She follows me.
She follows me through the fire.
The fire cleanses. The fire purifies.
The fire kills.
I did not panic. I did not scream.
For I am stronger than death.
She follows me.
She did not.
She left me alone.
Alone in the silence.
Alone in the emptiness.
Alone in the dark.
She follows me.
She follows me through the dark.
She follows me through the emptiness.
She follows me through the silence.
She is mine.
In the Valley of the Sun 
Woah he’s so creepy!!!!
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Thanks! Although personally I think he’s cute and cuddly. 😉
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Amazing and really creepy. Something is wrong in Seth’s mind…
I love the repetition of those three words -She follows me-
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Thanks! Seth is definitely more poetry than prose.
*feels all warm and fuzzy and nice*
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Yes he certainly has this feeling about him…graceful? But not motion-wise, more like…mind-wise I guess. He’s hard to describe…he should have his own word.
Sethawsomeness.
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I think Seth has found someone in Lilith that he did not expect. She isn’t quite the victim. It is almost a respect that he has for her, like he wants to share with her instead of kill her and make life fruit out of her.
I am completely blown away with your shots. Those effects are stunning.
Note to Lilith…snap out of it!!! lol
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Oh yes, Seth has…err…yeah, he feels differently about Lilith than he does about other people. We’ll put it like that. Although that may not stop him really from wanting to make life fruit out of her. We’ll see.
Thank you! 🙂 The Seth pics are the red effect from Silence and Suspect with the invert from Alone plus a value invert. 🙂
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Oh Seth Seth Seth… Says so much with so little.
Loved Sarah’s facial expression when walking past the bed. Great catch!
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That’s Seth’s style, definitely. 🙂 Which I had planned for three Seth POV updates, but I don’t know – he just doesn’t go on the way Bella and Sarah did. One might be enough for him. Which makes me sad, but the story has to go before my feelings about not wanting it to end.
Oh yes. Giving Sarah the coward trait was one of my better ideas. 🙂
Thank you!
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xD that was scary and romantic(?) at the same time.
good job
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Thanks! 🙂 Yes, Seth is a man of many layers.
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picture 11 rocks lol
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Yeah, it is pretty cool. 🙂 Thanks.
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Well actually all the pictures like that rock, and this entry rocks, and this site rocks 🙂 and everything about this site rocks. wow, that sounded really awkward, but congrats about making such an addictive story!
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It didn’t sound awkward at all, and I truly appreciate it. Thank you so much.
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No problem. I like when I get nice comments also 🙂
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Oh and picture number 20 is a little scary 🙂
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The images really do set the mood so well! Seth seems to thinks that Lilith is actually right there with him through all of this–that’s she’s on board with whatever he wants to do. I’m not convinced of that just yet….
The images of him when he feels alone are especially telling–he feels alone and maybe even scared. He says that he wasn’t scared when he faced the fire, but he IS scared of dying. He’s not dying, but his life has been consumed. And it sounds like he was a little scared of being alone.
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Oh yes. Seth does indeed see a lot of himself in Lilith and thinks that she would understand him.
Wow, yes. Very insightful. Seth is pretty much in denial. He doth protest too much, methinks. 😉
Thank you. 🙂
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This makes me think of the song “I Will Follow You into the Dark”. Not really the song itself, but the title, at least. Nicely done! 🙂
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I will have to look up that song. Sounds like a good Valley song candidate. 🙂
Thank you.
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Whoa!! Whoa!! Didn’t Jason JUST die?! Like, y’know… the day before or something? And then Seth and – noooo.
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Yep. Jason did just die. And Seth just planted him in his life fruit garden. 😉
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Oh my Gosh! I never thought of that! Wow that went right over my head.
Seth is planting JASON for fertilizer.
It’s what makes his flowers bloom lol.
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…
(stunned silence)
It just keeps getting better. Great photo editing.
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Thank you! 🙂 And yes, I feel like I’ve learned a lot in the four months (exactly four months today, actually) that I’ve been writing this. Actually went back last night and heavily edited Daydream and plan to go back and edit all of the older updates.
Glad you enjoyed it.
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That is a long time to write a Sims story!!!!!! I wrote one and the and I got bored of it after about 2 weeks, it’s amazing to me how some people can keep a story going for so long and stay interested in it and keep the quality the same.
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OMG
I am catching up on my reading, and I am just amazed with how intriguing this is.
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Yay! I was actually just thinking about you earlier.
