Flirting With Darkness

                                                     

My blogging friend George over at the Off Key Of Life does this exercise where he plays on the dark-side. The general idea is to get out of your comfort zone and write something different fiction-wise. It seems like a good idea so I’ve decided to give it a shot too. Why did I choose flirting with darkness? Because that’s what it feels like to me lol.

                                                         Ephemeral

Death appealed on so many levels. There was something vague about it that smelled of darkness, smoke and shade. Scary yet beckoned like sweet poison in the veins; a Moth and fire– that beautiful curious light and a heat that burned.

A frail form shifts in the bed. She wonders about it too, how she will die. Maybe a woman worn out by the affairs of the world. No, boring. Of sickness perhaps, the kind that turns the skin grey and leaves a hollow in the cheek. Predictable. Or maybe this new sickness hasn’t been discovered yet.

And there’s murder. Someone could kill her with a knife. Multiple stabs… twenty-six? That’s so Ripper. She chuckles. Or use a chain saw to hack her in bits. Legs first because no one wants a victim running for help. They could peel her lower lip or even flail her skin– that was bound to hurt at least. Perhaps her cries will ricochet through the hollow walls of the abandoned bunker she’s held.

A sound filtered through her consciousness. Squeak. Squeak. She pulls her blanket higher up her shoulders.

Were witches real, supernatural creatures—Vampires, Werewolves. The building was high enough and her squint vision was bound to throw off any compelling vampire gaze if perchance they fly. One could fly as a Bat, she forgets his name. Still, the slow drain of blood as life seeped out of her body. Would it hurt? Would she feel her soul ready to take flight to another plane, maybe linger in this world as the rest of her is devoured by nature’s anomaly?

Squeak. Squeak. The sound drew closer.

Her toes curl underneath the blanket. Cold toes. Fifteen years old feet wrapped in thick woolen socks to keep them warm. There is another squeak from the door. She wishes she hadn’t requested the lights be turned off completely, yet she found comfort in the darkness.

The squeak sounds so close now. There’s heavy breathing next to her. She swallows.

Lucy. Her name is the caress of soft wind in her ears.

Lucy are you awake?

Slowly the air escapes her lungs. It’s Kat the girl next room who never did learn the art of silence. She’d let her have the socks to cushion her landing after convincing her to ditch the stupid flip-flops.

Yes. Are the nurses gone?

Let’s go.

They make their way up the stairs to the top of the ten storied building housing the hospital.

Dracula, that’s his name. Count Dracula.

Perhaps she’d fly instead…

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