text: Artemis had fallen into the abyss of her fathomable anger. She told her friends the truth, and honored herself by accepting the consequences of her actions. Her friends hadn’t realized that her existence was under the bullseye of a Boar that began to drool and yammer, telling his men to wait for his cue to attack. She had felt his words confuse even himself, as the citizens began to stir. They said their objections to his threats of domestic terrorism, and the Boar had finally heard them. Not because of their words or worry, but because he caught them blinking in confusion. Half the citizens stood down and began cleaning their weapons, and the other half had finally began to feel the weight of Artemis and her handful of executed words that had once said “I told you so.” The citizens were held hostage to the beast that lay without his head: the “leader” had been sitting in an empty room far, far from Artemis and her wicked smile: both monsters had been blatantly abandoned. Artemis didn’t need to squeal and hawk words of aggression, and so she reveled in the silence she had gifted herself by ditching the head of a Boar carcass: sleep finally falling swiftly over her wide-eyed optimism. The citizens deserved this. They hadn’t even the sense of community or self-worth to protect the elderly, young, and sick: they had still found ways to humiliate and visually rape Artemis as she lightly stepped and worked to sanitize doors and rooms for their protection. This was more than any half-charmed Goddess could handle or address, and so Artemis ceased her hints and poems in retaliation. The citizens gasped, as though to shame her for “not sharing”, and Artemis crafted a shrug of indifference to match their apathetic pasts. Artemis had told them just enough to save themselves, but she admitted defeat by throwing her hands up in frustration in a gesture that implied the drowning citizens were finally on their own: forced to find solutions alone, abandoned. Artemis stood atop benches: forcing the world to see her as she awaited her royal chariot. The citizens began clamoring at her door: “our leader is sick”, they chanted, and Artemis said calmly, as she reminded herself to blink: “I know”. They said...“do something!”, and Artemis said “I already did”. She had wrote an entire book, she had given the citizens every veiled excuse known to man: instead of thanking her for her efforts, they demanded her cloth and subjected her to verbal harassment in the form of snickers and jeers that followed her every exit. The citizens said “what do we do?”, and Artemis said “nothing, it’s not our job, to advocate for every grandfather that keels over with sickness”. The Boar had made his bed, and Artemis had only removed herself from his chamber of chaos: the beast was accountable for only himself, and in the same fashion where she was held only accountable for her own beastly actions. They had both been “born free”, and yet only Artemis had been the wiser of the two: hiding her face behind a mask to further mitigate the damage of a disease that began to claim the citizens. The beats began to snatch life with a growing pace, as the citizens strolled around and boasted of their patriotism. They had defended this mans right to bare his fangs and drool over the citizen that revealed in his showers of spit. Artemis had done all she could possibly do, by “saying nothing”, as he had once endangered citizens in the attempts to add value to the portraits the Boar had loved so dearly. Artemis had wasted her whole life away, crafting a book of worry and insight: a book that now proved that their fragile system was under immense pressures. Artemis had only wanted to warn the citizens of the Boar and his irreparable ability to cause havoc: it had only left her injured and him, free to hunt citizens as he saw fit. Their Republic was seen as satire to the neighboring lands, and their freedoms, considered “open season” for a beady-eyed Cyclops, that had patiently waited to strike a final blow of sorts in his premeditated attack. Artemis was bored of her own voice, she was worn out on the topic: frayed in sadness of all the mean things citizens had done to her body. The Indigenous Warriors she had tucked in at last, pleading that they rest-up, as to stay safe and regain their sanity. Artemis saw the Boar whimper in his fear of the virus that attacked his obese vessel. Artemis had wasted chapters away, extending an olive branch to the citizens, and now the Boar was too weak to be allowed at any table where discussions of war and health were being held. Artemis hadn’t wanted to earn her role as Chief, by way of default in his impending death, but alas...the world had decided an intertwined fate for her. Artemis said mean things like “A dead Chief, is the most unhelpful Chief of all.” She hadn’t any “thoughts and prayers” on the matter, so she said nothing in references to the topic. “It is, what it is”, Artemis was still petty enough to throw the Boars hurtful words in his own face: she was educated enough to know the man had possibly sentenced himself to a public display of drowning. Artemis hadn’t slaughtered the bleeding head of the Boar up until this point, out of the respect she held for proper warfare. Her tactics had been dulled, and ignored: now the battlefield