After about 510 days of imprisonment, I have managed to escape. Somehow, through some miracle or blessing bestowed upon me by the Universe…I have escaped.

And so starts my new life. I have no idea what lies ahead, but therein lies the adventure, now, doesn’t it?

I shall see you on the other side, old friend.

-Lady Lauren Monaco

Your letters over the past year have been no less than distressing. It is almost as if I feel the same pain you experience.

My imagination paints horrid visualizations of you laying on a cold, concrete floor within inches of your life, and I cannot stand it any longer.

I am coming to rescue you from such agony and life-ending distress.

I am coming for you.

Please hang on to the little bit of yourself that you have left.

I am coming for you. Even if it should end my own life.

Please, dear girl. Please hang on.

I am coming for you.

-Professor.

After a year in captivity, I have reached my limits. I can no longer continue on in such dubious laboring, harvesting the fruits that only nourish these unholy masters.

I have decided to take my life into my own hands. I am planning my escape.

Either way will lead to death … or life, depending on how you look at it; it is only a matter of which way I decide to go — rotting here in this jail cell, or out there, in the uncertainty of the merciless jungle.

Even if death finds me, at least it will not be in a cage. I would rather die freely — even if only through mental emancipation — than at the hands of these thieves who show no remorse for their hateful crimes.

If I die here, it would be without purpose, and with such lack of hope that any light I had once emitted would be permanently extinguished, and those who did see the magic of this luminary would eventually acquiesce and willingly go blind.

But if I die out there, I will have done so with the faith that there is, indeed, life beyond the walls and bars to which we have grown accustomed. These walls are not our home; they imprison us, seducing its inmates with illusions of warmth, leading us to believe that we are comfortable, despite the bleeding and lingering soreness we endure from the day’s lashings.

As I stare into the fire, I am reminded that These Embers are a symbol of our permanent transience, and the necessity of burning down to build back up.

Should they find this letter before you, of my demise you can be absolutely certain. But, my dear professor, please know that I died with brilliant visions of freedom and songs of great joy ringing in my ears to the beat of the drums and rifles.

Either way, I shall see you on the other side.

-Lady Lauren Monaco

It has been several months since my last letter to you, and I apologize for any fear I may have caused you through my literary absence.

I am almost certain you had feared the worst, thinking my shell had finally succumbed to the limits of this world. While there were, indeed, obstacles and affliction, I am somehow still alive, and surprisingly thankfully so. Amidst all this crisis, I am still alive, perhaps because of such trying times.

You may be wondering if this letter comes as a sign of my escape from the prison camp, which is not the case. I have, however, found deliverance in a different manner, and such abdication has given me a more empowering freedom that my emancipation has truly gone beyond the dark confines of this place.

My letter to you this time must be short, for now. I only wanted to send quick word to let you know that I am, in fact, still able to draw breath.

And I hope that soon we will be able to share the same air in the same space at the same time, very soon.

Take care, dear Professor.

-Lady Lauren Monaco

We have been moved out of the Cathayan prisons and are now being transported by boat to an undisclosed location. Our captors tell us nothing; the only words they utter are those of control, determining our every move, our every breath, our very life.

Save for the hours during which we labor, we are chained and blindfolded, having no idea of the direction toward which we are heading.

More executions have taken place since my last letter to you. While not any less painful, these killings continue to shake the remaining members of my expedition team. One by one, I lose more of my companions on what appears to be every week since my return from sick leave. These heartless assassinations are becoming frequent, and the punishment for the rest of us, more severe. I have watched longtime friends and colleagues be bound to a post and shot point-blank. Since boarding this ship, I have witnessed the death of even more, butchered within inches of their lives and pushed off into the mouths of ravenous sharks below.

We who continue to hang onto the edge of our lives have a hard time understanding why we are still here. Perhaps we should be thankful, but it is difficult to focus on the blessing of still being alive when every inhale is numbered and every exhale expels blood from our lungs.

We are also further confused by our function, the purpose of our senses and our skills. The sentinels heavy our burdens with more weight than our bodies can handle; they want us to push on while they pull us back simultaneously. Their instructions are intentionally confusing, yet they punish us for our incomprehension. It is a most cruel ambiguity.

There are some soldiers who hold fear and remorse in their eyes as they dole out the lashes, as if committed only to keep themselves from falling into the same misfortune that has befallen their slaves. There is a compassionate part of me that believe not all of them take pleasure in our pain, but simply follow the orders of a more superior, fascist oppressor. He is one whom I imagine has become so much a part of The Machine that his own flesh has become rotted with robotic cogs and wheels, and his spirit so consumed by greed.

