(no subject)
Chest heaving, the world spins as I fall to my knees. I claw at the dirt, moist under my fingernails. I can hear a faint ringing and see black spots before my eyes.
Asthma! Why now? I can start to hear the footsteps again. If I can hear her, she definitely knows exactly where I am. I lurch backward and erect my body as quickly as possible. I stagger for a moment back onto my heels. As I search ahead, I see only the dim outline of some moss covered trees and thin fog, into an inky blackness. The trail I was originally on is now gone, dispersed into the forgotten field of crab grass and the occasional wilting wildflower.
She is right behind me, and there is no mercy from her. Beautiful or not, she means to end me. I can feel the chill under my slightly oversized dress shirt stir the goose bumps and moisten my already sweaty skin; warning me that towards the trees is only more fog, cold, and probably a river to fall into.
Her footsteps provide a soft thud, along with the slight crunch of wet grass. She is probably only twenty feet or so behind me now. I never meant to hurt her in any way, but she wants me dead now. I do so regret my sarcastic humor. I stagger into a run, nearly stumbling after the first step as my feet argue over which way to go.
I just thought it was some prank; who knew there was such a thing? I bat away the tallest stalks of grass as they seem to teeter into my face. I hear my breathing becoming almost hoarse, like a coughing goose announcing to her exactly where I am with each breath.
I can't keep this up forever, and she can. O boy can she ever. I thought it just a great costume, just a great getup for a good time. Apparently, now I am on the good time to be had. I shiver.
As the ground starts to dip toward the trees, the fog begins to thicken. I don't hear her footsteps anymore, but I can hardly hear anything over my hoarse breathing, and the blood pumping in my own ears.
As I bat away a low branch, it snaps suddenly, causing me to push forward off balance, and slip down the slope, wind-milling my arms wildly to keep from falling. I yelp out in surprise, but clamp my mouth shut immediately. I manage to keep upright, but not before skidding into ankle-deep icy water. It feels like someone dropped a block of ice on each foot, it is so cold, and the silt sucking my feet down.
The river is barely a stream, only maybe a few feet wide in its windings, and maybe up to two feet deep at its most deep parts, but it is hard to tell in the near perfect blackness. I slog to the other side, trying not to splash too much, trying not to bring even more attention. As soon as I get to the other side, I slip behind a mossy, gnarled tree that is at least twice my width and covered in moss.
The tree hangs over the water, giving me a comforting angle to lean back and catch my breath. And to listen. Silence. The soft murmur of the creek, my halted breathing wheezing through my teeth, the pounding in my ears are all I can hear. Silence.
Crack. Off to my right, on the other side of the river, I swear I heard a twig breaking. Didn't I? Silence. I smell that smell again. Like roses, but dry and old. Not rotten, just the smell of a pressed rose released from captivity after a decade; sweet, potent, and somehow wrong.
I feel a slight breeze, on my side, and on my neck and arms, everywhere my skin is exposed and where my clothes are loose. It is so cold.
It tightens on my neck. It is not a breeze, but a long-nailed delicate hand. Soft like a child’s, but firm and icy like frozen steel. I start to claw at it as it easily reaches around my throat and starts to squeeze. I feel my throat collapsing under the force, like a vice grip squeezing foam. My head feels like it is swelling from the blood vessels cut off, all the while I can't breathe and as I start to get dizzy again, I see black spots floating near.
"You should have known. Now your mine,” her soft voice says matter-of-factly.
"I.. don't want to die yet... ,” I croak.
After a pause, "Why?" She asks.
"So much left... to do... too soon..." I manage as the vice slowly closes. I can barely whisper, sounding like a dying old toothless man, my vision nearly gone. I don't know where the ground is anymore, but I doubt she will let me meet it anyway.
"You do not fear death?" she asks coolly, she seems a little surprised, but not much.
"Not now... I .... have met... her....." It all goes black, but then suddenly I feel myself slump forward, my body laying against something. All is still black, but I can still hear my blood rushing in my ears, and I realize she has let go of my throat. I am not holding myself up, however. She is now. Then I realize, I am not propped on a tree, but she is embracing me, holding me against gravity.
"Go, before I change my mind"
"But I changed mine. You’re not a person, not even human. You played with my life like a game. I like playing with fire." I manage between breaths, and craning my head back, look her in the eye. "I wish to live, but only by your means. Mine, are meager and mortal." I pant at her, feeling a cold pang in my chest. I may have just given up my one moment to still live. But I feel something tugging at me, that cold feeling. Like a string into my soul, pulled by her. "My time has come, and if you are what I think you are, you know what I want, and it is not death". I say with one last breath and slump against her shoulder.
