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impertinences) wrote2011-10-28 03:58 pm
impertinences) wrote2011-10-28 03:58 pm
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Here we go. My attempt at - horror?
I'm not sure. I wanted to do "5 ways that Addison Grant Could Die" and then this happened.
-
Addison dreams. Her teeth are falling out, white and effectively useless now, caught in her open palm. The blood comes next, filling her throat, spilling across her tongue – thick and copper tasting. She should be screaming, but the sound won’t come, it’s blocked. She doubles over, teeth spilling from her hand and clattering to the floor, while the blood keeps coming till it pours from her mouth and her body heaves and she’s jerking up in her own bed. The almost-morning hours of night where she’s safe, secure, and her living heart is throbbing in her chest.
Gradually, she calms. Turns to her side where Mischa is motionless, but he’s left her half-uncovered and chilled. Or half-chilled: his arm and shoulder pressing against her are icy, but the rest of her is warm from a fresh duvet (china-white with a delicate rose pattern, a hand-sewn heirloom from her grandmother). So half of her is warm and pliant and the other half is frozen. The dream is already vanishing but goose bumps rise on her arms, and she rubs them. Something there, she thinks, lingering in that dream consciousness, something that filled her with perception and foreboding.
Sharp as a tack, she has a moment of sudden awareness, still sitting stark straight in the bed and narrowing her eyes to scan the room, she dances her fingers over the blanket to search for Mischa’s hand. The hour is oppressive, and Addison imagines that her home is not empty, but alive and crouching, malevolent. No, she tells herself, no – it’s just the silence. Still, she searches, the back of her mind wondering how three inches of space can feel like thirty feet. Why she cannot find him beside her now.
A scratch. A tingle of noise.
Her head whips around, her heart leaping in her throat, and she breaths loudly. A long, nagging moment passes. The adrenaline tightens her concentration; she channels it the way she does each opening night of a performance. Finally, she hears it again – like claws being drawn across a window screen. When Addison exhales, her breath mists out, and she swallows wetly. She’s positive she can hear a footfall now.
It’s murderously cold, she realizes. She’s shivering. The blanket is too thin for this type of cold, her lilac slip only as heavy as paper and – Addison’s mouth tightens. She looks at her palms, fingers the duvet thoughtfully. It’s August. A record-high hot month. And yet she is frigid now.
Resolve broken, she snaps her arm outward and pulls on the covers. “Mischa.” A little urgently, but her voice low, she tries to find his arm to shake. She can’t and when she turns to look he is not there. No familiar shape indenting the pillow, no draw of his hip against the mattress. Just her hand searching across empty space.
The sound of something shattering rips through her confusion. Carefully, boldly, she slips from her bed, walks on tiptoes towards the open door. The cold worsens – she didn’t think it could be possible, but all of her body rises and peaks. She hugs herself, peeking around a corner cautiously, and stops when the sound of laughter splits the air. From the kitchen, she’s sure. Ten more steps and a half-left turn. Dread falls down her spine, but she forces herself to walk.
Meeting the turn, Addison finds that her hand has gripped the shining surface of the counter and her breathing is hard, labored, harsh. There’s a woman standing in her kitchen. Dragging itself closer by sheer will because it’s been worn down to a husk, milk skin stretched over bones, blood on the neck and bruises. Fingernails torn. Addison stares at the thing, recognizing the blonde hair turned frail, the dancer’s build – the shade of herself, laughing. Laughing at her in cruel mockery.
“Addison?” a voice from behind her creaks.
She spins, forgetting her footing clumsily, bangs into the side of the counter and gasps. It is there, suddenly, standing close enough that its skeletal fingers are reaching for her throat. She can see the heavy circles of death beneath its eyes, catch the scent of rotting on its breath.
Addison shouts, throwing her hands out, a dull throb of pain still hitting her from where her side hits the counter edge again. Panic like fire filling her senses when clammy, unnatural fingers close around her neck. She thinks she can feel her bones cracking while her lungs burn for oxygen and her pulse titters like a rabbit’s. What she hears is ghostly laughter and ridicule.
She is still standing in the kitchen when she awakens. Mischa’s heavy dead hands are on her shoulders, stroking her neck. The beseeching tone of his voice as it repeats her name. She gasps, and he looks startled but also relieved, pulling her sweat-soaked body to his. Barefooted, she’s barely an inch shorter than him, his permanently adolescent body similar to her lithe frame. When his eyes question, Addison shakes her head, unable to explain when the fear is still so fresh. She kisses him instead.
The hour has not changed. Her home is the same.
She will make tea, and Mischa will tell her the signs of night terrors or the probability of sleepwalking. All the while she thinks of bearded men and the comfort of a broad chest, of heated skin and the security of large hands on her waist. She sips her drink and contemplates, turns her face when he tries to move aside her newly loosened hair.
Addison asks him to leave for a little while, turns her body away from his own lifeless one, but meets his gaze. Mischa stares like would like to tear the truth out of her, raw and off-balance because, for once, she’s the one with secrets he can only imagine.
