A Mask of Lies

==Intro + Notes==
Hey, guys, Shrike here ;3
I haven't been updating any of my stories lately, and haven't written in months now. All of my current stories are discontinued until further notice. I've gone somewhat inactive on here, only editing on my gallery.
I think I've had enough of a break.
I think I'll go back to writing.
So. I'm writing a new story ;3
I'm probably really rusty, so this probably wont be the best quality. Constructive criticism is welcome!
Coding is by me, background image taken from Unsplash. Please don't steal the code. Thanks!
Also, both my main characters are trans and gay XD, that probably wont come up in the story though
Warning; mild cursing (goddamn, crap, hell) will be included; censored swearing as well. Also most likely blood, gore and death
Enjoy! <3
==Prologue==
Three years ago
Arden curled in a corner of her bed, crouched with an old, yellowed book in her hands, with fading inked letters. She squinted at the book, the pages illuminated with the light of the flickering candle she held. It illuminated her face as well, giving it an unearthly light. Her fingers reached out, and tentatively turned a new page. Her eyes skimmed across the words, absorbing the story.
"I wish I could run away to the book." She murmured under her breath. She briefly looked up, and strings of her longish brown hair drifted around her face, and she curled a lock around her finger. "It's heaven compared to here. I'd give anything away."
She looked down at the book once more with her lovely hazel eyes, and sunk into the reading again. It was one of the old legends about wings on humans. She turned another old page, and realized she'd reached the end of part one. She smiled under her breath. There was an odd satisfaction in finishing a new part. She closed her eyes, and took a moment to enjoy the feeling.
She grabbed the next page and turned it, somewhat violently in her eagerness to begin the new part. Even the thousandth time over reading this book, she still loved it with her whole heart. Honestly though? Arden loved anything related to the myths about the wings on humans. Even if they were the most poorly written things ever- and they were all very good-, she would still adore them, because they had the wings. Arden's eyes drifted to the book, and started reading once more.
Arden murmured a few key words from the story under her breath. "Wings"... "long ago"... "fade"... "legend"... Those words were all short and sweet, but they made up the stories, and to her… they meant everything. She cared about other things, of course, but none quite to the level of the wings.
Honestly? This sounded a bit pathetic and cliche, but her entire life, the wings and myths had been her best friends. She didn't have many school friends, and had never felt really close to her family- she knew she was supposed to, but she cared about stories more than family and friends.
"Is that twisted?" She wondered quietly. In dark nights like these, contemplations like that often came to her mind, like vines creeping into an unsuspecting forest. Sometimes she managed to push them away, but more often than not, she failed in forcing the thoughts away, and sunk into a state of reflection. This appeared to be one of those times.
She spent most of her days bored, with the wings always lurking in her consciousness. Also looking forward to the night, when she'd stay up reading. She never worried or missed her "friends"~ in reality just acquaintances she interacted with occasionally. Her family was little better- well, she still cared about them to an extent, and she always told them she'd worried and missed them, but truthfully, she hadn't thought much of them, mostly focusing on herself and wings.
Was that wrong? Immoral? Maybe so- probably, actually, in some people's views, but in Arden's beliefs, someone else's opinion didn't define her. She didn't care in the slightest.
Okay. Maybe she did, a little… just a little. But still. She wouldn't- couldn't- let someone else's views make her, sculpt her like a statue. Mold her to fit someone else's expectations.
If that happened… her lips twisted a bit in disgust. She didn't even want to think about it. Never, ever, ever did she want to be like that, defined by another. She would be her own person. Even if she was worse off then she would be if she let someone mold her, she would rather be flawed and her own person then perfect and a puppet of another.
She'd live by one slogan, and one slogan only. She murmured under her breath.
"Your opinion of me-"
"Doesn't define who I am."
At least I'll try to, Arden thought. She'd never been excellent at keeping promises. She hoped this would be an exception, though. Chances were low, though.
A small chance by trying is better than no chance at all
She looked down at her book. Should she continue it? Maybe? She was tired- but she didn't want to sleep. Did that make sense? Probably not, it was an oxymoron if there ever was one. But she'd been told she had a "prove you wrong" vibe, so maybe being tired but not at the same time would just add to the aesthetic.
"I guess I'll continue the book." She whispered to herself. She barely slept these days- but for some reason, whenever she received a few hours of sleep, she felt pretty good and refreshed for her at least (that wasn't saying much, though), but whenever she got ten hours she felt exhausted and had to drag herself through the day. It was weird.
She turned another page of the book. Her candle was sputtering now, the light becoming sporadic, burning down to a small wax stump. The light flickered more and more, until it sputtered out completely.
Arden cursed. "S***." She couldn't read with no light- scratch that. There was light- a sliver of cool silver moonlight leaked in from the window- but it wasn't nearly big or intense enough to brighten the pages to read.
"Screw the reading." She mumbled. She put down the book on the floor, and lay down on the midnight blue sheets of her bed, in a position staring at the right wall. Yer brunette locks spreading out below her head like a mini brown sun. Her hazel eyes gazed up at the ceiling absentmindedly, her eyes growing misty as her thoughts were cleared off all thought and worry she'd had before. She loved moments like these, where she had no stress on her mind, no bursting emotions. She was just… there. She also hated them- it was complicated, to say the least. She loved just being there, alone, with no anxiety or emotions dominating her… but she also hated having nothing on her mind, nothing to keep her busy.