She is smaller than me by nearly a foot, but she holds me up like a child. I feel a finger under my chin, and then a thumb on the cleft, guiding my face to hers. Looking me in the eyes, she gives me a blank look, reading something I could not see. Guiding my face, she directs me to lower to my knees. I lower to one, then both, sitting as I had in my dojo long ago, as though before a master of the arts. I place my hands down, one on each thigh, still waiting for her direction.
"You do not know what you ask. If I detected greed in you, I would have slain you for such a request."
"I seek power, but not to impose on others. Do not misunderstand me, I do seek a life beyond this", I reply.
"Yes, this I know," she replies in a slightly lilting raised voice, as if to tell me to be quiet, and ask me to tell her more all in one. I realize for the first time there is a slight accent to her voice, soft and slight, but somehow European. Her dark hair and eyes seemed to point to Italy, but she really could have been from anywhere. Her slightly long nose, pointed but petite, and her slightly tilted eyes seemed to say somewhere middle-eastern. But her soft chin, dimpled, and high cheekbones gave her an air of France, or maybe somewhere in Western Europe. She is definitely beautiful, and her eyes though dark, seemed both soft and intense, as if they could penetrate stone, but only wanted to see peace.
I kneeled patiently as she held me chin and kept looking at me. I just kept looking back, thinking at least if I die, I met something so supernatural and so beautiful. At least I would not die without purpose. And just maybe, maybe, I wouldn't have to die, but that was a long hope, gambled over my very life.
"Was your life so hard, so empty?" She asked at last.
I knew she could see all of the truth, or at least I assumed so, and besides this was like seeing a unicorn or something. I refused to cheapen the moment with a lie. "No. I just know there is so much of the world out there, so much to be and do. I know there are so many people out there who deserve to die. I may be one of them. I also know that to meet you is like proving religion, proving the supernatural, like meeting god. What more could a mortal ask for?"
She looked at me as I said this, a bit sad, and a little puzzled. The last thing I expected from the likes of her. "I am no god," she replied at last.
"I know. I just don't see many things that are walking pieces of humanity, full of experience and full of time," I replied, a bit breathless at my audacity, and a bit out of wonder. She is so beautiful, inside and out. If only I knew more, if only I weren’t mortal.
"I see. You appreciate my timelessness? It is not a gift." Her stance seemed to shift from a saint reaching her hand down to guide a disciple to a tormenter forcing subjugation on someone who was worth less than the soles beneath her feet. My chin began to ache from the pressure she exerted, but I refused to let my face be moved. I had played my hand, and she knew it. I had nothing left now than to see it through, and see what happened next.
"I know. But life is not a gift. The experiences are gifts, the moments, the events, for better or worse are gifts; memories, emotions, connections, isolation, and thoughts. Those are all gifts. This experience, whether or not it is my last is a gift. I only wish to have more, not to take more, not to steal more, but to have and give more. I only wish to live as we were all meant to." I shiver. Had I meant to say all that? It sounded like a bunch of crap, something from a comic book thrown out by a bunch of third-string writers.
Looking into her eyes, even now they seemed to be watching me intently. They gave off a slight glaze, like she was somewhere else. Her full, pouted lips seemed to twitch slightly, like she was remembering words, or something previously said.
Then her eyes focused in on me, different than before, like a lance. I felt pinned, and I was betting I was getting a good bruise from her fingers on my chin, pushing and holding me in place. Her eyebrows seemed to descend slightly, like she was now very unhappy, but only showing it slightly. I felt a shiver down my spine, like someone was watching me over my shoulder.
Death was watching now. Now I die.
I felt myself being pulled by my chin to my feet, and lifted up to my full height. I could see down her arm at her eyes, and she seemed to grow. Only she was still the same size, but she raised her head up to mine, and then over. I suddenly realized she was floating slowly up. I just stared, arms at my sides like limp noodles, my jaw slack in wonder. Her eyes suddenly seemed to be looking at me as though I wasn't there. Her dark gaze seemed fixed on my soul, peering deep.
As she looked down on me, I felt her arm caress the back of my head, gently. It felt a little cold and very soft. Suddenly, it gripped the muscles in the back of my neck like a handle and forced me to hug her chest and right shoulder.
I realized for the first time why I never stared at her chest, full as it was. It never moved. She didn't breathe. Her chest felt cold and still. I didn't feel any intake of breath as she leaned back while burying my face in her shoulder. I didn't hear her heart beat once as her mouth came to my neck. I didn't feel any warmth as she kissed and licked my neck, gently patrolling my muscle cords with the tip of her tongue.