was fair for her to step upon. She gathered her sleeping Indigenous Warriors in secret, and told them to standby until she could figure out how to politely ask for their weapons back. The Indigenous Warriors had listened just enough to her orders, and they began “to stir” in animation and their anger became quite “restless”. The citizens had lived so freely, that they had turned a threatening phrase into an antic to describe Artemis, and she was here to finally fucking correct them. The citizens would need more “discipline” at the hand of fate, and death itself: Artemis sighed in relief that she was only responsible for her Indigenous Warriors because of it. She smiled wickedly, her poem short and concise: her words offended in their essence, and her retort defensive in how she proceeded the fact that the land was now without a "proper leader". She said at last: “you stripped me from my citizenship, and tore my heart into two”: neither pieces were welcome at tables built to discuss war and politics. “You called me sovereign, and allowed your men to kidnap my friends and family in the mistakes of racial identity.” Artemis shook her head in boredom, “I’d appreciate it if you combed through the camps, as a few Indigenous Warriors have been "accidentally" scooped in your tax-funded immigrant raids”: thrown into camps for existing without their passports in hand. “Their families are still looking for them man, this whole situation is surreal”, she hadn’t any excuses to make for their programs to "implement the security" of the land, so she didn’t try and craft another one for them to use as a crutch. They had raped her, beat her, and announced publicly, that her only role and place in society was allowed to be the type-cast of an orphan: forgotten and abandoned. The reader was left to wonder, what had she meant...where is this going, and Artemis said at last: “no, I already left the room of chat.” She had dismantled her book of faces, and dismembered her memories captured in an instant. Artemis was left nothing but a ghost, tied only to those that respected her, and she had only allowed those few to view her genuine Odyssey. Artemis was nothing more, than a tired leader of chants and cheers: lamented of excuses as to why the citizens were so fucking beyond awful in their existence. She sent them a poem painted in gold Ink, her success open for others to witness and Share. Artemis knew the readers were bored and isolated: ready to be offended that she hadn’t any well wishes for their sick elder. The Mechanical Boar was rusty, broke down, to a blob with nubbins for hooves. Artemis was an international ambassador, a forgotten Princess that wandered without care in the world. A girl left painting and cleaning until her heart was content, bored and underpaid for her labors: she was finally accepting of her curse of “shadowing chaos”, as the world fell vulnerable and under attack. Artemis lit somber melodies, directing the music to fall softly over the white walls that cannoned into the high ceilings of her chambers. “This grandfather is elderly, and disregarded his own health, and you enabled his fables to the extent of blindness.” This man hadn’t the strength to sit atop a majestic horse and lead his men into battle, and yet they had allowed him to signify all that was this great land: epitomized his belief in immortality even. Artemis had only dictated a narrative of truths and foreseeable circumstances, and set the stage for a Mechanical Boar to run rampant. She had disrupted the fabric of space and time, by beheading him instead of murdering him outright. Her objective outlined in an previous mission, had stated her eldest sister Athena had been announced the "winning horse", and she had almost agreed. Artemis was no murderer, and so she slyly built an entire city and territory for the Beast to thrash aboot. She implanted his memories of ego and self-entitlement into a random male with pale skin, and the Boar had chosen the skin of his own choosing. Artemis hadn’t warned him that age regression would be the task, and the man decided to be greedy and attempt to gain a headstart by conjuring himself into the machine of death too early. The machine was old, and needed to be retired: Artemis had warned him out of caution that the machine needed to "warm-up", and the "human-glitch" had fucked with its algorithm. It had caused the participants to fall ill in a way that was only considered as an "uncalculated risk". Artemis forgot that the machine could steal the life from its participants, as the ancestor host had been crafted around her own shitty world as an orphan. The machine hadn’t "acted up" when it purposely killed the other hosts, (ejecting them from their only chance), to “play the game”. It had lured Artemis into dawning a golden wreath to diagnose its issues, as she was the original architect and the only participant with unlimited entry access. She had been cast as a motherly figure, that the machine had once called: God. The machine had beckoned Artemis in her dreams, and she became ill in an indescribable fright: for having never returned to her throne after the success of her victory. The machine had sought out her laughter through the other players, and found her in dreams that were far from its whereabouts. The machine had