11-20-2021, 11:46 AM
She is a dead girl drowning when she hears him.
(What would happen if she were to submerge her head and draw in a long breath? Would she cough up the frigid water or would it simply settle in her lungs the same way it has settled in her gut?)
She lifts her head and turns to look at him. Him, there on solid ground. Him, unapologetic in the way he has asked what she is.
She grins. She grins and the red eyes flash as she wades through the water, pushes her way through the ice floe so that it breaks apart, shredding the flesh as she passes. But the blood is thick as mud as it springs forth from the wounds, settling on the surface instead of dripping down her legs, her sides.
She grins and there is something maniacal in it. She struggles up out of the water, scrambling when her feet slip on ice. But she never looks away from his face, even as slips. Her focus is singular and it is shackled to the boy on the shore.
“I?” she asks, head tilted. “Am I?”
Finally, she stops and she stands only a few feet from him as she calls upon her magic.
(She had been all-powerful once, before he had dredged her up out of Hell and set her feet on solid ground. There had been so few things she could not do there in the underworld.)
But the magic is faulty here, surrounded by living things. So when she tries to show him what she is, the image is weak. It flickers, faded at its edges. But she wears it still, a reflection of his face cast upon her own countenance. It is his face, undoubtedly, but there is something grotesque in it, something twisted.
“I am you,” she tells him, still projecting his death mask back at him.
(What would happen if she were to submerge her head and draw in a long breath? Would she cough up the frigid water or would it simply settle in her lungs the same way it has settled in her gut?)
She lifts her head and turns to look at him. Him, there on solid ground. Him, unapologetic in the way he has asked what she is.
She grins. She grins and the red eyes flash as she wades through the water, pushes her way through the ice floe so that it breaks apart, shredding the flesh as she passes. But the blood is thick as mud as it springs forth from the wounds, settling on the surface instead of dripping down her legs, her sides.
She grins and there is something maniacal in it. She struggles up out of the water, scrambling when her feet slip on ice. But she never looks away from his face, even as slips. Her focus is singular and it is shackled to the boy on the shore.
“I?” she asks, head tilted. “Am I?”
Finally, she stops and she stands only a few feet from him as she calls upon her magic.
(She had been all-powerful once, before he had dredged her up out of Hell and set her feet on solid ground. There had been so few things she could not do there in the underworld.)
But the magic is faulty here, surrounded by living things. So when she tries to show him what she is, the image is weak. It flickers, faded at its edges. But she wears it still, a reflection of his face cast upon her own countenance. It is his face, undoubtedly, but there is something grotesque in it, something twisted.
“I am you,” she tells him, still projecting his death mask back at him.
@aldous