Like thunder, deep laughter rumbled.

Spinning around, Draco Torre raised her guns and thumbed hammers back. Three pyres burned illuminating the dusty road, and two others smoldered. A body lay face-up in the road before the saloon. Uncertain where the laughter came from, Torre continued turning around, her left arm trailing behind until both guns aimed nearly in opposite directions. Two bodies lay at the base of the steps to the church.

Nothing moved.

Completing the circle, she faced the line of pyres splashing light on the pale faces of the buildings. The putrifying stench of charred former residents mixed with the smell of released bowels and blood from their fallen murderers. Shops and homes gazed on in mourning.

A deep voice cracked into Torre’s skull beating against the back of her head. Foreign thoughts pierced deep inside.

My angel, said the thought, translated within Draco Torre’s mind. The deep laugh pounded from within.

Shouting, Torre said, “Show yourself!”

From the saloon, a shadow flowed against the firelight, a snaking tendril creeping on the road. Black smoke rising, the shadow-snake coiled together at the center of the road and swirled, rising higher into a pillar. A burst of fluttering appendages unfolded, bony fingers with black fingernails like talons extended from the growing sleeves. A smoking boot took a silent step becoming solid. The next step crunched on gravel, and a dark duster gathered around the form.

Hat pulled low left most of creature’s face in shadow except for the end of his snarling grin over his pale, pointed chin, and the plume of white hair falling over his shoulders. He laughed, a normal audible laugh, almost as deep as before. That rumble grated on Torre’s nerves.

Searching the depths of her memories, among the bodies, the valleys of the dead, the rusty, sweet taste of blood, Torre found the name of this dark visitor.

“Ramiel!”

“Farmers and ranchers,” said Ramiel. He scanned the fallen bodies. “And my angel slaughtered them.”

“Savage murderers, they were,” said Torre. If only she had arrived sooner, the farmers of Hope Hill might have survived the night.

Ramiel pointed a talon at Draco Torre. “Dressed like a man—like a rancher, my angel forgets her path.”

“I’m not your angel,” said Torre. Barely realizing her fingers squeezed triggers, she fired both guns.

Looking down the barrels, beyond the swirl of smoke, she saw the row of pyres.

Ramiel was gone.

A crunch of gravel sounded from behind, and she spun around.

Beyond the end of her barrels, wild hazel eyes flooded by tears gazed back.

Standing twelve steps away, a young woman raised her hands holding a revolver. Torre recognized her gun discarded earlier in the fight, and she knew, one bullet remained inside.

Gazing into the frightened eyes of the sole survivor of Hope Hill, she lowered her gun.

Draco Torre didn’t even hear the sound. The kick knocked the small frame of the girl back, barrel flying up. The shot was high, but not high enough hitting Torre in the shoulder, knocking her sideways and stumbling back.

The report fell away leaving a droning ring in her ears.

Legs giving out, she sat on the road.

Torre gazed up at the sky finding the half-face of the moon, Nulan. She found the face wishing her mother had never shown her that devious grin. Nulan gazed down at Torre and laughed. And laugh she should. After all the battles, even a war nobody deserved to win, Torre felt embarrassed, shot by a girl with her own gun, and after the fight was already done.

Nulan laughed, and then she cried.

Torre gazed at the survivor sitting on the ground.

“I apologize for shooting you, sir,” said the young woman. “I thought you were one of them.”

“Sorry for your loss,” said Torre. She lowered her head in prayer for the girl, the last hope for Hope Hill.

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Râmîêl is the name of the fallen angel of thunder in charge of watching over the rising dead awaiting judgement. In female form, she is known as the angel of hope. See: Whispering Worlds, Wikipedia.

Twilight, our kiss explodes with color. Darkness is your dress flowing over our past. I offer my pendant, light for our love. We dance, entangled, pouring shadows on our pain. You are the night. I am the day. Round and round we dance, sprinkling colorful kisses.

Every once in a while, a person catches a fleeting glimmer. Not spirits, but what I call memory ghosts. From their when and where, they pass through into our here and now.

Memory burns into the cosmos. Gazing at the stars is looking at memory. The light traveling across the galaxy spanning years transfers information reaching the observer forming new memories. From a painting of an artist, bits of information travel to the eyes speaking to the viewer. The dead live on, their ghosts caught within the information. Everything passes through the fabric of the cosmos. Fingerprints in the information, memories leave their mark.