Thank you. 🙂
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Amazing and creepy at the same time.
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Awww thank you! This one took a lot of work, so that’s good to hear.
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Seth is very mystrious. Is it just me or does it seem he thinks Lillith as his wife, just better natured. I think Seth wanted his wife to be there for him in his time of depression, but she did not. So he killed her and the kid. Who knows! You’re making me anxious for more story.
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We don’t know what happened to Emma yet. Last time we saw her she was alive and not on fire. 😉
That is good insight, though – Sarah was there for him really, but he didn’t see it.
Thank you! Haven’t quite figured out what to do with the next update yet but I will try to have it out in a week.
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Very creepy, especially when he said Lilith is “his”. *shudders*
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LOL – I changed that line, noticed I had a new comment, saw what you said, and went and changed the line back.
Thank you very very much. 🙂
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Wow. That’s great. It’s wierd, everybody’s saying that Seth’s all creepy, but to me it seems sortof like he’s falling for her. What with the “She did not” thing. Is it just me?
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Very good insight there. 😉
And thank you, yay! Good to know you picked up on things.
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The images you’ve used in this chapter are extremely powerful on their own but the added narrative just brings it up that extra level of creepy.
Well done! Great screencaps and post processing of the images. I love the red that washes over most of these shots – really brings home Seth’s madness but also emphasis the symbolic colour of fire and death.
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The words came first and took the most effort, actually. 🙂
Oh yes, the blood red maelstrom that is Seth’s psyche. And of course his obsession with fire and death.
Thank you!
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Okay, I just had to resist the urge to scream like a B-movie Bimbo…Love it!
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Thank you! 🙂 Although I must admit I’m not that scared by it, but then I love Seth and think he’s adorable. 😉
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I feel like Seth and Lilith are connected to each other in some twisted way. Like Seth is somehow a part of Lilith, or Lilith a part of Seth. I dunno *ponders*
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Good observation. I do think they are very related and have a lot in common.
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Is it me or is Seth in love with Lilith? His words sound like they have undertones that make it sound like he is over Sarah but not for someone else…Lilith.
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Nice insight there. 🙂 I don’t know that he’s completely over Sarah, but she has been dead for 40 years.
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Lol good point.
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Dear Misty,
Congratulations on yet another amazing chapter! 🙂
I stripped the pictures – which are stunning – away from the words and was left with a marvellous poem.
Two six line verses and one five line verse which technically could be a six liner as well if you allow for ‘…’ i.e. a charged silence before the ultimate line.
It is beautiful and also very clever!
I immediately recalled the last line of your very first chapter: “… very, very occasionaly, maybe once in a century, someone manages to come back…”
What a fantastic build-up! It puts in perspective just how skilfully you have taken us to this point in the story. I am in awe.
Seth is reminscent of Hannibal Lecter to me. He certainly fits a serial killers’ profile. He has no social conscience. He is egotistical to the point of narcism. He believes he ‘rules’ over life and death and gets a power kick out of every single murder. His garden is his signature and in the weirdest way also the place where he keeps his ‘memorablia’ of the victims…
Chilling!
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Thank you!
And yes, Seth is far more poetry than prose. Which is why I think this may be the only update he had in him and it’s back to Lilith POV in the next update.
You know, originally that referred to Lilith because I had this foggy idea that she was going to go to Seth’s house and he was going to kill her and then I was going to do a funky edited pic update of her time as a ghost and then she was going to find some ambrosia and come back to life and find that Jason had moved on and gotten married and had kids and died of old age and so the legacy would eventually start when she found a new guy. But yeah, it’s changed since then. LOL.
And yeah, Seth is very very very self-centered. And I admit that his voice sounds a bit Hannibal-esque in my head. 😉
Thank you ever so much, yay!
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LOL. I was just reading some of the comments and thinking of the PM I sent you the other day. The one that mentioned comments people left on the Alice & Kev blog.
Anyway, some top notch pictures here. I enjoyed the lab fire pictures very much.
Oh, I found a t-shirt for Seth to wear when he’s relaxing off camera.
http://www.digitalperversion.net/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=15218.0
The one I like best is the one that says “Stand Back”, but I think Seth might prefer the one that says “It works”.
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I agree about the one that Seth would like. 🙂
Yay thank you and you rock! 🙂
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I really love this story but one quick question is it a legacy or will it be because it was posted in the legacy area on boolprop i was just wondering and will read it anyway even if it is not. I usually only read legacies and this means that i really like your story keep writing can’t wait for the next chapter!
