wondering if that was why he was constantly sticking around me. I don’t know if it’s because of my nature or something else entirely but I could almost put Snow White to shame. My skin isn’t perfectly pale but I’m pale enough that I used to burn when spending too much time under the sun.

Somehow, I don’t know if it’s because I’ve adjusted to living here or my genes have just said fuck it, but I can pretty much spend time outside comfortably now. I still redden a bit unless I cover up, but I don’t tan. In the long run, I guess it’s one of those things, but I spent a lot of time wondering if that was why he was around me so much. My skin colour was pretty much spot on with what he described as perfect in his eyes, I was just all wrong for the rest. Between my hair—icy blue, but black through natural dyes—and my eyes and, you know, the fact that I’m a bit too flat for him, I probably was just right in his book.

The thought makes me shudder.

He left about… I’d say a month after he first showed up at my door. Far too long after he’d first come to my taste. He didn’t tell me he was leaving, one day, he was there, the next, he just wasn’t, and he wasn’t the one after that or the next. I haven’t seen or heard from him since and that’s for the best. I really do hope and him and his weird craving for chocolate while he thought that love might have been in the air will stay very far away from me, please and thank you.

After he left, my life resumed as it had been. My weekly trips to the village, my mostly quiet, peaceful life. Nights with rain that make it so sleep is as peaceful as it will ever be. I can’t complain. There are days when I do feel somewhat aimless but they’re uncommon.

I was perfectly content when you weren’t bugging me for advice you aren’t going to listen to.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Into the Dark
Characters: Suet Tine
Race: Demon – Ice
Age: 32, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 745 words
 

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I don’t even know how he found me. I mean, I left without really telling anyone where I was going because I had no family and the rare friend I’d made probably didn’t even really remember me. So that this one had somehow hunted me down is beyond me. That he’s decided that this place is awesome, albeit rather wet, and that he wants to move in, is frustrating.

I remember this guy. I do. He was all about technology and all the hot dates he could get through these little apps that were a thing. People touted them as being for finding true love but the rest of the normal folks saw right through it all and ended up making those apps sex apps. Get some booty, swipe right. I always wondered as to the point of those because, well, I don’t do one-night stands. I never could, I doubt I’d be able to start now.

At this point, though, he’s mostly been vacationing in the nearby village and, as far as I know, they do have access to the internet although I don’t know how good it is, I still don’t have a phone.

That might be how he found me, though. I do go to the village once a week for supplies and everything else. I also still don’t have a truck but my neighbour still is willing to drive me there. He works in the village, so he goes every day and that gives him a reason for the truck. I still only go once a week—every other week if I can help it—so I don’t need the vehicle.

He might have spotted me and through some sort of morbid curiosity, followed the truck as we went on back. My neighbour is nice enough to drop me off at my place with my items, things I’ve learned to barter for because, well, not gonna lie, I don’t exactly work. I mean, I keep the area around my house clean and I think that sort of counts but I’m not what you would call a productive member of society in the eyes of most people. I actually do grow most of my food—a diet I’ve had to adapt to—so my weekly trips are more for other essentials.

The guy, though, ugh, I don’t know what to do to get him off my back. He used to give me all the advice I never wanted back then and I even told him it was pointless but he’d kept at it but then he would complain that he had been content when I hadn’t been around bugging him for advice I don’t listen to. No amount of pointing out the fact that I wasn’t actively asking for advice—that he was the one just shoving it all at me—seemed to not get through to him.

I don’t want that to start all over again and it might just if somehow he decides that living in this area is what he’s been looking for. A retreat is what he’s been calling it when he very unceremoniously dropped by last time. Just came on by, didn’t even knock on the door. He just let himself in as though he’d lived in this little house of mine all of his life and starting to look through everything. I wanted to smack him, is what I wanted to do but you know. I refrained.

I’m a good guy, I guess. I like my quiet solitude, rainy nights and quiet days. I never thought I’d say that but it’s true. That’s not to say I don’t like going out into the village every now and then, it makes me smile to see all these mostly familiar faces going about their business but it always feels pretty good to go back to the house once I’m done with everything else. I suppose you could say it’s a little weird but it’s not so bad, I don’t think so.

There are others out there who are living on their own too and I’m pretty sure that some of these hermits don’t even go anywhere near the villages they live by. They just do their own thing, they don’t bother anyone. I’m not like that. I’m a little like that, but in a general sense, I’m not like that.

I would quite like it if the other idiot would stop coming around, though. That’d be even better.

Okay, first of all asshat, stop touching me. Second, that is never going to work out! Third, stop TOUCHING me.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Into the Dark
Characters: Suet Tine
Race: Demon – Ice
Age: 29, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 606 words
 

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Living here has been a blissful paradise. The almost constant rain at night gives me the best sleep I’ve ever had and I wouldn’t even know where to begin otherwise to explain why living off the grid this way is just the absolute best thing there is.

