i got a bone to pick and a few to break -- Roulette Rome

[no ones muse]

<center>Introducing : Roulette Rome</center>

<center></center>

<center>what more do you want from me?
some sort of apology?
well i promise that forgiveness is the most you'll get.
and what i demand of you is to put up or shut up.
so make your decision,
but remember-you can't kill us all.
i know you don't know what you say
but i don't feel any safer from you.
hate is too easy and we'll both find a way to be right.
no matter how far a stretch.
and even now i've all but forgotten what we're fighting for.
to end something or to begin it?
i don't even know why i care to continue.
old habits die hard i guess. but we don't.
and the threats are still made.
i'll kill you. even though turning away seems safer.
i want to be in the middle.
i want to go for the jugular. but i don't remember why.
was it to start something or to end it?
i know why i continue. i do it all for them.
for her i can be an influence and for them a backbone.
to end the old and begin a new age of compromise and clear thinking.</center>

<center>Coalesce -- You Can't Kill Us All</center>

[no ones muse]

"This is Roulette Rome, your host for the Midnight Massacre on 103.9 KROT. Tonight we're going to be playing some new shit from one of my favorites, Coalesce, and another one of my favs, Undying. If you got a request, you know the fucking number, so call on in and we'll see what we can do."

There was nothing better than voicing your own opinion to a person, and it only got that much better when a whole crowd of devoted listeners took your words, molded them up, and stashed them away to later use as their own. Her philosophies on bands, on vocalists and instrumentalists, were sometimes rude, crude and absolutely outrageous. Then again, that's why they tuned in was to hear the honest truth from a vulgar mouth painted up in harlotry and swollen smiles when such phrases were spit out into the radio waves.

Ear phones were tugged away from her head, placed on the side of the desk to sit and wait till she was ready to start answering those brilliant, bright flashing lights on the phone. Plenty of punk and scream worthy fans were ready to send in their latest picks, to see if they would be judged for their passion, their type of music that got their blood to pump.

And they all knew, that if you took offense to what Roulette said to you, you were deemed a pussy by the whole world that would just wait for some jerk to call in, try and tell her off, and then cry in his or her cornflakes when the petite Ms. Rome gave them a large chunk of her mind.

Cigarette was left to burn unattended to in an ash tray just a few inches from her elbow, sending a cover up screen of smoke to flood along the oxygen tides in that small room where she took up her throne at that desk, and was queen of the microphone until further notice. She was in fact, the soul creator of KROT studio, and underground type of station that played what others found too offensive, too loud, too ... undescribable in the way lyrics weren't sung, but screamed, and politics got their asses handed to them in how metaphorical these writers got.

Roulette would know. She herself, was the small wonder of a band that centered around religion and other things that people didn't dare insult.

Deacon was on the other side of the plexi-glass window, snickering to himself at some of the letters he was picking up and shamelessly reading. Fan mail, hate mail, bills. Some would be read aloud for all to hear, others would be sent back to the address' with more than likely a dead fish head inside just to say "Right back at you, fuckface" to those that didn't approve of Roulette's foul tongue and judgement on what she thought sucked.

"We ready, Deacon, or what?" snapped the Jersey Shore banshee while fiddling around with a pair of gaudy sunglasses she had found at the gas station earlier. Putting them on just to see Deacons reaction, which was well worth it when he scrunched up his nose and shook his head.

"Those are the ugliest fuckin' things I ever seen, Rou'. And yeah, if yer' ready, then we are. Got an ass load of callers tonight, Rou'."

"I see that, jackass." motioning with slim fingers (left unpainted because she would just bite it off and complain that nail polish gave her a rash) to the lit up tree of orange flickering lights to her right.

Ear phones were pushed back on before the first button was pressed. Her generous smile was a rare thing to be seen, though Deacon was used to it when Roulette was in the studio. She figured no one would see it here, and accuse her of smiling when clearly she never did.

"Caller one, you're on the air. What can I fucking serve you up tonight, dearest?"

"Uh... yeah. Roulette? The Roulette Rome? Ho--"

"Yes, it's me. Come on now, spit it the fuck out, kid. What do you want to hear?"

"Oh, uh, sorry. Yeah. Uh. Could you maybe, like, play some, uh, some ... Old Metallica?"

