Ficlet: "At dawn" - Harmodios and Aristogeiton.
This is the offspring of another challenge at "eros athanatos".
The challenge was to write a short ficlet inspired to the quote by Nietzsche: "When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares at you."
Rules: The piece had to be between 100 and 200 words (not a word longer), and the quote must appear into the ficlet. Whatever character, whatever pairing as long as it was historical. I chose Harmodios and Aristogeiton on the eve of the tyrants' murder.
The prize I won is this beautiful wallpaper made by Caitli, and inspired to the ficlet. The story can also be read in Italian here.
Title: At dawn
Author: Flora
Rating: Pg-13
Summary: Harmodios and Aristogeiton before their last dawn.
Notes: Thanks to susa_938 for her priceless help.
AT DAWN
Harmodios and Aristogeiton
I can clearly remember the day when, still a child, I fell into the swollen river.
I remember the slimy consistency of water as it dragged me down, toward a silent motionless abyss; I remember the feeling of choking, and that strange unnatural quietness.
That mad sense of invulnerability, and at the same time the piercing awareness I had run out of time - that there was none left for me.
And it’s all rushing back now, in lazy crests of memory, as I look at you sleeping, Harmodios - and dawn is rasping against your shut eyelids to remind me once again there is no time left.
Daybreak will bring about the thick red of blood - if ours or our enemies, I cannot know. But I can still feel that liquid taste of iron in my mouth - like that day - for water and blood are the same thing.
They feed the depths inside us - stagnant fluids which poison us, day after day after day.
After love, before drifting into sleep, you stared at me for a last time, and in your eyes you still held the unfailing faith of your youth - but I remained silent, for I knew the abyss would speak for me.
The abyss escorting this dawn which tortures me with her beastly claws - the abyss of what hasn’t been, and will never be; the chasm of all the chances we didn’t have and we’ll likely never have.
Dust and blood will cover our murderous flesh, before a silent emptiness comes to swallow us - there, where neither time nor sound exist.
Because abysses look at us Harmodios. Always. Constantly. And when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares at you, and there is nowhere to run to.
It stares at us.
And when I look into its fierce mad eyes tomorrow, I wish the abyss would smile at me.
The challenge was to write a short ficlet inspired to the quote by Nietzsche: "When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares at you."
Rules: The piece had to be between 100 and 200 words (not a word longer), and the quote must appear into the ficlet. Whatever character, whatever pairing as long as it was historical. I chose Harmodios and Aristogeiton on the eve of the tyrants' murder.
The prize I won is this beautiful wallpaper made by Caitli, and inspired to the ficlet. The story can also be read in Italian here.
Title: At dawn
Author: Flora
Rating: Pg-13
Summary: Harmodios and Aristogeiton before their last dawn.
Notes: Thanks to susa_938 for her priceless help.
AT DAWN
Harmodios and Aristogeiton
I can clearly remember the day when, still a child, I fell into the swollen river.
I remember the slimy consistency of water as it dragged me down, toward a silent motionless abyss; I remember the feeling of choking, and that strange unnatural quietness.
That mad sense of invulnerability, and at the same time the piercing awareness I had run out of time - that there was none left for me.
And it’s all rushing back now, in lazy crests of memory, as I look at you sleeping, Harmodios - and dawn is rasping against your shut eyelids to remind me once again there is no time left.
Daybreak will bring about the thick red of blood - if ours or our enemies, I cannot know. But I can still feel that liquid taste of iron in my mouth - like that day - for water and blood are the same thing.
They feed the depths inside us - stagnant fluids which poison us, day after day after day.
After love, before drifting into sleep, you stared at me for a last time, and in your eyes you still held the unfailing faith of your youth - but I remained silent, for I knew the abyss would speak for me.
The abyss escorting this dawn which tortures me with her beastly claws - the abyss of what hasn’t been, and will never be; the chasm of all the chances we didn’t have and we’ll likely never have.
Dust and blood will cover our murderous flesh, before a silent emptiness comes to swallow us - there, where neither time nor sound exist.
Because abysses look at us Harmodios. Always. Constantly. And when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares at you, and there is nowhere to run to.
It stares at us.
And when I look into its fierce mad eyes tomorrow, I wish the abyss would smile at me.