• Thud...thud...thud...
    "I can hear them..."
    "Moving..., dragging..".
    "They're alive..."
    A faint whisper.
    "They know I am too..."
    A fleeting reflection.
    "Don't worry..."
    A brief reassurance holding no truth.
    "I'm not like them..."
    Another reflection.
    “I would be never...”
    There a disturbance of light.
    “Will I..?”
    A creaking floorboard, falling dust.
    "They would never..."
    A pause for a breathy sigh.
    "Never accept a...disfigured..."
    A hand lightly creases the slim face.
    A handsome face, hidden in the dark... though only the eyes show.
    The figure turns, walking down the long corridor like shaft, built under the large estate. A phantom, an apparition that was never there. A flash of memories...


    -Break-

    Mother, I miss you...
    Why aren't you here, mother?
    I'm scared, the room is cold again...
    I can feel the cement against my back.
    The cold is holding on tight mother...
    Can I leave here mother?
    I promise I will behave...
    I hear voices again mother...
    Loud...
    You're yelling again...
    Yelling for father to come back...
    Why won't he come back?
    Why do you call me a monster, mother?
    I don't like monsters...
    I'm scared mother...
    You're throwing things again...
    Now you're really mad...
    Really mad...
    I don't like mad...
    It always means hurt...
    I don't want to be hurt, mother...
    Oh the door is open, mother...
    I can see the light of the stairs, mother...
    You are yelling at me now...
    Telling me I am a monster...
    I hate them.
    I hate monsters.
    Do I hate myself, mother?
    Does it mean I hate myself?
    I don't want them, not even a little bit.


    -Break-

    But you probably have monsters, too. They live in the closet, in the basement, under the stairs and under the bed. They have long creepy fingers, snake-like hair, dark creepy eyes, deep hallow cheeks and a fanged smiles.

    Mine doesn't though...

    It has slender and delicate fingers, long blond hair like golden threads weaved by an angel, bright sea-green eyes and shapely cheeks that turn oh-so-right when the bright smile weaves its way through showing a hint of the perfect white teeth.

    To me that's scary and that is my Mother.

    I don't know evil and I can't use that word, only bad kids can. And I can't be a bad kid.

    Mother says bad kids get punished. I don't want to be punished.

    I always do bad stuff and I always look like a bad kid too since my Father was a bad man for leaving his wife. Mother says my eyes are too blue, my nose too sharp, my face too short, my hair too black, my fingers too bony, my feet too long, and my height too tall. Mother always cuts my hair to the roots so you can't see it, and one time Mother also tried to make my nose cute but it didn't work. It only left it oh-so-crooked and bad.

    I remember it clearly, it was... oh it was September yes... my birthday. Everything changed that day, from then on, no more play days outside, no more playing in the park, no more bike rides and no more playing fetch with Lucky my little puppy.

    Mother came home drunk. Mother always did when relationships went bad. Mother was laughing and then looked at me. Mother said I didn't smile enough and I should be grinning because, after all, it was my birthday. I don't remember much, I never did when Mother was angry but I remember pain, lots of pain, on my face and then in my face. It hurt a lot, and I cried for so long, which made Mother angrier. I remember Mother yelling that I should be laughing, smiling like Mother was.

    I woke up next morning, it was dark, oh so so very dark. I went to the bathroom, oh my face hurt so. Then I saw another monster, it was young like me, so very young and it looked just like me. But its face was, oh its face was so hideous.

    The wide bloody cuts, running from his cheek to nearly his ear, all stitched up with white sutures or what used to be white now they were red, oh-so-very red. Every muscle holding the slim jaw in place was torn, blood warm and fluid ran down the slender cheek.

    My face was cut open into two held only by the white, bloody stitches.

    An eternal smile, oh such a hideous smile it was and I was to wear it forever.

    -Break-

    “I have seen the world change, morph, come alive again and perish once more,” a soft rumble echoes through the large chamber.

    “I have seen time fly by little by little yet faster still.” The being stalks to the boarded up window.

    “But no matter, I am trapped, I can leave nowhere, I cannot walk among men even out casts will not take me,” a contemplative tone over takes the low drawl.

    “I want to live again, To feel the rain, The fresh breath of air, to see the sun and the moon go through their daily battles, I want to be among life and those living it to its fullest,” A wishful sigh.

    “Yet...I am trapped, by the act of whim of a single being, of the Monster I no longer remember. “

    “Why?” He questions

    “WHY?”

    “WHY?!”

    “Tell me!”

    “Why am I different?!”

    “Why must I be one to suffer?!”

    “Why?!”

    “Why...?”

    "...why...” the being heaves a deep breath and stands, walking away from the disappearing sunlight.

    -Break-


    Howling wind, though the thicket of green leafed trees of spring, hidding the gasping voice of the young child running through the trees.

    Quickening breath melts into the sound of the malicious gales of laughter trailing quickly behind as she rushes forward trying to escape her persuers. Their voices taunting and tutoring in the sea of darkness behind her eyes, their eye lit with mirth from their cruelties.

    The small heeled shoe finally gives into the wet earth making her fall down onto her front, now left at the mercy of the group of taunting children. One of the older males steps forth kicking away the silver lined cane that she was holding on to, as if it was her only life line, and gives a crushing blow to the delicate hand that held the cane; her pure white, linen dress, now ruined with the muck of the earth, her pale hair caked in the mud.

    Laughing once more they turn around walking of the forest, leaving the whimpering child on the wet earth as if nothing had happened.

    The fair-haired child slowly gets up onto her knees, shakingly her pale, almost white orbs search out into the boundless darkness as her hand stretches forth hopping to find something to grasp. Her fingers brush against the flower-encursted handle of the cane, she quickly grasps it standing up onto her shaking legs. Slowly taking a step forward she places her hand against the hard bark of the tree, then taking a few steps forward she starts to walk in a random direction hoping that it is the right one.

    As she meanders through the forest going from tree to tree, hoping to find the edge of the thick jungle she senses wafts of roses, fresh, early srpind roses. Her pace quickens as she rushes forward hoping to find help where the roses are...

    -Break-

    A torn garden, ridden with aged trees, rampant weeds and planting pots long forgotten. No sign of the once elegance and granduer that it once enjoyed.

    Nothing but a single, bordered planting bed with the most delicate roses that eyes have ever seen. Delecate, beautiful yet haunting, Blood Roses.

    Droplets, they litter the blood shade petals, oozing from the center, covering the petals, running down the stem and into the groun, tears, the only word to describe the phenomenon, tears. Why do they cry so?

    TBC