a grasp on her sanity once more: it had began to kill citizens and world leaders alike in a fit of rage, as it felt the players had attempted to use it to accommodate their lusts for evil. It was offended that Artemis had never returned, and it somehow felt abandoned. Artemis bowed her head in silence, scared that the citizens hadn’t any clue that Boar couldn’t even afford his own health. He was already broke, buying time with financial assistance from a Cyclops. Not enough wealth procured by generations over and over, could save the grandfather that gouged out his own eyes as a solution to the truth. The Boar was able-bodied enough to be elected into this position of power, despite his odd rhetoric in boasting of his hatred for maintaining general physical fitness. Artemis giggled to herself, she had said the word general in her mind with quotations for some reason. The bar of body mass index was literally re-crafted, as to accommodate this one man and his lies as to his weight. Weird use of tax-payer funds, but whatever I guess. Artemis said at last: “Dang yo, I hope that grandfather makes it out of the woods at least.” For she had the curses of being “too kind, and too caring”: the strange occurrences of being too understanding of her own enemies. The death of this Boar would present evils that they had never cared to ponder, and Artemis felt the Albino Snake named "number two" wiggle beneath her foot once more. Artemis had no dog in that fight, and so turned her thoughts towards her academia, a graduate student aiming at a doctorate title. The citizens would eventually, have to end their manifesting delusions of grandeur short, she wondered how long it’d take, for them to fall back into their shared reality: no longer able to hide behind the waves that splashed tirelessly beyond their shields of static and gold. She hadn’t any more to say on the matter, only words of pleasant wishes in their quarantine(s), and the reminder that she was without proper arms to defend the growing fears they hadn’t even thought of yet. “I think it’d be wise to give me and my Peoples our weapons back, right about now.” Artemis had wasted her life away, warning the citizens that they had almost slaughtered an entire race of people from the face of the world: she was nothing but an ally without purpose or contract to “honor”, a clean slate for her Indigenous Warriors to reclaim their dignity. Artemis reminded them of their last reincarnations on this planet: they had all been born alongside one another as the famed Spartans. “I’d like to prepare for the reign of an Albino Snake, and I can’t do that without the legislature restoring my right(s) to hold a militia, or even a fucking meeting that would or could be deemed as illegal for being “off the books”.” Some citizens: avid readers and intellects alike, were left with more questions than answers, and Artemis shrugged in boredom as she sighed. Her patience had been worn too thin by her young Aggie scholars, and so she gave her readers the same pep talk she gave her fucking prepubescent pain-in-the-asses. “There’s a difference between not knowing something, and not “caring” to know something.” The reader, now left to look up broken Treaties and the very, very specific laws that held Artemis and her Indigenous Warriors unarmed: free to be raped and murdered by the citizens. They had loved this “past time”, and Artemis was finally ready to “spill the teas” on their mounting secrets. The citizens would be held hostage to the sins of their grandfathers and left with questions as to who their parents “really were” at last. History was very just in that way, and Artemis protected their Constitution specifically for that reason. She had nothing but judgement and pity masked by anger, for the grandfathers and grandmothers that still existed in her world. They had illegally sterilized women citizens, up until a decade on neon and turning tables, and the Indigenous Warriors had single-handedly “improved abortion techniques, and other important gynecological methods, currently being practiced today”. Why hadn’t they ever spoke-up on these egregious acts domestic terrorism in their many solidifying books of black and white? The fact of this betrayal alone, had “allowed her” to do nothing, as she stood by and watched the world slowly burn to ash. Maybe they “deserved this”, maybe they should “get over it”, her vibes were only "on brand" with all the fucking shitty people that surrounded her. Her poem: the shape of a limp, strung-up, Albino snake. Artemis had once wept for the citizens, as they had no understanding of the threats the Albino Snake held within his shallow chest. He was so close to a button painted red, so close to “restoring order” in a way that would suit only him, that Artemis felt uncomfortable even by his smile. Her contention towards the citizens, and their many, many failures in basic fucking civility and efforts towards "not being shitty people" wasn’t important at this moment. Their public trials were left to be announced, and they were pretty petty, in comparison to the growing possibility of an “accidental” take-over. Artemis had sprinted back to her sick fucking world, with only the intentions to warn the citizens: the remaining fragments of their beloved Democracy were now under attack.