*
The words she wants to let out are held tight in her throat. Sweat greases her skin, she feels separate from herself. The days have darkened, and the bodies must be rotting. The dreams she once saved are now evolving into a breathless terror - fear for the future, fear for the end.They were finally dead. But this will not save her from ruin. She now has nothing, empty world without a penny to her name. Johann will have long gone now; he would not have waited around and anything of value he would have stolen from the house. Even now a grief threatens to choke her, but not for the loss of her parents. The loss of herself is far greater, the realisation that she will never escape this place. Why do these demons want me to die here?!
Waiting, just waiting. Watching bodies just lie there, almost as if in slumber, beneath sheets of cheap fabric. Threads of her thoughts start to unravel, the heart races and the mouth is dry. Would these corpses come back to take the life from me? Will I ever leave this room? - Can I?
Violet knows of the fires of Hell, the eternal furnace of damnation. But she also knows of the freezing ice prison, the endless winter nightmare that constantly beckons her sanity. She wants to scream. But finds she cannot.
The room is small and smells of unpleasant and fearful scents. There are no windows, just one small solid door that Violet focuses all her attention on. The way out, the exit to the outside world beyond. Yet she feels if she were to open the door there would be the same room following it. Trapped like vermin; filth and a waste. But too afraid to be a cunning creature, the resilience that she prides is fading fast. Her assurity is waning and her reality collapsing.
And then..soft like the wind, but fierce like the flutter of flame... her senses become alight. The fine hairs on her arms stand up arrow-straight and her skin puckers and quivers over her bones. Her scalp crawls and hands perspire. The breath of the dead lies on her shoulders, the ghosts, the demons..have awakened.
Without turning around, she finds a scream within her and propels herself against the cell door. Slamming hard into the wooden frame she grasped the handle with dripping fingers. The metal slips away, but she tries again and again. It will not turn, it will not turn.
Violet starts crying, weeping with fear and desperation. She knows not to turn to face the bodies for they will be moving beneath their linen cauls. The revenants of evil, the demons that tortured her in life will be back for her flesh!
Scraping at the wood like an animal she starts shouting for help - crying out inaudible words in a plea for salvation. A terrified child's voice shrieking to be saved, to beg for her safety the way she never has before. Then, having no other option, she throws herself around to face the gurneys. No movement. But the sounds are loud in her mind; a vicious whispering and a high pitched whine. She covers her ears but the sounds are still here, drilling through her skull and embedding themselves in her brain. Her tears leak down as she screws up her eyes, her flushed skin burns hot into her nerves.
She looks this way and that, examining the bodies as they are positioned in their dead repose. Her eyes widen as she sees the tiniest movement - she knows it is there! The soft corpse breath lifting the sheets by their putrid lips! Then the light forms, the strings of dirty silver seeping from their bodies and pouring out from the tables across the room. The sounds grow louder and louder as the foul web weaves through the air cascading inches from Violet's face. She covers her face but knows it is here. The spirits reclaiming the soul that could not be taken by death with them, and the one they will never let leave!
Her crying is loud now, and pitiful. Cowering against the wall with one hand curled around the handle of the sealed-shut door, her body juddering and her panting ragged. The strands from the bodies glide like smoke but wind around like wire - reaching out for her, like deformed claws. With one last attempt she slams both palms hard against the door, attacking the barrier and fighting to be released. Screaming out and calling she feels she can hear her voice being projected back at her from beyond the door, a mocking echo. But there seems to be truth in the copying voice, maybe in her delirium it seems like a sign that she will be heard by others. Take me from here! Take me away from them please! Please let me out!
The sickly threads are like the coldest ice on the back of her neck, and behind her she hears the bodily sounds of movement. Her cries become hysterical. Begging for anyone to come and save her. To take her away from this place and away from all this pain. A light seems to form more strongly around her, and her Secret Hearts scald her deep within. The spirit, the instinct that has lived with her all her life. They hear the echoed noises, they urge her to listen more carefully but she is too afraid. Then they burn her more, collecting the sounds and seeming to capture the heartbeat of another shadow. Violet beseeches them to take her mind away, let her pass from her body and leave the carcass abandoned. She now feels she could almost step through the door, weightless and fleshless.
Just as the burning turns into a roaring flame, Violet can feel the presence of another. The creature outside her prison, one to release her? Her heartbeat lessens, her breathing almost stops. The sense of another, burning his own imprint on the other side of the door. Hands almost touching save for strips of oak. The heavy door being nothing but a thin veil between them. The terrorising corpses quieten their havoc. The worlds seems to slow down and Violet's fear is emptied into a transfixed haze. The handle twists below her elbow, and then it opens. It slowly swings outwards, it does not really need to reveal the one standing there. Violet feels his heart beat as close as her own. He stands before her, empty of all the world around them and captured in a realm all their own.
No comments:
Post a Comment