For days he had followed her, or at least the scattered passing of time Anisse lived currently had indicated to her this. She would watch from alleyways as he would stop to ask local inkeep about her, sometimes complete strangers, staying just out of his sight. He never pressed his search too hard on any one person, dampening his own desperation with a taste of liquor. The bottle he would tip to his lips shined, holding the glare of street lights. It reminded Anisse of a glass jar under a peek of torch light in a dark, dank basement.
The ironic similarities made her shiver.
She was afraid of him, afraid he would look her way. Her dread spiked to a new high when he spotted her watching, and gave chase. No! Like a deer she bolted into the darkness of a stone forest, heavy boots spurning her on like a one-man calvary on the hunt. She hit the brick wall that blocked freedom too hard, the small form beneath layers of robes thrown back onto the dirty ground at her pursuer’s feet. Quickly, she scurried back to the brick, back against it. Her nails dug so hard into the brick that they cracked and split around her soft fingers.
“Anna! Anna…” His soft voice seemed to pound through her skull, ripping away at the cold peace of apathy. Memories seeped into the crack of her mind his voice created. A child’s loss. Hurt. Missing, yearning. Mother’s darling. His fingers were on her shoulders, trying to shake her, and his words were a jumble. What was he saying…?
Brother…
He was forcing her into his arms, whispering. Holding. Hugging. Comforting…
Comfort was for children.
“…..let. Go.” Her whisper grated under the spidery strings of her hair. His frock coat was hard, creaked against her, and she shoved to get out of the imprisonment of his arms. His soft amber eyes were a disease, trying to melt her defenses. She hated it him for it.
She was not the child he remembered her to be, but his denial would allow him no intelligence. Again his arms reached for her, stammering out the beginnings of reconciliation, of some foolhardy hope. Talk of family. Lips curled into a mad sneer as her mind folded into itself to heal what damage he had wrought. The sound of cold metal scraped through the darkness, and something quick sliced through the air. The man a child would have called brother stooped to his knees, wounded.
“Family? A union upon the blood and souls of lambs in offering. That is all family ever was to me, ‘brother‘.” She spat the last word out upon him, her voice cutting through the air like her own dagger. His blood dripped upon its curved edge as she stepped past him, sheathing it carefully, lovingly. “Let me alone,” she started, her whisper vicious with threat. “…or you will find your time upon this festering world shorter than the rest.”
Having ran into the alleyway a scared girl, Anisse meandered out of its darkness with the mind of a cultist.
With the need to make an offering.
No comments:
Post a Comment