NationStates Jolt Archive

Johnny Jaspers O'Brien was led along a harsh trail. His bare feet scraped the harsh rock and thorns that poked through his skin. Coughing horribly he noticed the flemmy blood mixture run down his ashen shirt. Tears streaked his face from the humiliation he'd endured here. Paraded through streets as the beast who tried to take the life of a clansmen. He tripped along the dirty path. Animal dung clung to his face as he landed in it. Drug up slowly he barely noticed the overhanging dark sky. Lightning struck clouds. The ground rumbled with each step he took. He felt it in his bones. The searing splitting ice that had come to inhabit his body for days now. He didn't know what day it was. Could've sworn twas Thursday.

Can't see nothing like this. Gotta lift me head. Gotta gotta gotta.....make my death honorably. The night that Paddy Murphy died is a night I'll never forget. Some of the boys got loaded drunk and they ain't got sober yet. Maybe da'll have a mighty fine wake for me. No he won't. Ma'll take my pictures from the living room. Hannah will just go on without me. Why motherfuckers did I follow what you wanted of me.

Just a few days back I can remember it all......Johnny's head lolled back as his tongue slid downwards in his mouth. Towards the throat. Better than dying like they'd make him. So much better. Pain dull and loud like a wet explosion brought him back to his senses. A guard had smacked him upside the head to get him moving again. He staggered upwards towards the light that bled through the thunderous clouds above. A rattling violent cough exploded from his lungs and blood leaked out. He was there. The Row. Final resting place of the worst of the worst. Those who killed for political position. And didn't get away with it.

He was strung up under the break of the clouds. The sun itself cast a halo around him. The bleeding hot sun. Sweat poured from his face and down his now naked chest. He cried again.........weak bastard. Why can't you just accept you're going to die horribly here? DO IT YOU BITCH! Take it like a man. Do it now or die a shame.......

OOC: Yeah I just really felt like a new sort of RP here. Generia you post. And to clarify I'm not yelling at him. Those are his thoughts while he's hanging there from his arms. Yeah...

It was dark, and a mist hung over the ground. A cold, wet, opaque fog that penetrated everything and everyone. Johnny hung there, drifting, dying. He had been floating through consciousness for the past two hours, unsure of whether he was sleeping, dead, awake, alive. He could not see, and yet his eyes were open.

It came on suddenly. Johnny's eyes cleared, and he beheld the mists. There were things moving, shadows, creatures that weren't alive, but were very much there. They moved slowly, hulked and lurked among the trees. He felt them watching him, piercing his soul, and he tried to hide. He felt a cold sweat on the back of his neck as he watched, trying to tear his eyes away from the shapes, but finding it impossible.

Then came the sounds. Small at first, creaks, and cracking sticks, followed by faint and distant laughter, joyful and true. It began to crescendo, and in doing so became a harsh cackling on an underscore of harsh and raucous drunken tone. A scream pierced the noise, and a loud thud followed. Harsh yelling, shouting in strange tongues, slurred and broken. The shouting grew louder until it was all like a great freight train barreling towards him, hanging there helpless. And then it was quiet.

But the silence was not silent, nor was it calm. It was the oppressive, heavy quiet, that is as loud as the greatest, most raucous cacophony, very much there and very much not so. The shades in the mist began to move faster, whirling and swirling up into the treetops, forming a great tornado, until they fell back down and hung there. The mists themselves began to turn and transform, becoming what appeared an archway, though Johnny could not see through.

The shades vanished, and a shape appeared at the end of this long tunnel of fog. It began to move slowly forward, towards him. He felt a great terror sieze him as it drew nearer, and he struggled against his bonds. He wanted to run, to crawl inside himself and hide, but he could not escape. He tried to scream, to call fro help, but his parched vocal cords would not function. It drew closer, closer until it was right on top of him. And then it stopped, just short of passing under the arch.

He could hear it breathing, heavy, like a sick man with lungs full of mucus and blood. He remained motionless for several minutes, watching this ethereal haunt staring straight through him, hiding behind its own nothingness. And then it moved forward, a ghastly light bathing its pale, dim features, and Johnny realized that he was staring into the face of Paddy Murphy.

Johnny was raised on Celtic stories and knew them all by heart. Paddy was a ghost. Ghosts were powerful and usually friendly. He took no chances and spit at him anyways. A laugh echoed from that. Johnny was of course angered by that laugh more than anything. But he still hung and the ghost was still there.

Paddy's mouth moved for a moment and words spewed forth. Though Johnny was to weak at first to understand or even hear.

Go lí cúnna ifrinn do mhamaí. That's what he'd heard. That bastard. "Paddy what the hells did you say about my mother! She's a good woman and no hounds of hell will be doing that to her soon you ugly misshappen bastard!" He kicked into the night and it hurt.

Oh take it you baby nothing else can happen tae yae cept death. You're hung here you die here. That's all to it. That's all ever been to it. He hung his head and let the damp decaying air fill his nostrils for a moment.

"Fine Mr. Murphy......what yae want?"