All of these are from somewhere in Our Forgotten Devils
1. Right
A candle holder that had caught my attention before. Upon closer inspection, I find that my initial assessment was right: it is indeed, a severed hand. Shrivelled and blackened, nailed to the wooden stand by its wrist, holding the pale candle tightly between brittle fingers. An embossed label stuck to the base identifies it as a “hand of glory”.
2. Answer
“Alex,” I say, my voice shakier than I would like, “What the fuck is going on?” I feel like it’s all I’ve asked for the last forty-eight hours, and I’m beginning to think I haven’t gotten an honest answer even once.
3. Quiet
“If you want my help, then you need to start telling me the truth. All of it.”
For a moment, Alex is silent. He swallows hard and takes a shaky breath. “Okay,” he finally says, in a voice so quiet I doubt for a second if I really hear it at all, “Okay.”
4. Alive
I felt alive when I was with him, more so than I ever had before (or, for that matter, since).
5 was supposed to be cute, but apparently, I’ve never used the word cute in my life! (Seriously, went through several wips and it is nowhere to be found, curiously enough)
Open tag! For anyone who wants to, your words are Fate, Fear, Never, Loss, and Magic
I take another worried glance over my shoulder. “Can’t you go any faster?” I ask.
“Not unless you want me to crash!” Alex says sharply.
The car pulls out and speeds up until it’s driving alongside us. I try to get a look at the driver, but the windows are tinted so dark I can’t see a thing. Whoever’s driving, they turn inwards, pushing hard into the side of us.
Burn(ed)(from Our Forgotten Devils)
“You look so much like your father.”
Abruptly, Alex drops her hands as if they’ve burned him. His flinch is slight but clearly visible nonetheless.
Scent(from Our Forgotten Devils)
Beneath the pervading scents of sandalwood and frankincense lies something else, something that I can’t quite place, but it makes me wrinkle my nose in disgust all the same. I feel like I should recognise it, but it’s too faint for me to determine what it is.
FuriousFury(from a micro-wip titled Clytemnestra’s Confession)
I needed to be over there, needed to see her, hold her, needed to snatch the dagger from Agamemnon’s hands and plunge it into his chest. But Achilles held fast, stubbornly refusing to let me go. I struggled and fought in vain until all my fury drained away and I slumped forwards, sobbing. When he finally let me go, I collapsed.
The walls are covered in decorations: framed copies of Gustave Doré’s engraved illustrations, pages from age-old books gone yellow and faded, dreamcatchers and charms hanging from golden hooks, and a skull mounted to a display shelf which could easily be mistaken for human if not for the horns protruding from the front. There’s also a glass display case against one wall which is full of an odd assortment of objects, one of which looks to be a candle holder shaped suspiciously like a hand.
“This might be a stupid question,” I begin, overcome by curiosity, confusion and, if I’m being honest, a bit of unease. “But what exactly is all this stuff?”
In response, Rebecca raises an eyebrow. “And you say you want to talk to Dr Cabot?” she replies doubtfully.
It’s not an answer, and I find that slightly irritating. But before I can ask her what she means by it, she turns on her heel, leaving the room with a final shake of her head.
As the daughter of a theologist and a medium, Rebecca Mathers has spent her entire life surrounded by tales of magic and demons. Now working as an assistant to the eccentric demonologist Dr Cabot, her days are spent cataloguing grimoires and shelving strange objects. But Rebecca knows she was meant to do more, and her greatest wish is to be able to utilise her extensive knowledge.
Her latest task is simple: go with Alexander Michaelis and retrieve a book his father borrowed years ago and never returned. However, the Michaelis family have much bigger problems than borrowed books, and soon Rebecca might find her wish fulfilled in the worst possible way…
•‘mother’s daughter’ by miley cyrus • ’these boots are made for walking’ by nancy sinatra • ’devil’s worst nightmare’ by fjøra • ’therefore i am’ by billie eilish • ’believer’ by imagine dragons •
Hi darlings! So, in honour of reaching 100 followers earlier this week, I’ve decided to post the first draft of the opening chapter of Our Forgotten Devils! (Still very much a work in progress, but it’s a start!)
It’s a little after midnight when I wake up. My awareness of myself and my surroundings returns slowly and, when it does, the first things I notice are the sore neck and the twisted spine, a consequence of falling asleep on my cheap sofa while watching some god-awful spy thriller earlier in the night. I rub my eyes with a clumsy fist and an involuntary groan of discomfort, dragging myself into a position that vaguely resembles sitting upright.
Reluctantly, I open my eyes fully, and I regret it a mere second later. In the corner across from me, the TV is still turned on, sending a harsh glaring light emanating through my living room which stings my tired eyes. The program has changed now, though: gone is the cliche crap from earlier. Instead, a newsreader wearing a crisp navy business suit and a fixed grim expression stares blankly straight into the camera, reading aloud from the prompts in front of her.
