[open] send me back to where i roam, any

[spectra]

all i want is beaches full of dead birds. a flood of limbs
washed up onshore. seascapes sparkling bright with bone

Spectra might have been intrigued if she knew. If there were anything at all to indicate that the girl looking back at her is any different than the rest of them.

But they’re all just bones and there is nothing that separates them. Just bones.

And yet, this girl has only one eye and this is enough to pique her curiosity, to coax Spectra closer. Slowly, at first. Hindered by her hunger. (How she loathes this corporeal form and all of its insufferable weakness. Between the ghost and the viper, she’d rather be the ghost.)

She had felt the heart beating in her breast, but she is no longer convinced. She does not see the eye’s puckered scar because she sees no flesh. She sees only its absence and this is enough to make her question herself. She is young still and does not know how to hold onto her convictions.

Her ribs ache with hunger.
Surely if she were dead, she would not feel the pain of it.

But when she gets close enough (not close enough to touch, but close enough to be heard), she calls to the girl.

“Are you dead?” she asks, quiet. Like it’s a secret. Like neither of them are supposed to know.

“Am I?”
And if you listen closely, you will hear a rumor of hope in her voice.

S P E C T R A

@[Sintra]