Captress by Bee Sweet Garden
Jon Cates and Amber Sparks
2014 Monism Music
Captress is the luring song of the hunter to her prey.


Captress (Original Mix)

Fade the opening of a tunnel into a view of a large city of circuits. Subtly twinkling lights going on far below in a dark but active subterranean technology landscape. Magical and foreboding. Though you are completely alone you sense someone there. A dark shadow is passing over the edge of your peripheral. You at first wonder if it's even there at all but soon it makes itself menacingly apparent. Hesitation fills your mind and the first flicker of fear is felt just before he appears. He is much less threatening than you expected but there is a stance about him as if this fiber optic world flows through his very being. There is a wisdom within him and an intimidating power that you're not sure is used for good or evil. He shows you how he can manipulate the digital flow to create armies and other powerful pushy things but with a small hint of gentle sadness he is able to keep from coming across as a tyrant. He then shows you how he can create illusion and light. Weaving them together he begins to tell a story. A peaceful elvish race living in harmony. Then the introduction of a dark force. Plague, drought and imprisonment. Burning fields, splitting families, leaving a young elf alone and afraid as he watches everything he has ever known being destroyed. A montage ensues showing him living life on the run, in constant hiding from this dark force of judgement and disaster. Growing up marked for persecution and immanent extermination. His pursuers search out his people to use up everything good about them and obliterate all that surrounds them. As he starts to settle into this life the dark force attacks and he is made to retreat farther than he ever has before. He turns inward knowing he has been captured, knowing he will surely die. Ashamed and defeated the world caves in on him with the force of a collapsing star, freezing him in the moment of utter despair. Hands over his face, head down. He stays in the same position but the scene slowly changes around him to become the dim twinkling cyber world from before. You realize that the story was about your host and the evil that hunted him was so cruel that it drove him here to be alone for the last thousand years. An ancient race was forgotten and their only surviving member was forced to reside in an artificial world for survival. He has mastered the manipulation of this new place. it answers his every request and has allowed him to build an empire to feed the unending void of failure. But you should not have seen him so vulnerable. His embarrassment and rage flares up as he calls roaring oceans and digital skyscrapers to rise around him. A violent storm in the air like an earthquake with him at the center. He is saying so many words that you cannot understand, but as his army of masked creatures begin to repel down the mountainous buildings, you know that this display can only mean Leave! Go! Get Out! You begin moving backward to respectfully withdraw from his world. He advances toward you, telling you through action and eye contact that he belongs here forever and you have no right to be in this place, though you can see a glimmer of longing regret in his face. He has built this beautiful digital universe around him to protect his darkest and most shameful secret and you have seen the side of him he has sworn to never show anyone. The scene closes as you move quickly away backwards through the tunnel you entered, thinking of who the little elf boy had become.

Jon Cates

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