Deacon had already started laughing, doubling over at the boys request and just imagining what would fly out of the thin womans mouth.

"Let me ask you something....?"

"Oh, uh, Jonah."

"Ok, let me ask you something, Jonah. Are you a fag?"

"W-what? Uh, no."

"THEN WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU LISTEN TO FAG HAPPY MUSIC LIKE A BUNCH OF DISGUSTING OLD MEN IN A BAND THAT SHOULD HAVE DIED TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO!?"

"..... well, uh....."

"Let me tell you something Jonah..." Pausing, mid break to enhale some smoke as if she needed it, as if she didn't she might explode and find out where the boy lived, just to thrust her fist into his puberty ridden face. "... Metallica is not music, alright? You want to listen to that trendy, mainstream butt-rock bullshit, you turn that fucking dial over to 92.1, alright? How long have you been listening to KROT?"

"Uh, oh, like, maybe a month or two?"

"Slow learner, Jonah?"

"Uh, well, I ---"

She rarely let people finish, especially when she was on a rant. Smoke exhaled, her sultry mouth curving closer to the microphone with a fierce expression stretching thin across her bone labeled face.

"Listen up, youngin'. I don't play shitty music, alright? I play the good stuff. I play the shit no one wants to hear because it's too hardcore for their ears. I play the shit that comes from the underground, with screaming guitars and wailing vocalists who would spit in your fucking face if you called them "MTV worthy", alright? Do me a favor. Go sell all your cd's, and when I say all, I mean ALL, Jonah. Get some cash together. Go buy a couple of albums from Refused, Converge, Riverboat Gamblers, or even Walls of Jericho if you're up for a wake up call, alright? And then, and only then Jonah, will you beable to call back here and beable to get off the phone with out a new asshole. Capiche? Great. Now, go, young grasshoppa'!"

Deacon was practically on the floor becoming bulimic with laughter and drooling across his knuckles as he tried to wipe away the spittle there. Roulette on the other hand, was not laughing, as everything she said was honestly from that straight-jacket heart of hers. Passionate beyond any means about what she found to be the golden strokes of music even if meant that she was called a snob, a selfish bitch with no appreciation for other peoples opinions. Like the phrase went: "Opinions are like assholes: Everyone and their fucking mother has one."

Before caller number two was picked up, her cigarette was being smashed out (practically middle filter, yet Roulette never seemed to notice a difference in taste) and the tray being pushed aside.

"Caller two, you better be calling with something worthy of playing or else I am seriously going to find out where you live, skull fuck you with my fist, and then steal all of your money so you won't have any for a proper burial... Now, what do you want to fucking hear?"

[no ones muse]

<center></center>

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!"

Her howling screams were echoed a long the rich walls of plaster and peeling paint of the shitty apartment Deacon and her shared. It was empty of any other tangible bodies aside from one: Roulette's.

Within the bath tub did her body splash, hot water still pouring into the porcelain concave. Soaked to the bone with the wetness and caked in the outfit she had worn all day, smelling of nicotine and hot cement sun.

The knife was clutched so firmly in a vice grip of her binding fingers, bandaging it up like corset strings to the narrow handle.

It wasn't stopping. They weren't stopping. The voices and screams that bounced around in her head like a fucking pinball machine were loud and clear with the visions flashing like static television a long the brimming tears of her squinted eyes.

It was every so often when a sudden fit like this came to swallow her whole. When nothing seemed to save her from the ordeal of foresight and all the slaughtering of the world was a flash card of images for her eyes only. It started out little, the whispers a long her neck and behind her ears. The cackling of the devils and demons, the soft affection of angels and cherubs to calm her down. It never worked. It only made it that much harder to realize she was never going to be part of the normalcy in soceity.

Different because she knew before the tabloids did. Different because she could pinpoint a mans death with out meeting him, or know a woman pregnant a year in advance.

She saw children molested, murdered, raped. She saw women beaten, killed, cheated on. Saw God and Satan duke it out, and watched the blood shed of natural disasters. All, everything, before it ever even happened.

To live with the burden of her supposive gift, as Mary and the rest would try to make her understand, wasn't the easiest of things. It drove you mad, made you heartless, throttled you into sudden fury for being alive and wishing to end it all.