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Yeah, I reckon it’s about time to ask the mods to move it to the Other Stories forum. I really did mean it as a legacy prologue when I started it, but then it sort of grew into this whole big thing.
Thank you! 🙂 I am quite touched that you would read it even though it’s not a legacy. Goal for the next chapter is the weekend again – we’re quite close to the end and I want these updates to be the best work I am capable of now.
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you know if you wanted to i think you could still turn it into one just saying. But yeah i really like it its cool!
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maybe they will fall in love and run off makin life fruit together. they bonnie & clyde…only different. lol
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LOL! Perhaps so. We shall see fairly soon, I think.
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By the end of this update I just kept singing to myself “she’s a super freak, super freak.” Except, you know, it was he instead of she… yeah, wierd, I get that a lot.
I think Seth is going to get all possesive of Lillith. More so than just the “she is mine” comment. I think he is going to try an warp her mind but get really pissed off when he relizes that she won’t be turned….
Will Jason somehow miraculously come back from the dead? Pretty please, I’ll do puppy dog eyes if I have to.
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If it helps any Jason is still very much alive in the game and will probably be appearing in future picspams or other little projects in the Valley universe.
Actually he was standing in the hall outside the bedroom Seth was in and was giggling to himself while I was taking those pics.
Nice theory about Seth – I do like the possessiveness of “She is mine.” which is why I should have known better than to try and change it to “She is with me.” even if the me bit might fit into the rhythm better.
Thanks!
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Wow, Moondaisy’s right. Seth’s quite the poet! The rhythm of the words and the lurid swirl of red in his mental pictures kind of makes me feel like I’m on a lurching boat in 40-ft. waves.
I love the eerie glow in the second picture.
Wake up, Lilith! He’s hot for you, and it’s not the kind of hot you want!
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Awww, thank you. 🙂 And yeah – red is definitely Seth’s color, what with the blood red maelstrom and all.
The second picture is right after I set the lot on fire, I think. So it’s the light of the fire as it was just starting.
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Now that I’ve read it again, I’m fascinated with the sixth picture. Are there skulls dancing in the flames? It looks like it, just at the tops of the flames.
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Wow that was crazy creepy and your shots are nuts, especially with the fire
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Thank you! 🙂 I do like fire, yes. My husband claims that Seth is the Mary Sue, which…I should probably ask him to explain what he means by that.
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So Seth thinks that his wife betrayed him or something? :S He’s pyschotic! Lilith, run!!
Anyway, I love all the fire pictures, especially the one with Seth standing right in the middle of the fire.
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He never saw that she was always there for him. Like this scene is after they moved to Sunset Valley and he was pretty much physically healed from the fire but still in a really bad place mentally and she stayed with him and only left to eat and go to the bathroom – but he only saw her leaving. Years later he didn’t see that she was trying her best to save him – he only saw her not giving him the recipe for ambrosia. He interpreted all of her actions through his crazy little self-absorbed lens and his view of things was quite distorted.
As for Lilith not running – I looked up Stockholm syndrome and countertransference the other day and I think they both apply here.
And thanks! I like fire pictures too. Heh, fire. 😉
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Very well done! I loved the Seth-view and the pictures (as always). Looking forwards to the next chapter and Lilith’s return to consciousness!
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Thank you! 🙂 Next chapter will probably be out on the weekend again. With Strings – something changed. It’s taking longer now than it used to. But I think that’s a good thing.
Yes, I am also interested in the path Lilith will take here in the last few updates.
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Wow, ok I just wanted to stop by and confess something! I kind of always wondered why it took so long to make each post. Like I know you have a personal life, and it takes a while to think of things and then the editing process after. But boy was I understating things! I tried capturing good images of my sims tonight just messing around and it’s a lot of work getting the right angle and shot that you want. So I guess I just needed to get that off my chest and let you know I totally admire your work! =]
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Yeah – before Strings when I did two updates a week each one took about six to eight hours. Now they’re taking longer.
It certainly does help that my job for the last four years has been taking pics of rental properties for the company website.
Thank you!! 🙂 I very much appreciate that. 🙂
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I have to admit…I kind of have a little school girl crush on Seth now. Maybe not the murdering part (still grumbling about Jason over here), but you know…he’s like a lost puppy that plays with fire. Is that weird?