Now, it’s not always perfect and wonderful but those issues only arise when I have to make my once-a-week trek to the nearest little town. I tend to hop in with my one neighbour who lives about a mile away from me since he has a vehicle and I don’t, not yet. I’ve thought about getting a bike and it’s in the works but for now, his truck works out well and he’s not the type to ask too many questions.

My home isn’t big, it has the main room when you step in through the door which is an open area with what I call the reading nook—a little space that most would have wanted to call the living room—and the kitchen with a tiny dining room attached to it. The dining room is just a small two-person table sitting against the wall on the edge of the kitchen and it works out well for me. Down the hallway I have my bathroom and it’s surprisingly big with both its shower and its tub and let me tell you, I love that tub. Across from the bathroom, there’s a tiny little laundry room with just enough room for both machines and for me to work around them to folk my things. At the end of the hallway, there’s my bedroom and it’s almost as big as the kitchen and reading nook put together. It’s perfect.

There’s electricity though it’s been spotty at times and there’s just as spotty phone service. No internet, no cellphone service though there might be, I just don’t have a cellphone and that’s that. I do have a small generator, just in case but I haven’t had to use it yet.

On the last trip to the town, I’ve ended up face to face with that one guy again, though. He’s the reason why everything isn’t perfectly wonderful all of the time. His breath smells, his body smells but he seems to think he’s someone’s gift to all lonely men and women on the planet.

Every time we cross paths, he gets in my way, steps way too far into my personal bubble because he seems to think I must be lonely out there living all on my own and he could totally show me a good time and I’d just need to give him a test run.

I told him exactly what I thought about him last time and my knuckles were tender for a whole goddamned week. The man I ride into the town with laughed so hard when he saw the whole scene. Not because of the scene itself but because of my reaction. He said something about how it was about time someone put the guy back in his place. When we went back, he stopped at his house and his wife made sure nothing was broken in my hand, she patched me up and sent me on my way with a small, amused chuckle of her own when she learned the reason behind this pit stop.

I guess no one likes the guy; it’s actually a bit of a relief to know that I’m not the only one who’s weirded out by him but there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it. It’ll just have to be one of those things.

I can only sleep when it’s raining, which is why I chose this place.

Timeline/World: Above and Under
Characters: Suet Tine
Race: Demon
Age: 28, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 561 words

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It had taken a lot of looking around, a lot of digging, a lot of saving up. The saving up had been the most difficult part for him, not because he couldn’t budget and put money aside but because he barely managed to make ends meet at all, to begin with and putting money aside was a luxury he rarely could manage at all. Still, he’d done it, little by little. It had taken six years, six from the day he’d found the perfect place.

It didn’t always rain but it rained relatively often and rarely in a torrential downpour so all in all, he thought he had gotten the better end of the deal. One homeowner looking to get rid of their little home in the middle of almost nowhere where it was wet most of the time and one demon just out to find a place where he could sleep peacefully. Win-win.

Suet hadn’t been quite certain when he’d first gotten off the plane and made it over to the property line. The sky was the brightest of blues he’d ever seen and everything was sticky and humid. There had been little to worry about in the long run as when the sun had set, a slow, peacefully rhythmic rain had started falling over the roof and against the window of the room he’d set as his bedroom. He’d moved the bed to be right beneath that window, not having an issue with a bit of moonlight on his face while he slept and he’d unpacked his meagre belongings.

He’d taken stock of what had been left in the house since the owner had mailed him the keys, the paperwork and the rest. He’d only met the man once and that had been while they’d discussed the whole deal and it had been in the country he’d left, the country the man had been longing to move into. There wasn’t much in the house except the absolute basic necessities and even so, he’d noticed that there were certain items he’d have to buy, not that he minded much.

The only issue he had with the setup was the heat, it didn’t sit well with his roots but he had changed since then, it had been years upon years since he’d last called upon ice and in the long run, he had a feeling he’d probably just have to learn to control his gift again, it would prove useful, maybe.

He didn’t care, in a way. He had the best of sleeps he’d ever had in years, it was either the rain or the sound of the surf and finding a home that was partially out of the way of everything else but was close enough to the surf had been more complicated than finding this home in the middle of near nowhere in a country where it rained more often than not. It was a little bit of paradise, even if the humidity made it a bit of a sticky mess most of the time.

There hadn’t been anyone to leave behind, there hadn’t been anyone who’d look for him, so he’d taken the leap, had acted not quite on an impulse but perhaps not far from and now he loved every moment of his nights when sleep found him easily to the pitter-patter of the rain.