10-25-2018, 07:08 PM
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A game of tricks and treats.
It seemed so innocent at first. It was only this morning when she hunted for pearls and draped seaweed across her body. It was only this evening when she sank her weight into the sun-bleached skull at the edge of the water. It was only what, an hour ago when she first began to sing? Yet she can barely remember what the world above looked like, or what the air felt like in her lungs, or the sounds the bones made as they rattled together on the beach.
Did she <i>choose</i> this?
Has she chosen anything at all in her life? Or was all of it, every action, every breath, determined long ago?
The quiet voice, the North in her, only grows smaller and smaller as she glances to the depths beneath her. "<i>Perhaps I could flee, take shelter in a cave, <font size="1">perhaps there is a way I could survive, <font size="0.4px">perhaps</font></font>...</i>"
No. She shakes her head. "<i>This is my game.</i>" She turns to face Jack with a wild smile. It is too late now to run, too late for peace. Too late for North, or even the monster she's become. If she had a choice before, she does not have one now. "<i>I will not end it with a knife in my back.</i>"
With a haunting wail, she kicks <i>hard</i> with fin-like legs to propel towards him. Her teeth are bared, ready to sink into his knife-bearing hand. It becomes boiling hot as the distance closes between them, and she must close her eyes against the heat.
It is over quickly.
The knife finds her throat.
Blood spills into the water faster than she would have expected. Her gills pump wildly in a pathetic struggle for air. All she can do is stare in surprise at her murderer through a thickening curtain of blood. Meanwhile her mind scrambles to comprehend her fleeting mortality. Her life does not flash before her eyes, her regrets don't come rising to the surface, there is no white light. There is only that look of confusion, that lack of comprehension. She moves her lips but nothing escapes her except more blood. She is trying to say something. Someone's name.
Jack pulls the knife out of her neck--
"<i>If you could see me now, Artemus.</i>"
--and buries it in her heart.
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<font face="Crimson " color="#000000" size="2px">
A game of tricks and treats.
It seemed so innocent at first. It was only this morning when she hunted for pearls and draped seaweed across her body. It was only this evening when she sank her weight into the sun-bleached skull at the edge of the water. It was only what, an hour ago when she first began to sing? Yet she can barely remember what the world above looked like, or what the air felt like in her lungs, or the sounds the bones made as they rattled together on the beach.
Did she <i>choose</i> this?
Has she chosen anything at all in her life? Or was all of it, every action, every breath, determined long ago?
The quiet voice, the North in her, only grows smaller and smaller as she glances to the depths beneath her. "<i>Perhaps I could flee, take shelter in a cave, <font size="1">perhaps there is a way I could survive, <font size="0.4px">perhaps</font></font>...</i>"
No. She shakes her head. "<i>This is my game.</i>" She turns to face Jack with a wild smile. It is too late now to run, too late for peace. Too late for North, or even the monster she's become. If she had a choice before, she does not have one now. "<i>I will not end it with a knife in my back.</i>"
With a haunting wail, she kicks <i>hard</i> with fin-like legs to propel towards him. Her teeth are bared, ready to sink into his knife-bearing hand. It becomes boiling hot as the distance closes between them, and she must close her eyes against the heat.
It is over quickly.
The knife finds her throat.
Blood spills into the water faster than she would have expected. Her gills pump wildly in a pathetic struggle for air. All she can do is stare in surprise at her murderer through a thickening curtain of blood. Meanwhile her mind scrambles to comprehend her fleeting mortality. Her life does not flash before her eyes, her regrets don't come rising to the surface, there is no white light. There is only that look of confusion, that lack of comprehension. She moves her lips but nothing escapes her except more blood. She is trying to say something. Someone's name.
Jack pulls the knife out of her neck--
"<i>If you could see me now, Artemus.</i>"
--and buries it in her heart.
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