I'm not sure. I wanted to do "5 ways that Addison Grant Could Die" and then this happened.
-
Addison dreams. Her teeth are falling out, white and effectively useless now, caught in her open palm. The blood comes next, filling her throat, spilling across her tongue – thick and copper tasting. She should be screaming, but the sound won’t come, it’s blocked. She doubles over, teeth spilling from her hand and clattering to the floor, while the blood keeps coming till it pours from her mouth and her body heaves and she’s jerking up in her own bed. The almost-morning hours of night where she’s safe, secure, and her living heart is throbbing in her chest.
Gradually, she calms. Turns to her side where Mischa is motionless, but he’s left her half-uncovered and chilled. Or half-chilled: his arm and shoulder pressing against her are icy, but the rest of her is warm from a fresh duvet (china-white with a delicate rose pattern, a hand-sewn heirloom from her grandmother). So half of her is warm and pliant and the other half is frozen. The dream is already vanishing but goose bumps rise on her arms, and she rubs them. Something there, she thinks, lingering in that dream consciousness, something that filled her with perception and foreboding.
Sharp as a tack, she has a moment of sudden awareness, still sitting stark straight in the bed and narrowing her eyes to scan the room, she dances her fingers over the blanket to search for Mischa’s hand. The hour is oppressive, and Addison imagines that her home is not empty, but alive and crouching, malevolent. No, she tells herself, no – it’s just the silence. Still, she searches, the back of her mind wondering how three inches of space can feel like thirty feet. Why she cannot find him beside her now.
A scratch. A tingle of noise.
Her head whips around, her heart leaping in her throat, and she breaths loudly. A long, nagging moment passes. The adrenaline tightens her concentration; she channels it the way she does each opening night of a performance. Finally, she hears it again – like claws being drawn across a window screen. When Addison exhales, her breath mists out, and she swallows wetly. She’s positive she can hear a footfall now.
It’s murderously cold, she realizes. She’s shivering. The blanket is too thin for this type of cold, her lilac slip only as heavy as paper and – Addison’s mouth tightens. She looks at her palms, fingers the duvet thoughtfully. It’s August. A record-high hot month. And yet she is frigid now.
Resolve broken, she snaps her arm outward and pulls on the covers. “Mischa.” A little urgently, but her voice low, she tries to find his arm to shake. She can’t and when she turns to look he is not there. No familiar shape indenting the pillow, no draw of his hip against the mattress. Just her hand searching across empty space.
The sound of something shattering rips through her confusion. Carefully, boldly, she slips from her bed, walks on tiptoes towards the open door. The cold worsens – she didn’t think it could be possible, but all of her body rises and peaks. She hugs herself, peeking around a corner cautiously, and stops when the sound of laughter splits the air. From the kitchen, she’s sure. Ten more steps and a half-left turn. Dread falls down her spine, but she forces herself to walk.
Meeting the turn, Addison finds that her hand has gripped the shining surface of the counter and her breathing is hard, labored, harsh. There’s a woman standing in her kitchen. Dragging itself closer by sheer will because it’s been worn down to a husk, milk skin stretched over bones, blood on the neck and bruises. Fingernails torn. Addison stares at the thing, recognizing the blonde hair turned frail, the dancer’s build – the shade of herself, laughing. Laughing at her in cruel mockery.
“Addison?” a voice from behind her creaks.
She spins, forgetting her footing clumsily, bangs into the side of the counter and gasps. It is there, suddenly, standing close enough that its skeletal fingers are reaching for her throat. She can see the heavy circles of death beneath its eyes, catch the scent of rotting on its breath.
Addison shouts, throwing her hands out, a dull throb of pain still hitting her from where her side hits the counter edge again. Panic like fire filling her senses when clammy, unnatural fingers close around her neck. She thinks she can feel her bones cracking while her lungs burn for oxygen and her pulse titters like a rabbit’s. What she hears is ghostly laughter and ridicule.
She is still standing in the kitchen when she awakens. Mischa’s heavy dead hands are on her shoulders, stroking her neck. The beseeching tone of his voice as it repeats her name. She gasps, and he looks startled but also relieved, pulling her sweat-soaked body to his. Barefooted, she’s barely an inch shorter than him, his permanently adolescent body similar to her lithe frame. When his eyes question, Addison shakes her head, unable to explain when the fear is still so fresh. She kisses him instead.
The hour has not changed. Her home is the same.
She will make tea, and Mischa will tell her the signs of night terrors or the probability of sleepwalking. All the while she thinks of bearded men and the comfort of a broad chest, of heated skin and the security of large hands on her waist. She sips her drink and contemplates, turns her face when he tries to move aside her newly loosened hair.
Addison asks him to leave for a little while, turns her body away from his own lifeless one, but meets his gaze. Mischa stares like would like to tear the truth out of her, raw and off-balance because, for once, she’s the one with secrets he can only imagine.