It's what she tried to do tonight, her twenty seventh conviction of self-mutilation turned obvious suicide.

Blood was flowing heavily from the torn tissue of her forearms. A straight line cut deep enough to expose the white of muscle when the water was hit to smear away some of the bellyred. The water had turned a light pink at first, but then was a full blown toxic looking strawberry color when she had thrashed so violently and screamed with a rabid mouth at the opposing wall in front of her.

"I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS! FUCK, I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS! JUST LET ME FUCKING DIE, PLEASE! DO IT!"

The more she cried out, the more she could hear herself over the timebomb warfare going off in her head. The ridiculous speed of things being sewn into her, slashed and cut open to salt the wound of her already beaten mentality.

"It's not fair... it's not fair."

Murmered through the sore abuse her lips had gone through the day, by chewing on them so hard that the skin was ripping and scabbing.

"IT'S NOT FUCKING FAIR!"

__________________________________________________

"She's loosing a lot of blood."

These arn't nurses, or doctors. Fuck, look at them. I can see them for what they really are. Look at them. Look at them looking at me.

"Careful, careful! Get her up here. Where's Dr. Bennison!? We're gonna lose her!"

No you're not. You know you won't. Fuck. It almost doesn't hurt anymore. I can almost feel it at my finger tips. Fuck, just let me lay here and die. Why? Why are you doing this?

"Her eyes are open! Pulse is light but there!"

None of you know. None of you know what it's like. I want this. Can't you understand that? I want to prove that I am not a fucking seer. That all of this was just me being crazy. If this doesn't work... if this doesn't work...

"We got her! She's going to be alright! Shit, stitch her up and keep her here over night. This girl is definitely lucky to be alive."

... fuck.

[no ones muse]

Every single time Roulette tried to master the art of suicide and failed she would fall back into an obstacle of illusions. A story where all her words were in the lines of her body language and her mouth never parted to snap out curses or muse with gritty street laughter. Not even to Deacon.

From hospital to home there was nothing but the sting of quite surrender and it had this haunting feeling on their shoulders. From the car to the apartment it would linger and follow like the reaper with his sickle scythe, ready to hook them up with it and drag them into the abyss if they just gave away those simple few secrets. From door to her room there would be no serenades of insomniac talk to switch their tongues on vibrate and keep them humming to one another until the sun came crawling out from the clouds.

Smoke came out from the broken engine of her lips to screen out and display tendrils of grey to the stalk white slime of her face. Normally she was as pale as the ghosts that roamed the cemetaries late at night, and now she was a rigor mortis painted puppet dangling from those invisible strings wishing so badly to just be let go and dropped. The cherry end would flare and give some reflection of shadows and light to the razor lined curvature of her features, all stoic and pressed into a deadened stare out the side of her window.

Coiled up through the baggy exposure of a stolen mans shirt. Probably Deacons as it was as vintage as their names. Criss-cross of wire sewn up from wrist to elbow to keep the flesh tucked neatly in it's puffy display of bruises and irritation from the slice and dice performance she had put on not too long ago.

It was only after her attempts that for a whole twelve hours would the voices stop. It could have been from the loss of blood. The hallucination of feeling the numbness of death and being yanked back with the great hand of Fate around your neck. She was in bliss for those few precious hours, where she knew nothing of what was going on in the world. Heard nothing but what was then and now, the crickets and the city bellowing out from the cement of the urban ghetto they stayed in.

Unseen was the suffering line of a smile when a moment in time was spent so solitary.

It was now that she would lay her head down and rest her eyes. Think of nothing but the breathing pattern and the soft pain through out her arms that stretched to her shoulders. Between the after taste of nicotine and the cocktail of morphine she was swimming in, the pause button in her mind and the knowing security that Deacon was not to far away, she would close down the shutters of her lids and lashes and fall into a deep sleep.

Twenty seventh time she tried to be a martyr.

Twenty seventh time she failed.

The twenty eighth would be the same, and yet she would keep trying.

Deacon and Roulette were so much the same, and yet complete opposites. He embraced it, she scorned it.

But they could only save each other so many times.