I didn't even notice when she first plunged her razor sharp teeth in, only suddenly I felt a rapture I didn't understand. Like an orgasm, but within my mind. I felt a sudden pleasure, and joy, a kind of hunger fulfilled, but somehow distant and far away. The blood rushing in my ears seemed to be more real, beating in time with her draughts of my life.
I didn't know dying could be this way, but at least when I went it would be in a way unlike most others. It was like she was screwing me with her mouth, drawing on my life, and making my neck the most sensual part of my body. I just never knew.
Slowly darkness crept in around my perception, like a cloak, she drew enveloped me in. "I love you" I murmured. I didn't know if I meant it or not. Only that, in that moment, I meant it. That I appreciated all she was doing for me, providing me a freedom in death I never had in life, never truly understood.
"I know you will" she murmured into my ear in response, and continued to drink. I could feel a warm wetness descend both down my back, and cascade on my right side of my chest.
"Don't waste, I will run dry very... soon." I mutter, as I feel the ecstasy build and my consciousness wane. Our voices were so soft but close before, now seemingly far, far away.
"I will not waste your life’s blood." She murmured. How many had she said that to before they died? Did it really matter? I was getting the experience of a lifetime, a death.
Suddenly, I felt a lurch. The ecstasy stopped, and so did her drinking. I could barely think, and felt so feeble as to be knocked over by a gust of wind, or crumple, should she release me. I could still feel the blood flowing down my back and chest, only now there seemed to be a throbbing to it. It seems almost as if it was still before and now had come to life to pour out my life’s essence. "Your body is now fighting for its life. Now is the time to choose." She said it like a decree, but in a voice so soft and gentle you would think she was reading a book to a child.
"Choose?" I asked.
"Between a curse, a death, or one last chance to return to a normal life." she replied. Both her tone, and her near blank expression, portrayed an almost patient boredom. Like someone who had been so experienced and familiar with the idea, she had to struggle to put it into terms someone unfamiliar would understand and wait for it to be registered.
"I choose, you." I muttered simply and slumped against her, my strength now spent. I couldn't raise my head, it felt so heavy, and there seemed to be a humming all around. I felt so dizzy. I though I would be sick, but instead was getting strangely sleepy. My neck was starting to hurt, like I had two bee stings that were swelling up while digging deeper into my artery.
She seemed to shift for a moment. I could feel her body move underneath mine. It didn’t feel like a living person, but more like a smooth piece of machinery. Then a hand brushed my unkempt sweaty, bloody hair from my face. I then realized her other hand was holding open a small wound in her neck where it joined her shoulder, between the tendons and muscle. It must have been torn open just a second ago, but I didn’t notice her do it.
Amazing enough, no blood seeped out, but it seemed held open by her nail. It looked like a mouth a little, trying to get me to talk to it. Beckoning. "Drink." was all she said. I didn't see anything to drink, only this small jagged mouth in her neck, moving just slightly as she shifted, seemly to speak to me. The edges of my vision darkened and I realized I couldn't move my arms anymore, they felt both leaden and gone at the same time. The buzzing had grown intense, as if the bees that stung me had made a hive in my head. This must be what getting a snake bite feels like.
"Drink, huh?" I muttered. It was so quietly, I think she was the only one who could have heard me. I craned my head toward that mouth, toward the flesh. My head flopped forward, and my face gently crashed into her neck. My mouth was now next to her new one. I could smell blood. It smelled metallic and foul. Not rancid, but somehow off, like fresh blood and wet pavement. Drink. I pushed my head toward it with all my might, only managing a few inches, but enough. It even felt a bit like a mouth, lips curled back in a smile, when my lips touched it and my teeth gently and lovingly bit the edges as I started to try to siphon off some of her succulent flesh. As soon as my lips closed over it, I could taste it. It tasted a little like blood, but so very sweet, and a little saltier than I expected, almost like some sugary nectar mixed with the distant smell of blood and sweat.
I realized after that initial taste, I didn't even notice the taste of blood, or the smell of the undead. All there was, was this nectar, and it felt like I could breathe again. With each small draught, I caught a breath. I felt my own existence. Drink. Breath. Drink. Breath.
I suddenly felt, for a moment, a darkness wash over me, like I was about to faint. I stopped drinking, but refused to let go. Then, I couldn't move. My limbs, which seemed to have come slowly back to life, were suddenly like ice, numb and frozen. I couldn't feel them, I couldn't feel anything. I suddenly felt like I had no body, just a spirit standing there kissing her open wound. I felt so detached suddenly, like I was about to drift away if not for my lips anchoring me to her flesh.