“… a body, discovered this morning, which is the third murder in the city since last week. A police department spokesperson has confirmed this evening that, like the previous murders, the victim was found slit open from neck to navel. Local residents have been urged to avoid travelling alone late at-”
I manage to dig the remote out from where it had been lost between the sofa cushions and punch the OFF button firmly. No one in their right mind wants to listen to that shit when they’re alone in their apartment in the middle of the night, and I’m no exception. Too many real-life horror stories at midnight and my imagination will start to give eyes and limbs to the shadows that creep around the dim corners of my apartment. Already the darkness pressing in on me from all sides has begun to make me a little uneasy, and I see no good reason to make that worse. Something nags in the back of my mind - that odd feeling you get when you think you should remember something but you don’t - but I dismiss it. I’ll only overthink it, like I usually do, and by that point any hope of sleep will be nothing more than an unachievable fantasy.
There’s silence now. I push myself up off the sofa, fully intending to head for the comfort of my bed, when something stops me in my tracks. The silence is suddenly shattered by a sharp knockon my front door. It startles me enough that I jump backwards almost on instinct, and the back of my shin collides with the pointed corner of the glass coffee table, causing me to swear under my breath.
The knocking continues - harsh, forceful, almost desperate knocking - and I make my way to the door, stumbling over my own abandoned shoes. I have no idea who the hell could possibly be looking for me in the middle of the night, but there’s something about the urgency of that insistent knocking that makes me rush to answer it. It takes me a few minutes of fumbling to get the bolt and chain undone and, as I do, my mind races. I’m not sure who I expect to see on the other side of the door, and my brain is working overtime trying to figure it out in the next ten seconds - family? a friend? the police, even? - but none of the answers I can come up with ease the tug of anxiety in my stomach. In my experience, if something is serious enough to warrant an interruption in the middle of the night, chances are it’s not going to be good news.
In a decisive attempt at silencing my anxiety, I yank open the door.
A figure stands in my doorway. It takes me a minute, as my eyes sweep over their profile, but when the realisation finally hits me, it does so with enough force to knock the air from my lungs.
“Alex…” It comes out like a gasp, faint and surprised.
I don’t know what it was that I expected to see when I opened that door, but it sure as hell wasn’t Alexander Michaelis. I haven’t heard a thing from him in just over five years; ever since he left town in a hurry one cold September morning, since all my texts and calls were met first with single sentences, then with one-word answers, and then finally with radio silence. Standing in front of me now, he looks the same as he did back then - a little older, of course, but otherwise identical - and the sight causes my heart to miss a beat.
Alex shifts nervously, his eyes downcast, studiously examining the threadbare hallway carpet. “I- I didn’t know where else to go.” His voice sounds shaky, almost frightened, and it makes my anxiety return with force. “Can I- can I come in?”
“Yeah,” I say automatically. For a moment, that’s all I can say, my mind somewhat overwhelmed with shock and confusion. “Yeah, of course. What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
Alex doesn’t answer me right away. He hesitates in the hallway for a moment, gaze flickering between the floor and my face like he can’t believe I’m really standing in front of him. I imagine my face must look something similar. He takes a step across the threshold and into my apartment, but he doesn’t get much further than that before he all but collapses into me. My arms move to hold him almost of their own accord: it’s like a reflex, something I couldn’t control even if I wanted to. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that, but it doesn’t matter, I’ve got more important things to think about right now. Like the fact that Alex isn’t wearing any kind of jacket, and I realise that he’s cold as ice and shaking like a leaf.
“Christ, you’re freezing!” I mutter, even though I don’t suppose that information will be a surprise to him.
I lead him into my apartment and across to the kitchen, and he follows easily but unsteadily, as if he’s uncertain on his feet. I sit him down at the kitchen table, in the chair closest to the radiator which I reach down and turn up to full. Alex stares blankly in front of him, running his forefinger repetitively across one of the grooves in the wooden table. Shrugging my own jacket off, I drape it around his shoulders like some pathetic excuse for an emergency blanket. He pulls it tighter around himself and mumbles a quiet “thanks”, while I busy myself with switching the kettle on.
Once it’s boiled, I fill two chipped mugs with steaming tea and sit down opposite him, pushing one of the mugs across the table towards him. Tea was always my nana’s solution to everything. Too cold? Tea. Can’t sleep? Tea. Flynn’s having a panic attack again? Tea. I suppose she rubbed off on me more than I thought. Alex takes the tea with one hand and offers me a small smile, though his eyes are still staring downwards and the repetitive movement of his other hand doesn’t stop. My own hands are shaking, almost imperceptibly though, and I don’t quite know why.
As Alex drinks his tea, I take the moment to look at him properly under the harsh flickering kitchen light, and I realise that I was wrong before: he doesn’t look the same. His light blond hair, once sleek and styled, looks like it hasn’t been washed in days, dishevelled in a way that seems to suggest countless hours of nervous hands combing through the platinum strands. His blue eyes, bright and sparkling in my memory, are now dull and tired, bloodshot and rimmed with red. He looks like he’s been through hell and, in spite of the years that have passed, it still makes something clench in my chest.