[no ones muse]

From the mind of Spinner McEachen about Roulette Rome:

<center>Patron saint of the gutterchild, this one, martyred on the tree of sex meets foolish pride. This wasn't the sort of girl you took home to mama--no, you dropped acid with her; fucked her until Wednesday; threw the used condoms in her purse; and after she's been chained in your closet for eighteen hours... you kick her out the door. (And you can't wait to see her again...) These two had a duality-of-evil thing going on that was unmatched.</center>

<font color="#FFCC00" size="1">[ April 08, 2005 04:25 PM: Message edited by: chimera factory ]</font>

[no ones muse]

It's hard to find your place in the world, when you see and hear all the bad shit going on day in and day out.

My names Roulette Rome, and this is my story.

I was born like any other fucking normal kid. Out of a womb and into a set of strangers hands before I was placed on the comforting chest of my mother. Yeah, sounds like a good fairy tale in the beginning doesn't it? It just really sucked that even in that fuckin' womb I had visions. Before I could say two baby wasted words, I saw and heard things that would put anyone in an early grave.

At the age of two I had already seen over a thousand deaths that hadn't happened yet. Murders that would never be solved. Rape victims screaming in my face. Wars that no one could fathom.

Growing up was hard when you were looked at like a fuckin' reject. I would scream at night because of what I saw and what bounced off in my head. I never really had dreams, only nightmares that weren't just figments of my imagination. I talked to souls that lingered around me and whimpered to my parents who just couldn't understand.

At the age of four I had already seen the death of my parents that would happen a year later.

Before that even happened, though, I was taken to doctors galore. Specialists, they called them. Yeah, special they were. Special at being oblivious and trying to diagnos me with what they called paranoid skitzophrenia. Multiple personalities. Bipolar disorder. Suicidal. All at the tender age of four, this is what the docs tried to tell my parents was wrong with me.

They couldn't have been more wrong.

There was on thing that entered my mind from time to time that wasn't horrible though. It was the figure of a boy with dark eyes and dark hair. A smile that always had me smiling right back because I knew he could see.

That boy grew up to be a man. That boy grew up to be my best fuckin' friend and the only person that would understand my "gift".

Deacon.

Deacon see's what I see. He hears what I hear. Knows what I know, and understands the pain I go through every fuckin' damn day because of this supposive "gift". Yeah. Gift. It's what Mary and Saint called it. They can shove their precious "gift" because I never asked for it. No sir, I never wanted it.

At the age of five, I stood paralyzed with wide eyes as my parents were slaughtered in front of me in a bullet carnival of gun powder and shrapnel. I knew it was coming and I couldn't do anything about it. I survived, because Fate's a bitch like that.

No, really, Fate is a bitch. And she knows it.

My parents. Shit. My parents were the most loving, caring people on the earth. My mother was beautiful. My father was built like a tank. Together, they would comfort me and talk sweet nothings into their little girls ear when my "fits" became too hostile, or I lost it and went black but could barely hear my father or mother whispering too me underneath all the loud static in my head.

They're dead now. Fuckin' resting. Away from this carnage of a soceity we live in.

I want to be with them but like I fuckin' said, Fate's a cunt.

And a bitch.

Foster homes were a bad place for a kid like me. A kid with special needs. So it never really worked from then on out.

And finally, finally that day came when Deacon wasn't just a silhouette in the back of my head or the savior to sew my smile back onto my mouth. He came out of the wood work of piling bodies in the middle of that Jersey ghetto and swept me into his arms and hugged me and hugged me long and good.

We've been inseperable since that day.

I'm twenty seven now. Yeah, I'm fuckin' gettin' old. I still feel young, I still look young. Hell, I'm practically immortal. Because Fate's a bitch, and a cunt, and Mary and Saint are right there with her.

If you havn't figured it out by now, I'm a fuckin' oracle. An all seeing future telling pawn in a sick and twisted game of good and evil. That's right. Mary is God. Saint is the Devil. And Fate? Well, she's just that: Fate.

They want to know what I know. What Deacon knows. We ain't tellin' them shit though. No way, no how. I claimed my neutrality a long time ago. I ain't giving these sick bastards what they want. They can kiss my skinny ass for all I care.

