Daily Doodles- Day 168- 30/09/24

Short Story- An 'Angel' Passing Through: By Adinelle Ggreeo

We have this saying from back in the day, for when a room full of people (usually a class full of chatty students) all of a sudden go completely quiet for a few seconds.

'An Angel just passed through!' someone would jokingly say, breaking the silence.

It's a soothing thought.

Claire, unfortunately, finds out the hard way that it's anything but an angel.

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It was a regular day for the girls of class 3-A at St. Christopher Girls’ Secondary School. It was their English Language period with the well-liked teacher, Mrs Hayes. She was one of the more lenient teachers and let them get away with a little bit more. Like just then. It was fifteen minutes before the bell rang for lunch and instead of trying to cram more knowledge into their brains, she gave them a short worksheet to complete, telling them that she would be collecting them in their next class. The girls of 3-A took the wonderful opportunity given to do the one thing they like most: to talk. While Mrs Hayes took the little time left to start marking some papers, the students’ chatter filled the classroom with a low buzz.

Two girls sat at the back of the class. One with afro hair that she wore in two neat puffs at the top of her head with a navy blue headband as an accessory. The other wore her hair in long braids that she tied up into a ponytail with a blue ribbon. Their names were Claire Baptiste and Kadisha Benedicte. These best friends sat at the back of the class, to the left of the room and right in line with the teacher’s L-shaped desk. They were out of her sight behind two more desks of classmates. Perfect for uninterrupted conversation.

‘Soooo,’ Kadisha drawled, grinning at Claire. ‘I have a new boyfriend! It’s Chey, from the boys’ school. Remember him?’

Claire rolled her eyes, scoffing good-naturedly. She did remember him. She was glad to know her friend’s taste wasn’t totally trash.

‘Yeah,’ she said ‘But isn’t he the third one this month?’

Kadisha looked away, slightly embarrassed, tucking an escaped braid behind her ear.

‘Well, like he’s the fifth,’ she mumbled. ‘But, we went to the mall yesterday and he bought me ice cream!’

Giving her a look, Claire said, ‘We go to the mall and buy each other ice cream all the time. He has to come better than that.’

Kadisha sighed in exasperation.

‘You don’t understand, Claire! We really need to get you a boyfriend!’ ‘Ha! No thanks!’

Kadisha sucked her teeth.

‘Whatever! Anyway, after the ice cream we...,’

Claire nodded along to her friend’s tale while she absentmindedly doodled in the margins of her worksheet. Slightly hypnotised by the squiggles and swirls she was making on the paper, she didn’t realise that Kadisha had stopped talking. Coming back to full awareness but still looking at her worksheet, she realised that it wasn’t just Kadisha that stopped talking. The buzz of chatter in the classroom had ceased. She looked up and jerked in her seat at the sight of her friend’s face. Her mouth was wide open and her eyes round with excitement. Her hands were thrown back and some of her hair was caught between her fingers. Placing her hand over her racing heart, Claire laughed softly.

“Girl, you look so stupid!”

But Kadisha didn’t respond. Actually, she didn’t move at all. Not even a twitch of her lips or fingers. She was still, like a statue. The smile slowly slipped off Claire’s face.

“Kadisha?”

Her friend remained silent.

Feeling slightly unsettled, Claire looked around the classroom. She felt her stomach drop as she took in the stillness. Everyone was frozen, posed awkwardly in their seats, with their hair suspended in the air, pens and pencils frozen in mid-drop and sheets of paper paused in their fluttering from of the tables. Clair, pushed her chair back, wincing at the loud screech of the legs dragging against the terrazzo floor. Even though there seemed to be no one to interrupt, she slowly crept on her tiptoes towards the desk next to theirs.

The closest girl, Zara Crawford, had big round glasses and her frizzy was hair in four ponytails. Her eyes were screwed shut and her hands covered the big smile on her face. Claire poked her at first, then tried to shake her when she didn’t react at all. She tried the same with the next girl, Clara. She didn’t even twitch.

Claire, starting to feel disquieted, scampered around the class, poking, shaking, flicking and pulling hair, trying to get some kind of reaction. Not one person moved. She finally skidded to a stop in front of Mrs Hayes’s desk, catching her breath. Like everyone else, Mrs Hayes was frozen, bent over the papers she was marking. Dashing the papers off the desk and banging on the wood, Claire screamed in her teacher’s face.

“Wake up!”

Like everyone else, she remained as she was.

With dread overtaking her, she slowly backed away. Her attention was drawn to the doorway and while staring at the tree in the plot of grass past the corridor, she realised that she couldn’t hear the rustling of the leaves. Actually, she couldn’t hear anything at all. No birds chirping, no insects chittering, no sounds from the surrounding classrooms. Having a bad feeling, Claire ran out the door, barging into the classroom to the left of hers. Just like her classmates, everyone was still. She ran into the class next to theirs. Same thing. The class at the far end, the same and the form four class across from theirs. All the same.

