Novels by ATARAXIA

“The stars, they said goodnight So, sleep till morning light Someday, I'll stay And dream for eternity With you… O beloved from above Until then It's only a matter of when When he draws near To take thee away O beloved from above Your hymns, I shall sing with love Until time passes me by So don’t kiss me goodbye Grant me another chance Spare me a second glance Let me… be with you again Beloved…” . . . . . . When Sir Hans Bathory finally came to, the world was already burning down all around him. And there’s nothing stopping it even as he sees the first, blindingly bright rays of the sun. Utterly confused and feeling panic and something like despair bubbling up from within the depths of his chest, the feeling of wrongness roaring everywhere around him, the knight finally gathers the strength, the courage to stumble and search through the torn-apart castle, one hand crawling and clawing at his neck (because he was so sure he was supposed to be dead–) while the other

“Do you know what it is like to live but not be in control? To watch your ‘self’, your own body living a life that was supposedly yours… to becoming nothing more but a vessel of a parasitic being you weren’t even fully aware of that was just there, watching and waiting… simply existing inside you?” Proserpina says nothing to that merely cants her head a touch in a barest hint of a nod because really… she understands. Because this is the curse of things that should be dead but still failed to die… for as long it still had its consciousness, a vessel… it would continue to exist, would continue to remain. …until the end of time. And as the young goddess continues to appraise the being that disturbingly looked far too human than the others residing within the depths of Tartarus… she thinks it was like staring at herself in years she didn’t even want to think of.

Proserpina turns to the next page, squinting hard. When the next words makes absolutely no sense and still doesn’t change at all no matter how much she stares and wills for it to change, the goddess of shadows finally blurted out the words that probably will make sense out of it all because seriously– “…What the hell?” “What is it?” another voice piped up. Her entire body jolted. Quickly, the young goddess turned to look behind her with a deer in the headlights look in her face… but it was only her younger brother, William, standing by the doorway, a black knapsack carelessly slung over one shoulder, a hand in his pocket while the other was loosely holding his phone, looking over at her with a weirded-out stare. Embarrassingly enough, it took her a moment or two to final

XLI–A Grim Fairytale The bats screeched then, erupting into a violent waterfall of darkness raining down upon them and an ungodly roar of outrage seemed to fill the entire world just as Jin felt himself crumble to his knees once more, white noise instantly filling his head as the white-hot pain consumed him. For a moment, Jin felt one of his hands blindly, weakly pawing all over on his side, on the floor that was becoming stained quickly with blood… his blood. “Now, it would never have one of our own,” he heard Sir Hans Bathory saying above him, his voice shaking with what seemed to be remorse and trepidation at once, “That demon would never ever have you, who bear the blood of Sans…” Jin can vaguely feel a familiar, cold darkness creeping and licking at the fra

XL–An Execution Jin Sanscroft yanked his uncle close to him as they rounded another hallway before the old man could be mauled by an ungodly maw while firing a round of bullets towards the other beast that suddenly leapt from the shadows out of nowhere with his other hand. He could feel Sir Ainsworth speaking over the commotion, but he couldn’t hear him. His eyes were firmly locked upon some of the beasts that were snarling and gnashing their teeth at him. And the beast’s eyes locked upon him. Red eyes, those eyes… its eyes looked like Aria’s on that day she tried to kill me, Jin thought with a sense of growing dread more than a passing thought as he lowered the pistol, just as the beast fell to the ground with a loud thud. Inaudibly, he swa

XXXIX – Judge, Jury, and Executioner “...Do you hear that, though?” her smile seems to grow a touch wider. Sir Hans Bathory paused as well, a bit disturbed upon hearing the sound of upcoming footsteps and Queen Ysabel’s cries and pleas well as it was growing louder and louder–they, whoever had the Queen, they must be coming close to the throne room–yet he did not dare to move nor take away his gaze from the demon standing right in front of him. The enemy was just sitting right there– “It’s the sound of an animal being led to slaughter…oh, such music to my ears,” she… the demon was practically moaning in sheer pleasure as she closes her eyes for a moment, as though relishing the ungodly screams before they opened, regarding him once more with those surreal eyes of blood, “Which reminds me: don’t you hav

A VERY LONG AUTHOR’S NOTE: The plot wasn't supposed to revolve around romance... nor even had a werewolf in it. The initial plot was a literal horror story about a girl being stalked by some supernatural creature ahem sLeNdEr MaN ahem until he eats her–but I felt it was too predictable, too boring–so let's add Greek mythology and a bunch of other monsters to the blender because I am too done with life for a complicated plot right now and justwanted someone to suffer. Let's be real, though: the story only happenedbecause I was bored and hungry when I was home-quarantined for two weeks WITHOUT INTERNET. The first draft was a scene of Winters and William escaping Roman's dungeon, haunted house–whatever it was called–but I scraped it

“Start by pulling him out of the fire andhoping that he will forget the smell. He was supposed to be an angel but they took himfrom that light and turned him into something hungry,something that forgets what his hands are for when theyaren’t shaking. He will lose so much, and you will watch it all happenbecause you had him first, and you would let the worldbreak its own neck if it means keeping him.Start by wiping the blood off of his chin andpretending to understand. Repeat to yourself– “I won’t leave you, I won’t leave you” …until you fall asleep and dream of the placewhere nothing is red. . . . The throne of the King of all Vampires is cold and rigid as a hum

XXV –Descent . . . Descent (noun): it can be an action of moving downward, dropping, or falling… or it could be a moral, a social or psychological decline into a specified undesirable state . . . PROSERPINA: Before she and Alastor can go shopping later–does this count as a date?–Proserpina had fully intended to leave the house not too far or for long seeing as she no longer felt that secure ever since they’ve been attacked there) when she returned to the shadows to rest. &

XXIV–Beginning of an End He was known by many names. Hades–God of the Underworld, King of Hell, Lord of the Dead; the adjudicator of souls, father of shadows and the wealthiest of the gods–had lived since the fall of the elder gods, the Titans, since the dawn of humanity and he does not take surprises lightly. Not many may have known but the eldest Olympian God actually possessed the rare gift of foresight regarding the fates of those who are about to be brought forth to his realm, those who are already dying, how and when will they die. And thus, there were few, precious things left in all existence which possessed any ghost of a chance to actually surprisehim. Hades took great pride in that fact… and even greater care to maintain this serviceable ability a s

XXIII–An old friend (for real this time) PROSERPINA: Proserpina had already considered the possibility of Alastor forgetting some of what happened last night but she still couldn’t stop the pang of frustration, the twinge of humiliation of having to be the only one to remember because it may as well have never happened, it may as well have never been real. It would have been easier if she just feigned nonchalance, she knows this already, if she had just dropped Alastor to his twin last night instead of bringing him along with her but she couldn’t further lament at the loss of

XXII–Calm before the Storm ALASTOR NYX: Not even ten minutes later, a freshly-showered Alastor half-skipped, half-walked down the stairs with a merry hop in his step, whistling an upbeat tune as he looked around. He was too much in a good mood; he couldn’t even find it in him to fidget with his borrowed clothes–a dark gray hoodie matched with black joggers, probably the only comfy outfit of her brother that would have fitted his considerably larger frame and never mind the way William’s faint scent still clings… it kind of reminded him of his mate’s honeyed scent, though this one feels more subdued– Alastor was practically bouncing up and down in joy as he moved. It’s fin