But it hurts so bad sometimes. Ever wonder what it's like living a twenty four hour horror movie in your head? Well step on up folks, and try your luck.

I gaurantee you won't survive it.

The only reason I have survived so long, is cause Fate's a bitch.

And they won't let me rest in fuckin' peace until I give them somethin'. Until I tell them how it's gonna end. Tell them what I see, what I hear, fifty years from now.

I ain't gonna do it though. Cause I'm a bitch, and a cunt, and a total douchebag foreseeing parasite that's just trying to get by with the help of Deacon and no one else.

Fuck everyone else.

They don't know or understand.

So I'm fuckin' stuck here, in this fuckin' state of mind that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Stuck hearing children scream and die. Hearing men and women suffer and be broken. Knowing shit I shouldn't ever know.

Stuck with twenty seven suicide attempts under my belt. Stuck with bags under my eyes cause I can't sleep unless I'm too fucked up and then I don't sleep, I just pass out. Stuck going through all the bullshit over and over again.

But fuck them. I ain't tellin' them shit. And it pisses them off.

Because they created us.

[no ones muse]

"And now for a little song by Undying who will be playing with us this up coming weekend down at Burkey's. I still think I fuckin' sound better than her, but hey... Vanity's a bitch, huh?"

Roulette slaved away for hours in that studio. Doing nothing more than serving up thick platters of hardcore and metal through the pirated air waves she stole for herself and all those kids that were just as gutterborn as she.

Hands bled up to press a long the jagged lines of her gaunt features as she was going on day two of absolutely no sleep. Not a wink. You never got used to insomnia when you heard nothing but thick static in your head, day in and day out. Never a moment of true silence unless it was made-up with a cocktail of drugs and alcohol.

Fingers would have grabbed that crumpled soft pack of cigarettes on the desk when head phones were slung away, but it was the sudden chill in the air that had her stopping any movement.

A smell that she knew all too well crept out from the tide of shadows that keenly stitched up in the corners. It bombarded the surface of the skin and made you want to vomit and yet it didn't smell bad. It was just cold. So very cold that her toes were curling up in her boots and fingers were quivering. For a moment she thought she saw a stream of steam come pouring from her mouth when she exhaled.

"... fuck. What the hell do you want?"

Uttered to the wet work of black that was now uncoiling with blurry edges and no true shape. Slippery tendrils of ebon spilled out before the twist of something long legged and thin was birthed from the belly of the dark.

There stood Fate, in all her gothic-gore glamour. All whale-white washed with her skin of porcelain and hair that moved in a way that it almost seemed to have a pre-medusa life of it's own.

Roulette hated Fate's eyes. All ink with white surrounding. There was no color to this creation. No illustration. No life.

Except those blood red lips that always, always had some type of a feral smile laced to the edges.

"Now, now, Roo. Is that any way to treat an old friend."

Said the blackmarket chimera as she brushed palms down the material of a black pant suit and came up to lean a long Roo's desk space.

With the closeness, Roulette twitched and adverted eyes to where that cigarette pack was.

"You ain't no friend of mine, bitch. And I ain't bleedin' or screamin' to die, so why the fuck are you here?"

"Perhaps I'm worried about you." Clucked the monster while trying to get a good look into the scream queen's eyes.

To no avail. Roulette dodged every attempt.

"That's a bunch of shit and you know it."

Fate couldn't help the idle shrug from her shoulders while she opted to pick up the cigarettes, sick of waiting for Roulette to light one up.

"You havn't changed this place at all since the last time I saw it, Roo."

Fate creased a sinister grin to the filter of her cigarette. Puffing away while hair shrouded along her ghostly face.

"Ok, look. Is there really a fuckin' reason you are here, or are you just fuckin' with me, Fate? Ya' never come out of that fuckin' cave of yours unless there's a life to take and I ain't seein' no one but me, and you know for damn sure that I ain't kickin' the bucket any time soon." Spat in the dirty-Jersey lure of her serpent tongue.

Fate mimiced a wince at the words, though was far from offended. Fate was never offended.

"Mm, you're right. Good point, Roo. Then I guess whatever's up my sleeve isn't too hidden, mm?"

"I'd really like it if you left."

"And when I have ever done anything that you liked?"

