August Writing Challenge, "Miami"

[[SS]Administration]

“Miami” by Taking Back Sunday is the underlying theme song of the site as a whole. Not only does the title lend us our setting, but the words also lend us our name! The whole song speaks to the plot of the site. Your challenges this month BOTH stem from the use of this song, and I think it’s a round of challenges with which you’ll be very familiar.

It’s a fan favorite: Music to My Eyes!


Your challenge this month is to use the lyrics of “Miami” by Taking Back Sunday in a story. It doesn’t have to be about the site plot as a whole, so let the lyrics guide you!

Challenges will close on the 25th of August, with voting commencing from the 25th to the 31st. Winners will be announced on the 1st of September.

The lyrics to "Miami" can be found HERE and you can listen to the song HERE

[Faraday Gentry]

TRIGGER WARNING-TORTURE and EXCECUTION

"The whole truth and nothing but the truth." Faraday said voice ringing, standing in the small room, merely ten feet square, no opening but a metal door rimed with frost. The flagstone floor rang sharp sounds from under her booted feet, steel mountain climbing spikes mounted on the hard black leather.

She paced in front of a form, bound tightly by cold iron to a plain metal chair. It shivered uncontrollably, clad in nothing but linen trousers and an ill fitting linen shirt. Pulling up an identical chair, she straddled it backwards, warm in her grey fur coat, only exposing her legs when she sat. The long, lithe limbs were wrapped tightly in thick black flannel, covered at the calves by woolen socks disappearing into the cruelly spiked boots.

"Stop me if you've heard this one before," she leaned forward conspiratorially, "the whole truth is nothing but a good excuse." She'd been sent to track this man because he had the whole truth. Too bad for him. He looked at her with unnaturally gold eyes, filled up with hate like a bottle could be filled with honey. She briefly wondered if honey could freeze, warm in her furs and heated from the core out by the fire that she was born of.

Her voice dropped, the volume barely clearing the silence, like a predator peeking out from the underbrush.

Watching him shiver, she conjured a flame in her hand, crackling warm and melting soft. She held it close enough to his chest to feel the warmth, the blessed kiss of life in a frozen hell like this.

"Let's be honest, a secret silenced is a secret safe."

Clapping suddenly, the flame snuffed out between her hands as the sound cut through the air to ricochet off the walls, shattering the moment.

"I just love that song, don't you?" Speaking to the bound man now as though they were old friends, strolling together in a mall while she dragged him into lingerie stores and made him hold her purse.

Trilling the song into life, her clear bell like voice rang out, a coldly cheery mockery of the music "Miami, Miami, Miami Well, every hour on the hour... Every hour on the hour! You have to, you just have to trust me Whoever I was then, I can't ever be again."

She turned her ice colored eyes to the man again, the silence as abrupt as the noise had been.

"Why couldn't your father leave well enough alone, eh, Mikemwes? A. Secret. Silenced. Is. A. Secret. Safe."

His shivering was rattling the legs of the chair against the flag stone floor, the racket carrying over Faradays last few clipped words.

Kicking her own chair out of the way, Faraday slammed to her knees as the metal hit the cement wall and crumpled, stilling the shaking chair just as abruptly, planting her hands on the metal and bearing down with her inhuman strength.

"Shit, Mikemwes! You seem cold. How rude of me not to notice before, poor. Cold. Mikemwes."

Drawing up the fire from within her, Faraday channeled it into the metal, heating it like the coil on a stovetop and singing softly to herself as Mikemwes began screaming, a screeching, skittering rise and fall that multiplied off the walls and became a sick accompaniment for the phoenixs sweet, mocking voice.

"Miami, Miami, Miami,
Well every hour on the hour,
Unhand me, goddamn me, Miami,
Whoever I was then I can't ever be again.

The terror held in wedding bells
The TERROR HELD!!" Screaming the last into his face, the metal chair imprisoning Mikemwes exploded outward, the metal white hot and sticking into the walls like shrapnel.

Faraday rose, blood dripping from her luxuriant furs, clumping the hairs together dripping down her face, and pouring in runnels of crimson and thicker things off her coppery hair.

His body was little more than bloody chunks and a few scattered limbs, luckily his head remained in tact. She picked it up gently, sliding her hands under his lax cheeks like a lover, setting it upright on the freezing flagstone floor and crooning softly to it as she took out a small re-curved blade, the hilt wrapped in silver and silk, and carved the Symbol of the Queens Justice into the flesh of his forehead "The comfort when there's no one else...

The truth be told I'm never gonna know."

[Benvolio Duran]

Warnings for CHARACTER DEATH and implied violence

Unhand me, Goddamn Me


Quinn cried out, growling like a wounded animal as she sank down behind the police car, bleeding from a wound in her head that she’d suffered earlier in the fray and now cradling her side. It smoked as she pulled away her hand. “We can’t win this.” She grunted to her partner. Cobalt looked over the detective, trying to ignore the throbbing in his jaw where an imp had quit him some of his teeth.

“…I know.” He added.

Every hour on the hour

“How did it get like this?” Alan asked more to himself than his partner as he struggled to catch his breath. He was getting tired of taking refuge behind dumpsters, but it was the best that Gabrielle could offer. Her scythe was not going to do much to protect him, though she stretched her wings over him and somehow…somehow he felt safe.

“It’s always like this.” She replied.

