09-14-2017, 11:09 PM
She should be dead. She should have never escaped the prison he had fashioned for her. She should still be there, strewn through the fingers of uprooted trees with the rest of the dead that lied in the wake of a crazed man. Raelle should have been one of them.
She had started to converse with the corpse he had left her for company after days past and she was still trapped beneath the fallen trees. The smell of death had started to bring scavengers of every kind. But, her prison was also her savior from hungry teeth. Unfortunately, her friend had not been so lucky. She stared back as the wolves and foxes watched her whilst they fed from the belly of the dead gray. Raelle did not know the name, but the face still bore the fear and surprise from seconds before the life was ripped from them (even as they began to shrivel and sink into the skull). The crows plucked them out like grapes on the second day.
By the time night fell on the third day, there was naught but bone and hair and the residual stench of death left of her friend. The scavengers were sated, even merry with full bellies on too thin frames.
Weak as she was, Raelle managed to worm her way from the fallen tree roots that had held her captive. With the weight of the dead now resting in the bellies of beasts, Raelle was able to lift the old fallen tree just enough to struggle, inch by inch, towards freedom. But every inch came with blood. Raelle clenched her jaw so tightly that her teeth cracked at the surface. By the time she was birthed through the gates of her prison, her right side was lined with jagged cuts and her left eye encrusted with dirt.
Then the mist came, more terrifying than the beasts that had taken her dead friend into their jaws. The air was suffocating, heavy and full of decay. Raelle ran. She ran blindly, foolishly through fallen trees. At least, she felt as though she was running, after having spent days trapped beneath the trees. Her pace was more a dragging walk, though the effort was evident enough in the way her muscles strained, the flare of her nostrils, and the whites of her eyes. It didn’t take long before the mist swallowed her up.
She remembers her friend’s eyeless face somehow staring at her through the mist. “Come, and be transformed.” it had said in the voice of many. Raelle had followed the hollowed figure into darkness.
Then, suddenly, she is here at the entrance of yet another prison. There are no fresh bodies, no uprooted trees, the damage of the madman erased (or perhaps this is the work of another madman entirely). Hopeful, Raelle looks to the deep cuts along her barrel. Though they no longer bleed, pink scars still line her painted body. Her expression furrows in confusion.
“Do dreams leave scars?” she thinks aloud, unaware of the danger she is in yet again.
She had started to converse with the corpse he had left her for company after days past and she was still trapped beneath the fallen trees. The smell of death had started to bring scavengers of every kind. But, her prison was also her savior from hungry teeth. Unfortunately, her friend had not been so lucky. She stared back as the wolves and foxes watched her whilst they fed from the belly of the dead gray. Raelle did not know the name, but the face still bore the fear and surprise from seconds before the life was ripped from them (even as they began to shrivel and sink into the skull). The crows plucked them out like grapes on the second day.
By the time night fell on the third day, there was naught but bone and hair and the residual stench of death left of her friend. The scavengers were sated, even merry with full bellies on too thin frames.
Weak as she was, Raelle managed to worm her way from the fallen tree roots that had held her captive. With the weight of the dead now resting in the bellies of beasts, Raelle was able to lift the old fallen tree just enough to struggle, inch by inch, towards freedom. But every inch came with blood. Raelle clenched her jaw so tightly that her teeth cracked at the surface. By the time she was birthed through the gates of her prison, her right side was lined with jagged cuts and her left eye encrusted with dirt.
Then the mist came, more terrifying than the beasts that had taken her dead friend into their jaws. The air was suffocating, heavy and full of decay. Raelle ran. She ran blindly, foolishly through fallen trees. At least, she felt as though she was running, after having spent days trapped beneath the trees. Her pace was more a dragging walk, though the effort was evident enough in the way her muscles strained, the flare of her nostrils, and the whites of her eyes. It didn’t take long before the mist swallowed her up.
She remembers her friend’s eyeless face somehow staring at her through the mist. “Come, and be transformed.” it had said in the voice of many. Raelle had followed the hollowed figure into darkness.
Then, suddenly, she is here at the entrance of yet another prison. There are no fresh bodies, no uprooted trees, the damage of the madman erased (or perhaps this is the work of another madman entirely). Hopeful, Raelle looks to the deep cuts along her barrel. Though they no longer bleed, pink scars still line her painted body. Her expression furrows in confusion.
“Do dreams leave scars?” she thinks aloud, unaware of the danger she is in yet again.