Gasping and close to tears, she stumbled back to her classroom at a loss for what to do. The whole world it seemed like, was frozen and all the sound was gone. Except for her. Her footsteps and whimpering were uncomfortably loud in the eerie stillness. She reached the door of her classroom, pausing briefly to take in the frozen forms of her classmates, dreading that she had to sit in their stillness. Sniffling, she placed a hand on the doorframe and stepped over the threshold. She never made it past the door.

She had one foot past the threshold. As soon as her shoe touched the floor, Her whole body was locked in place and the world around her began to change. The light blue walls of the classroom, the whiteboard, the lockers and the floor all began to melt, the colours and textures slowly sloughing off and sliding away. In its wake was a ghastly, roiling mass of colours that she’s never seen and a pitch-black darkness. They moved in and out and in between each other, writhing like they were alive.

With their appearance, the sound came back. And what horrible sounds they were. A thick squelching and a ringing that alternated from a high, ear-piercing sound to a low ominous hum. It vibrated around her, torturing her ears, causing goose bumps to rise on her skin and sending her heart into a panic. The strange colours and the darkness seethed around her, seeming to close in on her. Claire wanted to scream, but her lips remained firmly closed. Her eyes, the only part of her that could freely move looked on as the colours and the darkness began to churn faster, converging in the corner of the classroom diagonal to the door. They twisted and turned, the squelching sounds increasing and the ringing lowering to that horrible, low drone. They began to bulge out as if something was pushing on them and horror filled Claire’s heart when she realised that something was trying to come through.

A long black thing pushed through first, dripping with the colours and the darkness. The spindly twigs at the end of it slowly curled into themselves. It was a hand and those twigs were long bony fingers. The rest of the thing came after. Claire could barely comprehend what she was seeing. As it oozed through the rapidly distorting colours and the darkness, It began to grow and grow and grow. There was no ceiling to hinder it. It had no discernible form. There was no head and no face. It kept shifting and twisting into tattered ribbons of black and they swirled around like a mini hurricane. Pale, glowing orbs were embedded in the parts that the ribbons revealed. They moved and rolled around, leaking a thick black substance that flew off to join the rest of its swirling form. They vaguely looked like eyes pouring dark tears. The limb it used to push through into the classroom had disappeared. There was no indication that it even existed. There were no other limbs to be seen. It was a mass of swirling darkness with orbs all over its form and it brought with it such a bone-chilling dread that Claire thought she was dying. The ringing had gone high again, the shrill sound increasing her fear.

It slowly, so slowly began to move away from the corner, making its way between the desks. It did not touch the girls. It didn’t pay them any attention at all. It left a trail of the dark substance in its wake that was absorbed into the colour and darkness that was the floor. Claire watched the thing as it made its way to the front of the class, pausing where the whiteboard was and pulling one of its long, spidery limbs from the confines of its form. It was so close and Claire was so afraid. Desperately, she began to pray.

As if sensing her pleas, the thing whipped around to face her. Its form contorted abnormally and all of its orbs turned to look at her. The high-pitched ringing abruptly stopped and Claire silently sobbed. They both stared at each other for a short while. Then suddenly the thing was right in front of her. It was crouched down, so the place where its face should have been was right in front of hers. There was one big orb embedded there. It was still as it observed her. With her heart trying to beat out of her chest, Claire could only watch as it brought its hand up to her face, one of its skinny fingers held up. It dripped with the strange black liquid. A soft whistling sound filled the air around them. It rose high and loud, assaulting her already hurting ears. Its orb began to glow white hot, so bright. One moment, she was looking into the face of what she thought was death, the next, she was blinded by the expanding glow and knew no more.

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Mrs Hayes softly laughed to herself at the three seconds of silence from the class.

‘An angel passed through,’ she thought, remembering the old saying the adults used to chuckle about when she was a young girl.

Immediately after, a scream pierced the air. It was coming from right outside the class. She shot up from her chair, almost slipping and sliding on some of the papers that were for some reason on the floor. Some of the students followed, their desks and chairs scrapping against the floor as they scrambled out of their seats.

She almost ran her over when she shot out the door.

There was Claire, curled up on the floor right outside the door, still screaming. Her arms were wrapped around her head and she was clawing at her hair, pulling the strands out of their puffs. She knelt by her, trying to gently pry her hands away from her face and head, but her hold was like a vice. Other teachers and students, disturbed by the screaming, had come out to check.

What happened? How did her student who sat at the back of the class end up outside the door? She didn’t see her pass by. And the screaming. It was filled with genuine fear and pain. She could barely hear the other teachers as they tried to talk to her.

Her other students all huddled by the door, some starting to cry and wail at the sight of their classmate. Claire’s seatmate and possibly her good friend had pushed herself to the front of the crowd, trying to reach out to her, but was held back by another teacher who was failing to console her. Her own screaming and crying added to the utter confusion of the situation. Thankfully, someone had gotten the school nurse who arrived with a wheelchair. As the nurse wheeled the still-screaming girl away, Mrs Hayes, with a racing heart and an unnerving feeling about what happened, shook herself and breathed, turning towards her distraught girls.