Amidst all this obscene obscurity, however, I remember the lessons you have taught me, enabling one to hope and shift her focus toward the sliver of light that remains in such omnipresent darkness. I have learned there must be a reason for everything, however invisible that purpose may be. And I feel that reason is just on the horizon.

I hear the thundering of hooves in the distance, traced with a feline smell floating on the salty Balinese wind. Something is coming, and brings with it hope, an idea that is but a foreign one in these macabre and trying times.

Namaste, Professor.
Lady Lauren Monaco

After being gone on enforced medical leave for the past 10 days, I have returned to the prison only to find that half of my fellow inmates have been executed; most while I was away, and three more right in front of me. No matter how many heads I have seen cut, the bloodshed is still too much to bear.

As if this sad news was not enough, I fear I have the worst still to disclose.

They have killed my brother, Marcus.

Without warning, without even a chance to say goodbye to my own blood, the Sentinels have taken him away from my life forever for no foreseeable reason except to make more room in this already hollow jail.

It has only been my first day back, and I have returned to an alternate reality, a nightmare that even my vivid imagination could not conjure up in its darkest confines. I did not care to be healed, for my physical wounds brought no comparable pain to that which already resided inside before my brother’s demise. Our Keepers, however, forced me into the medical wing that I might expire on their terms and not those of nature or destiny.

What now is there left to live for? These ruthless pirates had already taken away my freedom, my labour of love and now the blood of my blood. In my eyes, there is nothing of value I have left to give them. The sparing of my life is but a puzzle I have no desire to solve. I have not the heart to die by my own hand, but I do not know how much longer I can live under theirs.

I dream of the days when my spirit can again be relinquished into the soulful waters of passion and true meaning where you taught me how to swim, and I hope to rediscover that Holy ocean of validity where nothing can be perverted by those who have lost sight of what really matters most.

-Lady Lauren Monaco

I think we’ve seen each other enough times in the past 12 months that we can be on a first name basis now.

I suppose in a way it’s kind of fitting that you decided to take my grandfather only a week after JR’s funeral. He did, after all, babysit him for a few years.

So I wanted to share something with you while we’re sitting here having some beers.

You know, I didn’t like you very much when you first starting hanging out with our clan to take my Uncle Ed last February. Then you came around again in August to take Floyd’s dad. When you decided to drop in on Thanksgiving dinner to have a drumstick and pick up my Auntie Bing, I had just about had it with your party crashing. Now that you’ve got JR and Grandpa, I’ve almost memorized the sound of your footsteps.

And I’ve realized something.

It’s not your call to make; You’re just the courier. What a difficult job you must have, making these rounds, seeing people cry and collapse over their lost loved ones. You’ve acquired a bad rep over the centuries, and honestly, I feel kind of sorry for you.

So I apologize for giving you such a hard time before. Considering how badly things are going here in this world now, maybe it’s kind of a good thing. Who knows, maybe the rest of will be lucky and you’ll pay us all a visit before it gets too much to bear around here.

-A

How many times must I say goodbye this year?

Did you not understand me when I said “Take a vacation”? It wasn’t a request. And yes, I am so bold as to make demands of you.

If you’re already going to take away freely, regardless of any desperate plea for mercy, then what is the point of holding on to my fear of you? If there are so few things I have control over, then relinquishing such elusive power is the road to true freedom.

Who among us is the selfish bastard?

Is it you because you’ve taken away some of the most treasured souls we have had the fortune to know? Or is it me because I am so unwilling to let go when clearly it is their time to leave?

You must be lonely wherever you are. It is the only explanation I can find as to why you’ve stolen so many.

You have impeccable taste, my friend.

You’re still a bastard, though.

We feel ourselves dying here, more and more each day. I sense the end of all that is comfortable and familiar. Soon, nothing will be as it once was. And those who have lived and breathed in this world will learn to release themselves to the Universe, only to start again in a cycle hopefully better and more giving than the one before.

This old world has reached its demise, and so is the life I have known only a few decades.

I am able to let go just a little more each day, until the seconds run out and we are no longer here.

-Lady Lauren Monaco

your memory
both bitter and sweet
sends punches to my core
that i have not yet learned
how to block

you are
an unwelcome lesson in
the art of war
a painting of pain
a palette of strategy

the weight of this armor
gets easier each day
wielding this sword
becomes like an arm extended

perhaps one day
it will be sharp enough
to make the cut
no more strings attached
no more arrows shot

then this warrior can rest
sword sheathed
horse Unbridled
asleep with eyes closed
and at peace once again