Anyways, amazing pictures and writing, as always. I think I’m starting to figure some things out a little…but I’ll shush.
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Thank you! 🙂 And yeah – we’re fairly close to the end so I hope some things are able to be figured out now.
I’ve had a crush on Seth for quite some time myself. 😉
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Wow, brilliant! Just when I think the story’s going one way, you manage to throw in another twist or turn and it’s an awesome ride! During the last chapter I kept thinking he was going to kill her, and now I’m thinking he’s falling for her, in a way. The words, and the pictures were very well done, I’m on the edge of my seat, I can’t wait to find out what happens next.
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Thanks again! 🙂 And yeah – the Seth/Lilith dynamic is….complicated. I certainly do think that he feels a connection with her. A Seth-style demented totally self-absorbed connection, but still.
I looked up some stuff on the mythical figure of Lilith, and I liked the painting of her with a snake wrapped around her. Godsmack’s Voodoo is really a good Lilith/Seth song. The snake rattles are definitely Seth noises, and the chorus goes:
I’m not the one who’s so far away
when I feel the snakebite enter my veins
never did I want to be here again
and I don’t remember why I came
Certainly sounds like how Lilith feels about Seth.
Next update will probably be out Saturday or Sunday – like I said, they’re taking longer now.
Thanks again! 🙂
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Hey, just wanted to let you know I am starting a Sim story blog now. I have a small character preview up so far and will hopefully have the first chapter up before the weekend. The link is: http://amyjobee.blogspot.com/
Sorry for advertising on your page LOL! Just wanted to let you know.
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Ugh ok so I decided on WordPress instead because blogger makes myimages look terrible so this is the new link: http://amyjobee.wordpress.com/
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WordPress rocks, yes. 🙂 I’ll check it out this afternoon – am just home for lunch and it’s way past time to be getting back to work, sigh.
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That was amazing. I love the poetry. I heard soft 1940’s music in my head while reading this.
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Thank you! 🙂 And yes, Seth seemed to think in more poetry than prose.
Interesting choice of music. I like it.
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I’m all caught up… I don’t know why but this story is just so much fun to read a few chapters at a time. 😀 Maybe because I want each chapter to be longer. LOL.
It’s still so creepy and fantastic. And I love the small sense of dark humour you throw in once in a while.
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I do like to think of it as a whole and often borrow from and reference past chapters, so I think reading multiple chapters at once is a good idea.
Thank you! 🙂 And yay for dark humor! 😉
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Wow. So that was sort of Seth’s point of view? That’s so creepy! Now what is Lillith going to do?! Run Lillith Run!!
*is anxious for next update and cant stop bouncing*
Awesome post like always!
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Yes, it was Seth’s POV.
I’m getting there on the next update – we’re at 13 pics. Looking at my outline, we have quite a few more pics to go. Should hopefully be out tomorrow, though – don’t have anything else planned for Halloween.
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That would be perfect if it came out on Halloween lol!
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It’s turning out quite well and I could be done in a couple of hours. 😉
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I absoloutely cannot wait for the next chapter! I check this site every day of every week and drool over it. Sometimes I even read the entire thing over again.
This is my secret obsession. But now it’s no secret…
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Thank you! 🙂 I’m working on it and it’s coming along pretty well. Should definitely be done and up later today.
It’s also my not so secret obsession, lol.
But really, thank you. Your comments have always meant a lot to me and are truly inspiring.
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Awesome chapter. I think Seth sees something in Lillith that he did not see in Sarah. Even though he might be evil, there’s something about him, something hidden inside him….
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Thank you!
He does certainly see something in Lilith, yes. And he is evil, but I think he’s still very human. He’s not evil on purpose per se – he just got twisted along the way.
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Wow, an amazing update! Seth is really creepy. I wonder what he will do with Lilith……. off to read the next chapter 🙂
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Short, but to the point!
Has he always loved her? Or maybe it’s life inside of her he craves? Gah, I have so much reading to do! I love it!
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“Yes, come to my garden of death… I mean life.”
lol it would be awesome if Lilith was Sarah reincarnate.
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That is an idea, there, but I don’t know – I think they’re too different for that, really. *scratches chin*
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I’m so confused. But I love it. Why on earth is Lilith following him? Why is she continuing on with this madness?
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Lilith is pretty traumatized by this point. I imagine there’s a bit of Stockholm Syndrome going on, and general shock and numbness and inability to think clearly.
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Understandable that she is traumatized.
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