The faith you’ve found I’ve never felt

“We can’t win this.” Alan said to her, looking up into her hard blue eyes. She nodded. Alan looked across the burning street to where he’d last seen Quinn take a hit. He didn’t even know if Cobalt was alive. Somewhere in his racing heart, there was a terrified tightness.

A comfort in there’s no one else

“Don’t, Siperco.” Gabrielle warned.

“We can’t leave them.” Alan added back, pushing his last magazine into his gun.
Detective Graves sighed heavily, her gray wings fluffing up with distress. He looked into her alien face. “If we can distract the enemy, they can get help.” She nodded. He was correct, and she was behind him.

And he ran.

So long as you don’t torture me with my past

Alan had done a lot of running in his life, but it was never anything like this. He was always running from something. From himself, from Montana, from the people around him. But this unit had changed that. They didn’t see the past. They only saw the moment and what needed to be done. And this couldn’t be the end for them.

Let’s be honest, a secret silenced is a secret safe.

“Oh my god what is he doing?” Cobalt snarled, managing to catch a glimpse of Siperco tangling with an imp as Graves held off a larger advancing force as he leaned over Quinn to examine her wounds. She shoved him away.

“Get back!” She growled, her fangs making her words come out rounded and strange. Cobalt stumbled back, confused and suddenly very, very angry.

You have to,

Quinn shoved her partner back. She could hear his blood, smell it. She needed it. The wound at her side burned and ached, but she hadn’t fed I long enough to heal it. Her mind was clouding the only thought of feed creeping in on protect your partner, protect your city, help them.

“Get back!” she shouted again as Cobalt tried to draw near.

“Damnit Quinn let me help you!” Cobalt shouted back.

You just have to trust me

“Go!” Gabrielle demanded, slicing through an attack hell hound and squinting against the blood splattered on his neck and face. “She is fading.”
Alan looked to his partner, and to the car that sheltered Cobalt and Quinn.

“Go to them.” Gabrielle demanded again, taking to the air and scattered dust and rocks in the wake of her take-off. He watched her too long, regretting not knowing how to say goodbye.

He only barely managed to get behind the car before he crumpled into the dirt. His head smacked against the pavement, but he couldn’t feel it. He could only feel a chill creeping into him and the wetness at his back and side where the massive claws of a hell hound had sliced him to ribbons.

Quinn was scrambling, anything to get away before she’d do something she’d regret. But smell of blood made her woozy. Her mind shrank to a single thought, ignoring the conversation around her.

“Alan!” Cobalt dragged the younger man the rest of the way to shelter as flames licked at Alan’s boots. There was blood everywhere and he could see the glazed look in Quinn’s eyes. “Alan, look at me.” Siperco was shaking, seizing almost. He was I shock.

“W..what’s your…s-st-status.” Alan stammered, his tongue heavy and unwieldy in his mouth. Cobalt’s lap was soaked quickly with blood.

Cobalt was horrified, but like Alan could think of little in the moment but the job. “Clementine…she needs---“

“Quinn.” Alan called.

“Alan, don’t.”

“Take me.”

“No!” Cobalt demanded, moving to stand and drag Alan away from his partner as she began to move forward. She was hesitant, but not nearly hesitant enough. “Quinn, Don’t!”

Alan’s hand fell on Cobalt’s, blue with cold. “Shut up.” He demanded, looking up into the older man’s eyes. “Pu-ut me down.” Quinn snatched Alan from his hands, leaping at his throat like a dog on a bone.

Cobalt looked away, but couldn’t block out the sounds of her feeding.

Whoever I was then, I can’t ever be again.

Gabrielle looked down at them, sheltered for now behind the vehicle, but the forces of hell were advancing, and their reinforcements hadn’t yet appeared. The other angels battled further ahead on the line, their allies forging ahead. But back here,
Graves couldn’t bear to look at the blood that stained Quinn’s mouth.

She dropped Alan’s body, tears leaking out of her eyes. “Oh god…” She whispered, her voice a shuddering gasp. Cobalt was speechless.

How could he let this happen?

A gentle wind broke him from his staring, Gabrielle’s haggard voice commanding

“Change him.”

Quinn looked up to the angel, confused. Her wounds were knitting together.

“Before your wounds heal, change him!” Gabrielle demanded again, gesturing to
Alan’s body.

The faith you’ve found I’ve never felt
The terror held in wedding bells

Quinn cradled him, the cut on her wrist pressed to his mouth. Cobalt wasn’t breathing, but neither was Alan.

and comfort in there’s no one else

The grime on Quinn’s face was washed away by her tears.
Cobalt stood up and looked to Gabrielle, whose head hung but face showed no sign of her grief.

“It’s not working.” Cobalt finally said, looking out to the street as angels began to flee in their direction. Their allies were retreating. They were losing. And Alan was gone. “Leave him Quinn.” Gabrielle was holding out her hand, prepared to carry Quinn to safety and join the retreat.

“I killed him.”

“Others will come for you.” Gabrielle explained to Cobalt, looking to the sky for her exit. Quinn would need more than blood to heal.

“Quinn, leave him.” Cobalt said again, lifting his partner slowly by her elbows. The moment Gabrielle lifted off, she began to sob uncontrollably.

Another angel, grey and withered like Gabrielle, limped by the car. A shield was strapped to his back.

“Cobalt.” He called, his hand outstretched. When Cobalt reach for it, his own was stained with blood. He looked down to Alan’s body. “Cobalt, I can’t carry him too. I’m sorry.” The angel was familiar, but Cobalt could think of nothing but one question.

How could he let this happen?

The truth be told I’m never gonna know