Author: DocPaul
Spoilers: Up to Cry Your Name.
Into the dark, where sound vibrates and echoes on and on, she ran in her
mind, but her body was frozen still.
A small figure’s body shivered in
the dark, but not from the cold. Fear was like a skin of ice over her small and
fragile bones, rattling them together so she could almost hear the helpless,
hollow sound of them. And stems of long roses, red as blood wilted in her hands.
Only a fool would trust their care to her.
No place to hide, no haven or
refuge, this was the stand. There was never anywhere to hide. Not from Him, and
not from herself. He was coming. She could hear the heavy, deliberate footsteps,
the banging of the hard shoe on black tar, growing louder and louder until the
sound replaced her heartbeat, coming to just outside her door. Glancing to the
window, looking for a way out, a way to avoid Him. Maybe the freedom of falling
would be better than what was on the other side. Maybe if she chose to fall,
there would be redemption in it being her own free will. Maybe then He would
come for her, take her instead.
Freedom in death, or freedom from death,
it mattered not. She could almost feel the pricking of the glass as it broke
around her body, shattering the death silence, as her body hurled to the ground,
to lay broken. Climbing from the bed, she fell over the boy.
She was
afraid. Afraid of what was beyond the door, and more afraid of the cost of her
own extinction, but the fear extended to a sleeping body on her floor. He was
deathly pale, a prince asleep in a spray of light, and she in the darkness
watched him slumber. The very look of him was more beautiful than the coming of
dawn, if only day would come.
The door opened, and it was a nightmare
within the nightmare, as it came for him, the sleeping one. It was dark against
dark with the faintness of light behind the figure casting the shadow long and
wide, creating a daunting faceless figure.
“Please don’t. Please
don’t………” Running her hands over the precious sleeping face, trying to feel
warmth where there was none, shaking his body, and finally throwing hers over
his to give him warmth.
The plea was a scream in her head, remaining
unspoken and silent. Begging wouldn’t stop Him, and a sound would bring
attention to them sooner than she was ready, before she could be prepared. She
had ran so fast, and so hard, for so long, to find she was running in place.
The hand reached past her neck, the bony joints creaking and pale in the
dark. It was the wet softness of the dew on the falling pedals that made her
look up, to see the rain of blood red rose pedals falling on them, on the
beautiful one. She tried to push the hand away, to push Him away, tried to make
her body smaller, small enough that He couldn't find a way in, a way past her,
to the one she protected. She couldn’t let it inside, but it was worthless to
try, because He was unstoppable. So finally she begged, too desperate to stop,
too terrified to not try. And she screamed, a long broken cry, begging to be
taken instead. Her cries were of pain and despair, when He pushed her aside, and
took away the sleeping beautiful boy covered in pedals of blood.
Looking
down as the beloved one, brother of her soul was taken his eyes opened and
stared at her in pain. No air. No breath. The cold trickle of his life’s blood
ran over her skin staining her paleness with small rivers of regret and pain,
cutting furrows in her skin. Her scream started in the stomach, below the ribs,
and grew in proportion until like a roar in her head, it bellowed forth like a
torrent of sound, like the world was screaming.
“Alex!” She flailed out,
using her fist, her nails, her teeth, but somehow she remained
pinned.
“Maria, come back to me, Maria!”
It was Michael
that held her now. But she was lost still in the nightmare, unable to come fully
aware of anything but being bound, gagged, and helpless. The dream conquered her
spirit, and held her hostage. He could tell from the way her eyes remained
unfocused, wild and blind, and as her breast lay tight upon his, he could feel
the wild frantic thundering of her heart, banging in her chest like a bird
trapped in a cage. And her skin was cold; she was all so cold.
He cried
her name, over and over, calling her back to him, back from that dark place of
shadows, pressing her body close as possible as if that would give her warmth.
He could smell the fear, her fear. It had him by the throat, ripping out his
heart along with hers.
She fought him, gasping for air like a drowning
victim until in desperation he pressed his mouth to hers as if to give her
breath, life. Maria went limp in his arms, all the fight gone.
“You’re
all right, you’re safe. I’ve got you.” He rocked her back and forth trying to
bring comfort to them both. She was so cold, so he gathered the trashed bedding
around them together and wrapped them both in it as best he could without
letting her go. Michael couldn’t let her go. “You’re home.” Michael reached down
and kissed her deeply continuing to rock them both. “God, baby, you’re so cold.”
Pulling her even closer into his body he refused to release her long enough to
get more blankets. “Hold on to me. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
“I’m
okay.” Her voice was small, almost as small as her body. “I’m all right.” But
she wasn’t, not yet. He had to bend even closer to hear her whispers. “Death
takes them away.” The small sob broke him even more than he knew it was possible
to be broken.
“God, Maria, just hold on to me. I need it.”
His
solemn words finally broke into her private hell. And she opened her arms to
pull him into her, wrapping unsteady arms around him, resting deep in his arms,
as he rocked them. She burrowed her face into his shoulder. “I smelled you, and
then I heard you. But I couldn’t find you, and I thought that I failed you too,
and it took you away with Alex.”
“I’m right here. Right here.” It had
ripped him. He couldn’t begin to tell her what it did to him these past few
hours watching her unsettled sleep, the tossing of her blankets from the bed,
the small cries she made in her sleep. The sobbing in her dreams escaping to the
silent night air. Hearing her broken heart wounded him deeper than he knew he
could ever be touched. “I’m right here,” he murmured in her hair, pressing his
lips to her temple.
Michael never noticed the small figure of Amy DeLuca
watching them from the door, or even when the figure left silently. He just
continued to hold her, kiss her, and keeping her safe in his arms until the
night claimed them back into an unsettled sleep.
It was a little while
later that Michael woke to see the light from the other room, and hear the
telltale sniffing. Kissing her gently on the forehead, Michael left the bed and
covered Maria’s sleeping form with covers to keep her warm until he could come
back, himself. Leaving the room, he detoured into the kitchen to make a hot
buttered rum. Somehow he suspected that Amy was feeling the cold like the rest
of them.
Coldness was a strange thing. It took up residence in places you
never knew existed.