“Alex, what’s going on?” I ask again.
He drains the last of his tea and carefully sets the mug back down on the table, before lifting his head to meet my gaze. It’s the first time tonight he’s actually properly looked me in the eye. When he finally speaks, his voice is hollow.
Our Forgotten Devils: Relationship Introduction: Flynn and Alex
“Even after all this time, even after everything that’s happened, I would still do anything for him. And one of these days that’s going to be the death of me.”
“I first met Alexander Michaelis when he waltzed into the bakery one quiet afternoon and, seeing that there was no one there but him and I, asked me what my favourite thing on the menu was, then proceeded to buy two and ask me to join him. Witty, kind-hearted, and down-to-earth, Alex was his parents’ polar opposite in everything but appearance. In hindsight, I’ve always thought that my fate was sealed from that first afternoon: watching the way his blue eyes sparkled when I made him laugh, how his pale blond hair looked like white-gold in the sunlight… how could I have done anything but fall in love with him?
Only it wasn’t that simple, of course. Nothing ever is. And nothing lasts forever, does it?”
Flynn and Alex first met five years ago, right after they graduated from high school, when Flynn moved to the remote town of Blackbriar for the summer. It was a whirlwind summer romance that ended abruptly during the chaos that followed the mysterious death of Alex’s parents.
Now, Alex returns: he desperately needs help, and Flynn’s the only person he can trust. And there’s never really a good time to realise that you’re still in love with your ex, but it’s certainly not when you’re the only people who can stop a string of demonic murders.
Maybe, just maybe, they’ll make it out of this alive. And maybe, justmaybe, they’ll do it together…
•‘lost my mind’ by alice kristiansen • 'death of me’ by madilyn • ’oldmoney’ by lana del rey • ’the one that got away - acoustic’ by katy perry • ’six feet under’ by billie eilish •
“I’ve never put much thought into how I will die. I always figured it was far enough away into the distant future that there was no point in making myself anxious about it. Still, whatever I might have imagined, it sure as hell didn’t involve money, murder, or demons.
But, of course, you don’t care. I’m getting way ahead of myself, you don’t even know who I am. My name’s Flynn Marlowe. I’m a recent college graduate with anxiety and a sarcastic sense of humour. I’m also the last person you’d expect to find tangled up in this sort of mess, but here I am.”
Quick-witted and impulsive, Flynn Marlowe is a city boy with a cynical attitude and a stubborn streak a mile long. He’s also loyal to a fault, so when he hears that his ex-boyfriend’s sister is missing, he already knows he’ll do whatever he can to help find her.
Growing up, Flynn was always the adventurous one, the reckless one, never one to turn down a good challenge. But this time, he’s in over his head. Still, there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for someone he cares about, even if that means putting himself in danger instead.
He’s smarter than anyone gives him credit for, and if there’s anyone who could find Anastasia Michaelis, it’s him. But when the web of secrets begins to unravel, are there things he would’ve been better off never knowing?
•’the kids from yesterday’ by my chemical romance • ’runaway’ by avril lavigne • ’hurricane’ by halsey • ’misguided ghosts’ by paramore • ’whatever it takes’ by imagine dragons •
Themes & Tropes:supernatural | paranormal | mystery | black magic | BIPOC main characters | LGBT+ main characters | demonology | occult | family | secrets | exes to lovers |
Synopsis:
“… I’m sorry. I know I have no right to show up here now and ask for help, but I don’t have anyone else to go to… Ana’s missing.”
College graduate Flynn Marlowe’s life is turned upside down when his ex-lover Alex arrives at his apartment in the middle of the night to ask for his help: Alex’s younger sister Ana has gone missing, and there’s no one else he can trust.
Meanwhile, a series of brutal murders has the city in the grip of terror, and it’s obvious that they need to find Ana - quickly. But there’s a lot that Alex hasn’t told him, and the more they search for Ana, the closer they get to a dark and bloody history that was never meant to be exposed.
It soon becomes clear that they are all in grave danger. But how can you protect someone from themselves? And how can you hope to fight something that you can’t even begin to understand?
Characters:
Flynn Marlowe-23 | he/him | bisexual | college graduate | loyal, stubborn, determined | there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for someone he cares about
Alexander Michaelis-23 | he/him | gay | college graduate and orphaned rich kid | quiet, clever, secretive | his sister is all he has left, and he will not lose her, no matter what it takes
Anastasia Michaelis - 18 | she/her | straight | formerly-homeschooled missing girl | private, cheerful, sweet | no one knows her, and she’s happy that way, but is it really her choice anymore?
Rebecca Mathers - 22 | she/her | asexual | a demonologist’s assistant | curious, brave, clever | she’s determined to prove she can do more than organise grimoires, and this might be her chance