I see her still, my little girl. In the passenger seat on the way to school, or sitting at her desk, studying, she fills my life with joy as I view the world through her eyes. Many memories cling like the beaming smile of a child opening her birthday present finding all her wishes, charms in life worth remembering. Even if the world forgets my little pumpkin, I see her memory ghost.

Others say I never had a daughter. The world forgets. Her fingerprint is here, like everything else, caught within the information. Sometimes, memory changes.

From the moment a memory blossoms in the mind, the brain works connecting the patterns. Information not immediately connected to any known pattern dives into the abyss. Other details fade as more information flows linking related patterns together. Connections build a network of memories, blurring some details while reinforcing others. Memories change. Blue becomes gray, tall becomes average. And sometimes something out of the ordinary blazes like the sun floating above the other memories, an interpretation hiding other details, always there.

Does the tapestry of reality mutate altering memory?

Even if the tapestry changes, my girl is here. She is a grown woman now, a stranger, and she doesn’t remember me. The information holds all the ghosts. One only needs to look, and interpret. I’ve found my ghost, my little girl, and I keep her in my heart.

They never leave, these cosmic fingerprints.

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Related: see two recent articles about false memories on Ars Technica and “How Many of Your Memories are Fake?” on The Atlantic.

False memory is the basis behind this character, Steve Reynolds, and the ‘memory thief’ vampire in Kandy Fangs. Steve finds his little girl and the woman in Raven Memory.

This is an edited repost from 2010 with reduced word count (368) and minor word changes. The comments on the original included a brief discussion over the final line, and you’ll notice I kept it here. Thank you.</em>

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I accept the uniform, folded neat upon my arms. The soldier tells me blue is my color. Or is it gray? Another war, another battle—it is always the same—another uniform, nothing ever changes. A warrior only knows one color.

Blue or gray, I don my uniform holding me tight. I stand in line with the others, some carrying scars of battle upon their faces. Many pale, some dark, the warriors hold two traits in common, their color and the death in their eyes.

The mercenaries march, boots crushing the ground. The slinking centipede cuts through the army into the front line. Musket in left hand, sword in my right, I stand gazing over rolling green. The captain tells us to remember our color. Remember, the man beside me says, tugging at his uniform.

Darkness arrives with the thunder of boots. I hold no ill between warriors. This is our way. The one beside me wishes me luck, to find death at last. I thank him and shake my head. Another field, nothing ever changes. Perhaps my time passed me long ago. I wish him a good death and to remember our color.

Cannon fire announces the battle. Blue meets gray. Cries of war twist into howls of dread. I dance to the music of anguish, the beat of torment. I attack gray. Or is it blue? Dropping the musket, I carry my sword, cutting my way up the hill.

The soldiers are farmers and masons, not warriors. Blue and gray are their colors before the reaping. Some turn away in fear, others stand frozen clenching weapons. I clear first the ones with strength in their eyes. Weapons falling, death calling, a warrior only knows one color.

Blue or gray I forget, but their faces burn into memory. Color flees their cheeks, light departs their eyes. They shed crimson tears upon my dress. Even the mercenaries cry for me. I envy them, their freedom.

On the hilltop, I stand alone. Blue or gray matter no more. All of the fallen wear the same color—my color—flowing down the hill.

Red is my color, the only color I know.

For artwork on my latest web serial Kandy Fangs: Venom, I’ve been dabbling with Procreate on the iPad. I haven’t full explored the software, but it’s intuitive enough to start creating some reasonable artwork. At first, I had to sketch on paper and import to use as a guide, but after some practice I now sketch directly on a layer.

For the story, I created the skull for the vampire-wraith that appears in episode 3, “Purgatory Pain” (Kandy’s prologue) where Kandy must escape her purgatory and the vampire-wraith. I used pencil-like brushes of various weights to create the image.

The first step to create the skull is to sketch on a layer that will be discarded (hidden) in the final image. The initial sketch helps guide the paint strokes on the other layers. I used a stylus (pogo sketch) like a pencil to mark a rough shape of the skull.

For the second stage, I sketched over the initial sketch on new layer to build the final shape and gave him a sinister look with narrow eye-sockets and ugly teeth. Lighting is key. I sketched out where the bright spots and shadows should appear.

Next, I painted the background and dark areas to block in shape I wanted.

Finally, I painted using brushes on a new layer using sketches and block for guides, which are visible here.

I continued painting highlights, texture, and shadows on safe layers until the image at top. The purple eyes and fog is a combination of several layers using the same technique.