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Sabra · 02-11-2020, 05:30 PM

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<p class="sabra_name">Sabra</p>
<div class="sabra_message">To be squeezed within a giant's fist. That is how I feel now, with the sides of me pinched between two panels of rough, damp stone. As tight as I feel from the outside, my chest feels far worse. Each breath is a hitching, desperate thing, the very air thick with the scent of my own fear. All the while, that thing waits, and watches with a distant smile and unblinking eyes.

I can see her, it, the caricature of my long dead daughter that stands so still behind me. The walls are not so narrow there. Do not crush at her from every angle. If I can edge my way back, just a few paces, I can be free and turn around. Find some other way out.

The thought no sooner occurs than the watered-down girl jerks. My stomach turns at the sudden motion, the unnatural stiffening of joint and bone. Some string had been tugged, some signal given, and I can only watch with head held awkwardly high as the filly-monster's legs begin to twitch. Spider fast, the limp winged body surges forward to slam into my rear with surprising power. A sharp breath hisses between my teeth. The blow has shifted me some inches deeper into my crevice, tearing feathers and skin on the jagged walls. Worse, my chin has caught, lodged on the ever lowering ceiling. I'd had to see what was behind me. Now I can't look away.

Again. The spindly creature bolts into me, smiling with angelic bliss all the while. A few more inches my body slides, grating into the too tight space, neck arching painfully back. Warm blood trickles down my jaw, the bite of stone into my chin another throbbing point. As erratic as my breathing was, now it has grown painfully thin. Wheezing, strained lungs fill with mineral scent. Blood or stone or both, I think it could be the last thing I ever smell, that choking stench.

Still the dimly lit ghoul is dancing behind my back. The rasp of feathers on stone, the sharp knock of her hooves. She could be a child at play if the luciferine light didn't not betray her for something far more sinister.

The clatter of broken hooves on granite echoes closer, ever closer. I can see the grinning thing barrel towards me, shining in the darkness. The strain on my neck is agony. The pressure on my ribs is unbearable. And in just a few paces, the slight figure smacks into me again.

A crack answers the echoes.

I'm drowning, falling, gasping for air I don't expect to find. My neck is throbbing fit to blind, and like a bright negative, I can hear my spine snapping all over again. See the milky figure as she drives my into the crushing space.

The sound fades into memory, but the image does not. A swallow forces down my bruised throat. "We're not finished, are we?" I ask numbly, taking in the new scene. There is freedom, tauntingly beautiful and out of reach. Stars that glitter in a pool of darkness, the sky that I can almost taste. The gatekeeper is there. Between the glimpse of sky and myself is the ravaged dream of my daughter.

S̵o̵ ̵s̷o̶r̷r̵y̵.̶ ̵D̸i̷d̸n̴’̷t̶ ̷m̶e̴a̶n̴ ̶t̴o̶.̵ ̷S̸o̴ ̵s̸o̶r̷r̶y̴.̷ ̷D̵i̸d̷n̷’̶t̷ ̷m̶e̴a̷n̵ ̶t̸o̴

,

On and on, the voice a many-layered thing that claws at my mind. There is no more pretending, not when the unholy thing is creeping so dreadfully nearer. Not my daughter. Not my daughter, and I don't think it ever was. A sound like pebbles scattering on ice draws my eyes, and I can see the faint gleam of white teeth at its feet. When it moves, it's with too many joints. Each leg an independent thought, scrabbling against the floor with shocking purpose. It moves again, twitchy, jerking steps that underscore how very wrong the puppet is.

The toothless jaw has stretched, grown, tongue swollen and purple and dangling. Somehow yet the voice (voices?) echo on in an evil harmony.

S̸̞̈ö̷͍́ ̷͍͒s̴͖͝o̴̮̎r̶͓͂r̶̟̽ỳ̸̯.̵̡̅ S̸̞̈ö̷͍́ ̷͍͒s̴͖͝o̴̮̎r̶͓͂r̶̟̽ỳ̸̯.̵̡̅ S̸̞̈ö̷͍́ ̷͍͒s̴͖͝o̴̮̎r̶͓͂r̶̟̽ỳ̸

̯

The wings, what had once been Miela's beautiful, shimmering wings, are shedding feathers in clots and flurries now, revealing putrifying flesh beneath. She's rotting like late season fruit. Like a body left too long in the sun, and I remember. That was exactly what I'd left her to do.

