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the sand stays in carefully formed peaks where she walks. walks, more of a glide, over the gentle grains of the desert beneath what might have been feet, but nobody could really tell. a head full of dark feathers, shaken out in the twilight, the half-moon's glow radiating over the zones. she moves with grace, with fragility, and if you don't see her, she was never really there. a nightly apparition, somewhere between a ghost and a phantom, and she does not haunt, but she watches. she does not kill, but she takes. takes that which has already been lost to the fire and the noise, guiding the fallen home, to one they may or may not know.the stars sing her name as she crosses the desert to a brightly patterned box, painted with symbols and words, sprinkled with glitter and emblems. offerings and gifts lay at the base, spilling out over the dunes in a waterfall of color. an eternal reminder that they are there, and they are fighting, and they mourn, and they remember, and they will not let their dead be forgotten. they believe in her name, in the cause that led them all to this barren wasteland, and it will be a long time before they extinguish the flame the killjoys battled so long to light.the witch reaches for the weaved handle of the box's door, and it opens with a rusty creak. pale moonlight streams through the new gap in the metal walls, and the alcove inside is filled with faces and memories, a mix of stark white synthetic and cracked rainbow plastic. phoenix's talon-like hands clasp around the first mask, and she pulls it out, holding it up to examine it in the low light. it's white, like all the drac masks are, complete with fangs and red lips, hollowed black eyes, and ragged dark hair. the second her fingers– if that is what they are– touch the material, a soft glow emanates from the point of contact, and it swirls in tendrils around her arm, a gentle haze finding its way across the barrier between life and death, towards the messenger created to make it so. memories fill the witch's eyes, though they were never hers. flickers of a white room, white shots, gunfire, the screech of tires, shrieking alarms, the acrid smell of smoke and blood, mixed with detergent and fake perfume, just another glittering facade set up to blind those who strive to look deeper. this soul was lost on the wrong side of the war, if such a thing can exist. but he did not wish it and he did not control it, and, there appears to be one final memory of the day he died. this mask, the very one the witch holds in her claws, being torn from his head by a leather glove. the sudden burst of fluorescent light, foreign to eyes adjusted to the darkness of lies. eyes, hazel eyes, staring into his own face contorted into an expression of confusion and almost-fear, shocking red hair falling in loose strands over their face. this person was not a drac, but the witch recognised them all the samethe second mask belonged to them, yellow painted plastic, domino patterns around the eyes, secured by an elastic strap. simple, but it carried a weight and a reputation beside that of its owner. when the witch held this mask in her hand, however, the memories were something quite different.eyes again, closer now, and darker. almost robotic, like dark circles in the centre of his skull. him. the exterminator. the witch knew only his controller, not their name. she was familiar with his victims and their stories, and party poison's was similar. cold skin. a hand clenched around their throat. the smoking muzzle of a gun pressed to their chin, tilting their head up so that party poison was forced to look into his eyes, into death. a deadly smile playing on his lips. two words, spoken in a snarl, hung in the air and echoed in their ears.
keep. running.
their brother's scream when he pulls the trigger. pain exploding through party poison's skull like wildfire, igniting their nerves, their head spinning, vision blurring, as it all begins to fade to black. and finally, her.deep brown eyes filled with stars and hope, false hope that poison gave her. bouncy curls that fell around her ears like a messy curtain, loving hands ruffling it and probably knotting it even further. the smell of spray paint, hairdye, smoke, and static. hands clenched into fists around bad luck beads and threadbare pieces of rope, meaningless promises, blood, fire, music.life.party poison's world swarmed the witch's eyes, she watched it all over again, as they had lived it. she felt their brother's hand held tight in hers as the two sprinted through pitch black darkness, away from a prison and into what could be a home. she heard screams mixed with laughter mixed with sobs mixed with cheers, confessions, prayers, promises. and silence. under her fingers, the mask began to change. it shifted until it formed a feathered shape, floating gently through the air until it found the witch's coat and settled there, turning to black beside generations of souls, killjoys, masks. years upon years of death, all finding one home, one soul. their lives were gone, their bodies decayed, their minds quiet. but their memories stayed glowing in every grain of sand, every painted gun, every carbon that changed hands. the shadows of the dead lived on in everyone who was living, and who looked to the past and vowed to remember it. and way up in the sky, a new star began to glow.