Then I felt something stab my gut, like a knife, but from the inside out. I hung on with my lips, the only thing I had left, but felt like I was being ripped apart from the inside by a chainsaw. My knees buckled, and I realized that I was no longer being held up, but had been standing over her with one arm rapped around her shoulders in a lover’s embrace, the other one wrapped around her waist and even cupping her right buttock. But as my legs gave way, my arms melted off of her and I slumped hard to the ground at her feet.
I began to feel it spread, like a wave of nausea and ripples of muscles radiating from my stomach out through my organs and body. I could feel each muscle contract so hard I thought bones would break, or that I would wail out in agony. I had fallen to my hands and knees, then fallen on my side and crumpled, doubling over in agony, as I planted my face in some moist wet leaves from last autumn, nearly crushing a small beetle that ran with all it's might toward a larger undisturbed leaf that must have fallen recently, as it still had a very dark green hue.
I watched the beetle, as I felt hot pain after rigid spasm wash slowly from one spot to the next, like waves of force crashing through my body in an effort to wring out my will.
I could see the beetle stop under the leave and slowly preen its antennae, unconcerned with the twitches and thrashes my limbs were making right nearby. I fought to keep a sharp eye on it, even as my head and neck were included in the wild thrashing and I though my collarbones and neck would snap in a fiery hot stab of agony.
I made a point to try not to disturb it as this continued. He was my only friend, my only witness. This hot fire and iron grip ripped throughout my body, forcing me to double over again and again, as each muscle contracted as hard as it could, and each tendon and bone was stressed to the maximum. I also clenched my teeth to keep my mouth shut. I had asked for this, I was not about to whine or cry out. For once, I would tough it out. Besides, I cannot last forever... can it? Pain, burning, Pain….
When it started to make its way to my extremities, it seems to calm and slow down. Like a broken wave nearing your feet at a beach, its energy spent, now it simply floods on by, low and weak in all directions, only to recede back whence it came. I just kept looking at the beetle. All black, except for some brown stripes on its legs, and the dew on its back. It had finished preening itself, and now appeared to be watching me, not moving. Perhaps it was pondering if I were going to harm it, like every other animal might. It twitched a hind leg for a moment and lay still, watching.
I suddenly felt whole again, like I had become a liquid filling up my body and reaching out to the tips. The buzzing had stopped, the pains had stopped. I no longer felt dizzy, nor did I feel cold. I felt strangely comfortable. I felt like I could just lay here in the dirt and the filth in the cold for a while and not care. I felt relaxed, like those waves of pain had stretched out all of my knots and tension. I felt also like I did right after good coital workout; tired, and satisfied.
I tried pushing myself up onto my hands and knees, expecting that I was either dead or about to die and find myself not able to. To my surprise, my arms responded fine. Like none of this crazy weirdness had ever happened. I slowly stood up, and righted myself until I was standing upright completely, all the while waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I felt completely normal, albeit I knew I should be in pain and cold, but I wasn't. I reached up instinctively to touch my neck where I had lost so much blood. I could feel two little pricks, like small depressions through my skin, but they were not deep did not bleed.
My shirt, however, was very damp. The front and back were soaked all the way through with blood, a deep red, nearly black in this light. It smelled like blood, but wrong somehow. Like the way blood smells creeping from a corpse, where the life had drained out of someone, leaving them pale and empty.
I looked at the ground where I had lain and thrashed about. The beetle had come out to where I had been and appeared to be rustling underneath some of the leaves and other decomposing plant matter that were stained with my blood.
I suddenly felt alone. I started to look around for her. She was gone. Perhaps now that I had what I wanted, I would have to figure this out on my own.
Not everything you really want is given easily, usually. But now I have a million lifetimes to know everything, to understand everything, and experience everything. Everything that is not under the sun that is. But maybe everything not under the sun will include her.
I look up between the trees to see the cloudy night sky, grey against the black backdrop of jagged tree limbs reaching for each other overhead. It will be dawn soon, but not real soon, I have a few hours left to find a place to sleep. Tomorrow I can plan the rest of my future.
Then I can look for her. I will. She was a focal point for my life once, and now she is responsible for my death and rebirth. Ah, I never knew that All Hallow's Eve could hold so much for someone with so little.
I start to walk back the way I came into these woods. I enjoy the brisk cold of the creek, walking through just the same way I had stumbled through before. Just placing one foot in front of the other, I journey back to where I came from, to look at my life as it was with eyes anew.
As I reach the edge of the woods, I see the clearing open up, and realize it is all that I had hoped for.
Please tell me what you think, I would appreciate it.