I'd fought to keep her. To have her be accepted, and resented her after for being other than what I'd hoped for. Weak, sickly, and a product of my own desecration. I'd grown to hate her, because she had come to symbolize my every failing.

The jarring monstrosity is not her, but I find pity for it all the same. I should have cared for my girl better. Should have stood by her and fought harder to heal her when the plague struck. And now I am bound to watch her doppelganger warp and degrade before my eyes all over again.

It has come closer. Close enough that the cloying sweet scent of grave dirt and death fills my muzzle. It's all I can taste and smell, her rotting meat and sunken skim-milk eyes blotting out the hopeful sky beyond.

Her features are melting like hot wax, the blood-black skull beneath emerging from her poll. Brittle hair and skin peel away from diseased flesh. One eyeball slips from its receding socket to fall with a wet "plop" on the ground. Her ratcheting legs dance through the fallen thing, smearing the vitrious fluid in a shining snail trail from her steps. The empty hole in the now unrecognizable face leers at me accusing even as the horror voice apologizes endlessly.

I've let this go on too long.

Every moment I let go by, I am no closer to freedom. And still she warps and twists, the body a cackling, rubber-boned thing that will haunt me the rest of my days. There is no other way. There wouldn't be, of course.

Skin has begun to slough off the rickety bones, the bones themselves lurching one way and the next in that same macabre dance. This is a thing undead, and yet I'm trying to kill it again. To destroy that which I've already destroyed.

Strips of pink-white tissue cling to my teeth after the first blow. A tearing bite that passes through rot-soft flesh with far too little effort. The trembling mannequin seemed not to notice.

S̸̞̈ö̷͍́ ̷͍͒s̴͖͝o̴̮̎r̶͓͂r̶̟̽ỳ̸̯.̵̡̅ S̸̞̈ö̷͍́ ̷͍͒s̴͖͝o̴̮̎r̶͓͂r̶̟̽ỳ̸̯.̵̡̅ S̸̞̈ö̷͍́ ̷͍͒s̴͖͝o̴̮̎r̶͓͂r̶̟̽ỳ̸̯S̸̞̈ö̷͍́ ̷͍͒s̴͖͝o̴̮̎r̶͓͂r̶̟̽ỳ̸̯.̵̡̅S̸̞̈ö̷͍́ ̷͍͒s̴͖͝o̴̮̎r̶͓͂r̶̟̽ỳ̸̯.̵̡̅S̸̞̈ö̷͍́ ̷͍͒s̴͖͝o̴̮̎r̶͓͂r̶̟̽ỳ̸̯

My head is ringing with the phrase. It's a screaming litany that fills the air as I lay blow after blow on the stinking corpse. Bone and meat alike deteriorate beneath my assault, the face a mash of gore and ichor, the body breaking down before my eyes. I'm coated in the thick fluid that decay invites, hooves and teeth pasted with bits of flesh and old, dark blood. There is frantic light in my eyes by the time the corpse stops jerking.

It is some moments more before I register the lack of noise beyond my own choking breath.

I'm am heaving with sobs, tears running through the gore painting my face and dripping to the uncaring ground. What is left of the tormentor lies steaming beneath my hooves, only the occasional patch of pastel hair to suggest what it might once have been.

Beyond is the small, shining light. The only hope I have still fluttering in my chest at the sight. Eyes blurry with tears, I lurch forward in a faltering canter, toward salvation or damnation, I am beyond caring which. In my wake, whispered words echo from the cavern walls.

"I'm so sorry"
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<p class="sabra_quote">I wanna be Immortal, like a God in the sky
<br>
I wanna be a silk flower, like I'm never gonna die
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<a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-wearing-dress-shirt-lying-on-bed-3373401/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="padding-top:10px">Photo by Kareva Margarita</a>
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