[241 -- ghost stories] in memoriam
Challenge: [241] Ghost stories
Title: In Memoriam
Word Count: 599
Spoilers: None
Synopsis: When you fall into the greedy clutches of nightmare-ghasts, you find that there’s no escape.
Notes: Oh, whyever not >8U Marluxia's creepyness had to start somewhere.
“Tell me that one about the Bog Queen,” you beg, tugging the sheets up to your chin.
Your sister grins and slowly shakes her head. “I can’t,” she sings. “You won’t be able to sleep tonight, and Ma will get angry at me for telling you scary stories again.”
“I en’t scared-” you begin hotly, fingers clenching into the shape of a fist as you tug angrily at your blanket. Jezance waves your protests off and leans against your mattress, propping herself up with her elbows.
“Oh?” she inquires pleasantly, twirling a lock of strawberry-blonde hair around a finger. “And who crept into Ma and Da’s room last night, carrying tales about me telling you ghost stories?”
You blush an angry scarlet. “Try me,” you grit out with a petulant twist of your lips, and she laughs.
“Fine. You asked for it, Lauriam. D’you want to hear the ‘un about the Headless Horseman?”
Anticipation crawls under your skin; you wriggle like an eel under your covers, until you’re curled up on your side, facing your sister. “Uh-huh.”
“Y’see, it goes like this…”
Her voice weaves you into a trance, and as she directs your gaze towards the sputtering candle-lamp on your bedside table, you can almost see the vivid images she describes arising from the flickering flames and spiralling into the air in curling wisps of smoke. When she snuffs out the candle and bids you goodnight, you watch her departure with sleepy eyes and mumble out a groggy entreaty to keep the door open.
Soon, you lose yourself to misty dreams and cracks of light spilling through bright keyholes, until everything blurs and you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.
When you fall into the greedy clutches of nightmare-ghasts, you find that there’s no escape.
You dream of lying in the sun amongst your Da’s wheat-fields, only to find the skies suddenly overcast and consumed by a tide of shadow; you are aware of pain and the pervasive reek of rotting flesh, and realise only belatedly that the foetid stench comes from you. You’re lying on the parched earth with your sternum crushed and your chest cavity cracked open, exposed ribs arching towards the sky in graceful curves of white. In a terrible haze of confusion you grasp blindly at the hollow space where your heart should be, and find nothing.
When you scream, no sound comes out.
You dream of your brain melting and leaking fatty and viscous from your ears, puddling on the winter-hard ground pillowing your head. You dream of the flesh slowly being stripped from your bones until there’s nothing left, and you’re just a skeleton on the ground, splayed and stretched out on display.
You dream of a black-swathed Grim Reaper who plays a silent game of cat’s cradle with your miraculously-restored self, a green-shafted scythe cradled in the crook of its arm. You raise your eyes to the pink arch of the crescent-blade, and back down to the hands wrapped in frayed string, seeing strong, nimble digits instead of gleaming metacarpals.
“Who’re you, mister?” you inquire timidly, trying to peer beneath the eagle-talon curve of the cowl.
There is no answer.
That was almost twenty years ago. You dismissed your dreams back then as the hallucinations brought on by an overactive imagination, but now, you wish you had seen the signs sooner.
You wish you had heeded them.
“Let me tell you a story,” you hiss to the aster-pale witchling who could almost pass as a ghost herself. “Make sure you sit tight and listen, little blossom. Listen and learn.”
Title: In Memoriam
Word Count: 599
Spoilers: None
Synopsis: When you fall into the greedy clutches of nightmare-ghasts, you find that there’s no escape.
Notes: Oh, whyever not >8U Marluxia's creepyness had to start somewhere.
“Tell me that one about the Bog Queen,” you beg, tugging the sheets up to your chin.
Your sister grins and slowly shakes her head. “I can’t,” she sings. “You won’t be able to sleep tonight, and Ma will get angry at me for telling you scary stories again.”
“I en’t scared-” you begin hotly, fingers clenching into the shape of a fist as you tug angrily at your blanket. Jezance waves your protests off and leans against your mattress, propping herself up with her elbows.
“Oh?” she inquires pleasantly, twirling a lock of strawberry-blonde hair around a finger. “And who crept into Ma and Da’s room last night, carrying tales about me telling you ghost stories?”
You blush an angry scarlet. “Try me,” you grit out with a petulant twist of your lips, and she laughs.
“Fine. You asked for it, Lauriam. D’you want to hear the ‘un about the Headless Horseman?”
Anticipation crawls under your skin; you wriggle like an eel under your covers, until you’re curled up on your side, facing your sister. “Uh-huh.”
“Y’see, it goes like this…”
Her voice weaves you into a trance, and as she directs your gaze towards the sputtering candle-lamp on your bedside table, you can almost see the vivid images she describes arising from the flickering flames and spiralling into the air in curling wisps of smoke. When she snuffs out the candle and bids you goodnight, you watch her departure with sleepy eyes and mumble out a groggy entreaty to keep the door open.
Soon, you lose yourself to misty dreams and cracks of light spilling through bright keyholes, until everything blurs and you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.
When you fall into the greedy clutches of nightmare-ghasts, you find that there’s no escape.
You dream of lying in the sun amongst your Da’s wheat-fields, only to find the skies suddenly overcast and consumed by a tide of shadow; you are aware of pain and the pervasive reek of rotting flesh, and realise only belatedly that the foetid stench comes from you. You’re lying on the parched earth with your sternum crushed and your chest cavity cracked open, exposed ribs arching towards the sky in graceful curves of white. In a terrible haze of confusion you grasp blindly at the hollow space where your heart should be, and find nothing.
When you scream, no sound comes out.
You dream of your brain melting and leaking fatty and viscous from your ears, puddling on the winter-hard ground pillowing your head. You dream of the flesh slowly being stripped from your bones until there’s nothing left, and you’re just a skeleton on the ground, splayed and stretched out on display.
You dream of a black-swathed Grim Reaper who plays a silent game of cat’s cradle with your miraculously-restored self, a green-shafted scythe cradled in the crook of its arm. You raise your eyes to the pink arch of the crescent-blade, and back down to the hands wrapped in frayed string, seeing strong, nimble digits instead of gleaming metacarpals.
“Who’re you, mister?” you inquire timidly, trying to peer beneath the eagle-talon curve of the cowl.
There is no answer.
That was almost twenty years ago. You dismissed your dreams back then as the hallucinations brought on by an overactive imagination, but now, you wish you had seen the signs sooner.
You wish you had heeded them.
“Let me tell you a story,” you hiss to the aster-pale witchling who could almost pass as a ghost herself. “Make sure you sit tight and listen, little blossom. Listen and learn.”