It looked like lunch would be a bit early that day.

I think the weird thing about politics right now, especially online, is how dehumanizing people can be.

I have a buddy on one of the discords and I added him on X and wow, he has some very radical left wing views and would absolutely chew me out for my beliefs in a different context, but because we first talked about books and stories, we can see each other as people.

I think a lot of the people online who are incredibly rude to me would be decent humans to me if we met in person.

We just get in mob mentality and plugged into the rage porn from the media and forget that just because someone thinks different solutions would work, doesn't make them evil.

And I think the fact that most conservatives I know don't feel safe or comfortable speaking about their beliefs kinda keeps people from realizing that people they interact with all the time don't actually agree with them on political matters.

Look tumblr, I only came here to post my art and consume fan fiction. Just because I visited the blog of someone who's so deep into online politics that they don't know what the real world looks like anymore doesn't mean that I want to see more posts about it. I just wanted to see if they had anymore dpxdc content!

I block/hit the 'not interested' button when posts I have not interest in disrupt my scrolling. Sorry if I happened to have blocked you. We don't have the same interests 🤷‍♀️💁‍♀️

Dude, I'm so sorry about the Steven Universe ask. I mean, I shoulda known, this is the Steven Universe site™ after all, but still, sorry for being one of the reasons people are lambasting you >_>

Oh no worries! No worries! It's not your fault. They don't know the Lord. They're just doing what people who don't know the Lord do. Nothing new. It gets tiring sometimes just repeating myself, but so many of you guys are reaching out and saying encouraging things that I'm really not bothered.

I mean, like I said when I answered the question: that's what I really think and what I really believe about Steven Universe. And people won't like it. When people don't like things nowadays, they go no-holds-barred. 🤷‍♀️ I expected the backlash.

I wouldn't take it back or take it down. I'm glad you asked. I think people don't realize that, even if you don't see the White Diamond As God comparison, you're still getting the residue of what that means in the other values of Steven Universe. You're still getting the message "perfection is somehow a bad thing" or "you can be whatever you want and that's good" or "what you're made for isn't satisfying."

And I think Christians need to stop and think. Those messages aren't good; they don't line up with the truth. And when you start to look at them in any kind of careful observation, they fall apart and start to look silly.

So I wouldn't take it down, and I'm glad you asked!

You know what doesn't make sense?

People who post their business online then get all up in arms talking about 'MInD UR buSiNeSs!' when people comment on their public video/post with the comments on.

If you don't want people to comment on your bad choices, then DON'T post about it!

What the heck did you expect after posting for MILLIONS of people to see?

At least act like you're in possession of a brain!

Too many people are having the same dreams.

I hope those who are looking find this

For everyone else, I don't argue on the internet, so argue with the wall 🧱

Daily Doodles- Day 189- 21/10/24

A blob girl! I was inspired by my recent red blood cell design. This one's not a cell, just a blob. I need to do research into the other blood cells before I start drawing them.

The tag for this is #agdoodles

Daily Doodles- Day 109- 02/08/24

Started my first day of work on the 2nd and I didn't do much (mainly a small tour, meeting co workers and setting up my computer), so I had time to make a whole illustration!

I was feeling very 'pen and ink' and 'storybookish', so I drew a lost boy in a dark forest (or something) with creatures peeking out at him.

I had brought along my pen, pencil and sketchbook with me just in case. Once I'm settled in, I obviously won't have time to be drawing, but I'll still be bringing my sketchbook, because lunchtime exists and I can multitask!

The tag for this is #agdoodles

Prompt #16

okay so this idea just popped into my head

So Danny is ghost King and obviously the ghost king has a summoning ritual but people are smart enough not to try and summon him so he did not worry about it but one day someone does summon him and he doesn’t know how to refuse it so he get summoned, but a summoning usually transforms the ghost or being into their true form and since Danny is technically still a baby ghost he transforms into a baby/toddler and with this transformation for some reason mainly because he is a half ghost half human his mental capacity transforms back to the same age

And now there is a baby ghost Danny sitting in a circle surrounded by weird unconscious cultus heroes and someone who looks like his brother but older.

On the DC side of this Damien alongside, Batman and the rest of the bat family and a few other heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman are trying to stop this cult from summoning a very dangerous and evil being but they get there too late and the summoning finishes as they knock out the cultist but what they don’t expect to see is a toddler around the age of four sitting in the middle of the circle,slightly floating off the ground with white hair, green eyes freckles they glow like stars looking confused, scared and uncertain.

Everyone’s obviously confused, but Damien is having a silent panic attack cause that is his twin brother his twin brother who died at the age of four his twin brother that he killd when they were only four years old, his twin who never got to meet their father or live life all because he was selfish and wanted to be the only air to the Demons head.

Daily Doodle- Day 84- 08/07/24

I love drawing these girls with straight bangs and half covered eyes.

The tag for this is #agdoodles