"Good point."

Roulette finally grabbed that pack of cigarettes and lit one up. Daring a glance at the midnight horror lady's face. It gave her pains in her spine.

"I just thought I'd drop by. Say hello. Going to be around for a little while, so get used to me haunting your little corners."

"... what's a little while?"

"A little while, is just that: A little while."

Playing trickster games and riddle-me-angry words was what Fate was good at. She had a tendency to become a parasite and just sneak up under your skin with out you knowing.

Roulette knew Fate better than anyone, almost. They could have been best friends if it wasn't for the fact that Roo hated this entity.

"Ah! Look at the time!" Tapping her wrist watch with the void of eyes widening slightly. "I should probably get back to slaving away at the job, no? You know how that goes, Roo."

Roulette snorted from around her cigarette.

"So I'll be seeing you, Roulette. Oh, and darling?"

"What?"

"I'd keep a close eye on that Deacon friend of yours."

Before the raw boned siren could stretch out a sudden yell at the shadow spindled woman, Fate was being sucked bone dry away from any scene and back into the soft haven of those darkening corners.

This left Roulette with her eyes squinted, and her fingers tightly gripping the desk.

[no ones muse]

<center></center>

<center>mannequin madness and treasured lunacy. look at this body i've become and praise me as the eighth sin that never made it into the books. because of heaven and because of hell, i'm washed up on shore like a beached misfit and lost to my crooked surroundings. isn't there an angel out there with out wings to sing to me? a demon that lost it's horns to fuck me? oh, oh, please no. not now. it just started to get quiet...</center>

[no ones muse]

Roulette and Deacon might have been the high and mighty seers that Saint and Mary created, yet they didn't see everything in life. They saw the horrors of things, of war and murder, rape and death. The happy-go-lucky slide show rarely ever interupted the static of screams and the debris of gore. Though every now and again, it happened.

Once, Roulette had seen the precise numbers to Power Ball, but instead of gifting herself with a ransom of foresight and cash, she dipped the winning ticket into a homeless mans cold fingers. To this day, Mr. Robert Sinclaire was a millionaire, if not more. He gave all his thanks to the scream queen, wherever he thought she may be.

Another time, Roulette had the vision of one of her band mates finally marrying and having children with his wife-to-be, yet they were still boyfriend and girlfriend. Roulette knew that, and it was enough to send a smile across her face when she saw them bickering.

And once, and only once, Roulette saw Deacon in a phase of smiles and laughter. Of rippling amusement and the keen sense of adoration spilling from his pores. He was with a woman, basking against the grass with the day light hours splashing against him and his counter part. To this day, she still didn't know who the woman was, or when it would happen.

It was a confusing predicament the two were in. Once they gained some closeness with another, that's when the visions started over powering their better judgement. It was the main reason Roulette had never had a boyfriend, a spouse of any kind that lasted over a twenty four hour period. It always ended with her voicing that she wasn't ready for anything serious, and would promptly try and forget the mans name after slipping from the tangled sheets and gawking features of whoever was left alone in that bed.

It was the same with friends. Deacon was her soul, her heart, her mind. He was just like her, and thus their friendship was an ever lasting bond that would never be torn in half. Ever.

When the sense of imagery came to full bloom, and you saw the horrible things your friend and our significent other were going to go through within a year, months, or maybe a decade, you tended to seclude yourself to the privacy of your own home, your work, and at a bar where the only real face you knew was that of your best friend. You didn't want to see the things that Roulette saw, of your best friend or lover. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Hence, why she found it ever so unfair for Mary and Saint to make herself and Deacon into test subjects and narcs for the future.

Roulette contemplated all of this tonight. A night where she was pushed over a limit and scared shitless from some ghoulish boy named Desdenova. There were certain switches that you just didn't fumble with when dealing with the spit-fire Jersey girl. One of them happened to be crossing the line of personal space, when you were obviously not invited to do such. Another was snarling, playing feral and animalistic, to a woman that was already a nut case in her own head. These were just things that you needed to be wary of.

