Raqonteur

APHANTASIA By Raqonteur Close your eyes. Picture an apple in your mind. What do you see? Is it red and juicy? Is the skin lustrous? Does it look real enough to take a bite of? I see... nothing. Darkness. I know what an apple looks like. Roughly heart shaped, green and red, a shiny skin with a drip of moisture running off it. I can describe what it should look like in detail... but I can't see it. I have no mind's eye. That's Aphantasia. The brain develops slightly differently and doesn't generate internal images. Apparently about 1% of people have it. I'm one of them. I'm over 50 and I've been like this all my life. I only found out it was actually a thing by accident, less than 2 years ago. I didn't even know there was any other way to be. When people talked about seeing things in their mind's eye, or memories so real you could almost touch them I always thought they were being poetic. It never occurred to me that other people imagined things and actually saw

REPATRIATION – An Anna Pendragon Story By Raqonteur “Nyaaaaahhh!”. I went up on tip toes to stick my tongue out right in Casey's face. That's why the blow took me me in the shoulder instead of the face. I'm four foot ten and a half, and I look far too much like a little girl for my own comfort. The open handed blow knocked me off my feet and sent me spinning. I'd spent the past few months training in self defence with Morgainne. It hadn't stuck. I just don't have that killer instinct. I freeze up. I can't connect the movements up. His lessons came back to me... I was on the floor looking up at him. Again. Morgainne made a finger gun at me. “You're dead, Anna. If you're on the floor and your opponent isn't, they have the advantage. But if you're both down... you're quicker and more agile than most people I've met. That's your advantage...”. Everything suddenly clicked. Muscle memory of all those falls, all those mock combats kicked in. I let the momentum of the

UNDERSTANDING – An Anna Pendragon Story By Raqonteur. The scream woke me in the middle of the night. Piercing and filled with pain and loss. I shot bolt upright in bed, my heart pounding and my breath coming in short gasps. It came again. A low, grumbling moan ending in a sharp squeal. My eyes darted back and forth but there was nothing in my hotel room. The window was shut and no breeze disturbed the heavy beige curtains. No sound, not even the traffic outside. I curled up and pulled the sheets over my head. My whole body trembled. I'm not brave. I'm surrounded by brave people. Dangerous people. People who have the ability... and the will to hurt others, even kill. I'm not like that. I'm not like them. The thought of it makes me want to run away and hide, makes me feel sick to my stomach. So I hide under the blankets, waiting for them to come and save me. Again. Or waiting for the monsters to come. Because monsters are real. We fought... they fought one. I

THE WATCHERS - An Anna Pendragon Story. By Raqonteur The old man shuffled into the room, bent backed and dithering. He pulled up in front of the desk, his hand shaking slightly on the cane that he walked with. He took a deep shuddering breath and seemed to withdraw into himself. His back straightened, the dithering shake was replaced with a sense of certainty, strength and purpose and the befuddled eyes and expression came into sharp focus. As always it was a pleasure watching Herr Oberhausen work. His gift for assuming a character bordered on the supernatural. Again I was struck with the brief urge to put him under the knife and find out if there were any lingering traces of anything unnatural in his lineage. His heels snapped crisply together and he saluted, his hand held up, rod straight. “Heil Hitler!”. “Yes, yes”, I waved off the fanaticism. I was somewhat less in awe of the Fuher, knowing that it was my experiments and my techniques that had kept him alive this