It was complex and a bit contradicting. Everything about Arden was, really.
She felt her eyelids drooping. She muttered something like. "Hrmble snor." Her eyelide sagged down more. Just a few more moments until she'd fall asleep. Just a few more. She could do it.
She was almost done. A few more moments could do it. She was slipping into unconsciousness, but not quite there-
And then, her body chose the most amazing time to twitch her leg, slamming it violently against the wall.
In a small moment of instinct, she yelped in pain loudly.
"OW!"
As quickly as the moment was over, it ended. And just as quickly, Arden cursed her body for choosing such a wonderful time to twitch, while her leg continued to throb. "Why, thank you, almighty god of twitching. I really appreciate it." She muttered, laced with sarcasm.
She settled back into bed, hoping to recover her progress in falling asleep. Nope. It was a lost cause. Thanks to the twitch, she'd lost all progress in falling asleep.
She sighed. Better try to start to fall asleep again.
She was about to try and lie down in a new, more comfortable position, when she heard her door opening.
Oh no.
Arden's mother entered the room, her hazel eyes identical to Arden darting around. "Are you okay?" She demanded. "I heard a bang."
Arden bit her lip. She knew her mother only meant well, but she was overprotective as hell and really got on Arden's nerves quite a lot. "Yes, I'm fine. I just twitched and banged my leg."
"Okay." Arden's mother replied, sounding a bit suspicious.
Not that Arden really blamed her. Arden had never been much of a rule follower, and had done some… questionable things before.
Arden's mother walked out of the room, heading back to her own bed chamber. Arden sighed with relief that she was gone, leaving her in peace once more.
Arden thought she spotted white feathers, when she saw her mother swishing back into her own room. Good. White usually meant a neutral feeling, in her experience, meaning her mother's suspicion was most likely gone.
White feathers, you ask?
Arden watched the feathers go away as her mother entered her room and closed the door.
Arden lay back on her bed, her brown hair spreading out on the sheet.
She clasped her hands together and whispered to herself.
"I can see the wings. But I have no idea why."
==Chapter One==
In the present time
Lyrics spilled out of Arden's mouth as she tapped long, ivory colored fingers against the wooden brown desk and sung under her breath.
"As those bitter things spoken
I saw the doubt in your blue eyes
As for truth, we know
That kind of man must die"
She'd forgotten the name of the song- she'd first heard it years ago, maybe when she was nine or ten years old. Now at thirteen, the lyrics stuck in her head, clinging to her mind and refusing to let go, unlike parts that, to Arden, weren't as important, such as the song title, the songwriter, the melody…
Come to think of it, she'd forgotten everything except for the lyrics. She'd probably gone thousands of miles away from the actual song in terms or tune and melody a long, long time ago. The lyrics remained the same, though, and that was all that had ever mattered to Arden.
Meanwhile, her science teacher continued droning some crap about plant growth in the front of the seventh class she sat in. She looked around the room, taking in the painted walls at the same time, observing if anyone had noticed she was slacking. She didn't think anyone was, but better be safe then sorry.
She finished making her assessment after a few moments. "Good." She murmured to herself. No one was paying attention to her (at least not a lot enough to notice her slacking). A combination of observing wings and reading their expressions and body language told her- slightly slouched over their desks, too focused on their work, eyes aimed away from Arden, wings shaded intense, bright colors, which usually indicated intense fixation in her experience observing wings. Since everyone was looking at their work, she felt she could safely assume they were focusing on their work, not her.
Of course, there was a chance that they were actually focusing on her and pretending to focus on work- but that was small, and hey, this wasn't even very important.
they placed their nobbly elbows on the desk, feeling their bones collide with the wood. Her head looked up at the ceiling, as she got lost in her thoughts- stories and thoughts and emotions and imagination colliding together like comets in her sky of a mind.
Suddenly, she heard a loud, ringing, persistent, just slightly obnoxious noise that resembled BRINGBRINGBRINGBRINGBRINGBRINGBRINGBRINGBRING.
She very nearly jumped off her chair. "S***." She yelped in a moment of rashness. She shook her head. It was the bell. It got her every time. "I swear to God." She hissed quietly. It seemed today was one of her rare loud, angry days. "The school should replace the goddamn bell already."
"Language!" Snapped her teacher, who'd been walking by her desk on the way to the door.
Arden bit her lip to prevent her cursing again. She laughed a bit internally. She called bs. Other students, and even teachers, had sworn around her, more frequently and even more so profanely. She was thirteen, for gods sake. It was more then normal for someone her age to cuss.
Mr. Marshall, her middle aged science teacher, didn't seem to comprehend that, though.
"My apologies." Arden replied, taking tremendous effort to keep her voice steady.
"Good." Mr. Marshall responded, his chin pointing up in habit- or maybe intentional, to give an air of superiority about him. Arden really didn't know.
His brow scrunched. "You're dismissed. Head to your next class."
Arden heaved a small sigh of relief.
WIP, more of this chapter to be added soon :P
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