It was a stroke of Luck that Roulette hadn't embedded a beer bottle into the boys eye socket. Or ripped his jugular out with just the bare neccessities of her fingers and nails. No, it was Luck that saved him, that, and the internal patience Roulette had when dealing with those that were of tight bond. Camilla was there, and Zane was another that perfected a special kinship with the star-gazing Desdenova. Roulette wouldn't be the one to seperate that, or endanger them with worry. No, she had more manners than most thought. She left it as is, and stalked away with just the tremble of her mouth into a sneer when the boy cackled.

She was sickened by his assumption. Sickened by the vanity of him thinking things he knew nothing about. He wanted to know if she was a victim. To what, she asked? Because certainly she was a victim to unproposed gifts from God and her counterpart, that dear, ol' Devil.

But a victim to anyone else? Absolutely not. She had made that clear in her evidence of bombshell riots she let off with her grenade fists and steel braided tongue. Deacon knew that Roulette wasn't to be look at as just another run of the mill girl with emaciated structure and a hardcore attitude.

Roulette was so much more than that.

Though, Des did give good thought to certain things. Trust. Trust was a balancing act to the wire thin baby. Trust with Roulette was different then most. She didn't trust anyone with her secrets, for fear of being put back into that asylum for another three years. She didn't trust people with their words and expected back stabbing and back talk to ensue as soon as she became a shadow.

What Roulette did trust, was her judgement.

Judgement because her ability as a seer gave some form of defense against those that might prove a threat, later on in life. To sense out the evil in people, or the good. It was always there, in plain view, like a patchwork quilt that she could point out every stitch and wrinkle.

And again, it was trust that these people she met would never truely beable to harm her. A certain factor in this was that bitch Fate.

When in life you jump in front of a full speeding train and come out with out a scratch on you, yet you felt the impact, you begin to wonder if you should be scared of other people, or just scared of never being able to rest.

It was these thoughts that spilt and plundered into the auburn haired girls brain waves. And then a sudden theory warped in on her.

Zip.

Des and Cam had mentioned that he wasn't human, but from what Roulette knew, he wasn't anything spiritual either. It left it to one category that she knew absolutely nothing about: Vampirism.

The conclusion to her oddball feelings towards this man were evident. She liked his company because with his closeness, she couldn't see his death. See the bad things that would suddenly pop up out of no where. He was already dead, so what was there to see?

So many things to pine over, so much time.

[no ones muse]

For once in her lifetime, Roulette didn't mind the static that was thrumming through her head.

It helped when you were alone sometimes, to atleast hear something. To keep you company when all else failed. When everyone was locked into lovers embrace, or sleeping comfortably, or even laughing in the midnight hours of current lifestyles.

Tonight, Roulette was just another single silhouette down the catwalk of asphalt. Hibernating underneath lamp lights every now and again just to feel some type of radioactive warmth from the bulbs.

Deacon had gone away for a week on certain accounts of business for the radio station. He had assured Roulette that she would be fine.

But she wasn't fine.

The night at the Tavern was spent kicking back shots and downing morphine pills. A perfect cocktail to help the wire braiding of hostility in one's veins. She had met Ryan, some smut peddler who wanted to infuse her into his network of videos, which she so politely declined.

And then Zip had made his debute, and it all went crashing from there. Him, with his sleek marble features and his mouth made for gun-carved grins. He was beginning to haunt her and she didn't want such a thing to happen.

When your whole life is spent pushing people away, you don't know what to do or how to act when all you want to do is pull them closer.

It made her lips split into a wild sneer as she weaved into the maze of the city. She couldn't go home to something so dark and silent. She knew she would have a "fit" if she did, and she wasn't risking breaking her promise to Deacon again. So she opted for the next best thing: Wonder around the lifeless urban streets and stay awake for the time being.

Her walk would last until her theories were sifted through. The manilla folder of her brain holding tragic personal information that helped with the current prospect of her troubling situation.

To try and salvage something between herself and Zip might take a life time. Was it something she was willing to risk? Judging by how short tempered and impatient the scream queen was; no.

Her body collapsed to a random bench with a spared over hang from the building behind it. There she crumbled, defeated by the answer to everything that was evolving in her head.

With the light of a cigarette, it was official.

Zip was to be terminated from memory.

<font color="#FFCC00" size="1">[ April 15, 2005 05:42 AM: Message edited by: chimera factory ]</font>