Echoed Ruins

It mesmerised me. That beautiful disc embedded in the velvet sky. Its silver threading into my eye sockets, imprinting into my soul.
It created a sort of cradle to the debilitated ruins that threw veils of shadows out in front of me, I found myself tracing them subconsciously.
My mind was peaceful: for the time being, I was letting the delicate silver fill my being, it created a sort of bubble in the pit of my stomach. Everything felt detached. Like I wasn’t quite here (or there). It made me smile. A little.
The droopy abbey had a sort of forgotten sadness about it, its decrepit, drab stones cracked with veins of age that had maybe once pulsed with life with vibrant plants exploding from baths of sun and soil that wasn’t cracked and grey.
But for now its towering architecture and vast walls were empty shells, hollow, black shadows that were nothing more, than simply shadows.
However as I approached the ruin the sense of da ja vu washed over me making me pause ever so slightly and a small frown to pinch my eye brows together.
I pressed my chapped lips together in a harsh thin line and tried too think but the more I did the more I forgot.
An earthly smell kicked up as I dug my toes into the compacted stones and soil of the path - creating a small eruption of partials swarm in the air.
Why was I here? I couldn’t remember. It was like some one had pulled the silk ribbon of my reality and now it had scattered like shards of glass inside me, its sharps edged puncturing my peaceful state and letting a slight feeling off panic leak out through out me.
Trying to control the sudden spasm of emotion I took in a deep breath, it felt unnatural in my lungs and caught in my throat. How many time had I breathed before for it too feel unnatural? I shook my head in frustration and continued to walk into the abbeys grand mouth.
The arch of the abbey came with an unexpected wash of rawness, a bitter cold that grated at my frayed nerves but I disregarded it. How ever the whole night hung with a thin sheet of that eerie coldness, the only coldness that is possible too shudder your spine how ever many duvets that are boiling your skin.
I let my pale, numb finger tips brush along the walls uneven surface as I came out into the middle off the abbey, that had long fallen down, betraying the moons attempt too hide from me. I scowled at it.
“You’re my only friend out here moon, why so unwilling too be seen?” my voice peeled out sadly, ringing round the deathly silence. I was replied by a faint squawking of crows far off in the distance, their scraping noise ripping through the still air.
I sighed and casually glanced across the arch out by the deep grey tombstones that were perched in beds of thorn’s teeth.
There was a figure.
I felt my simmering heart make an uneven jump and my throat constrict slightly. I dry swallowed but the swelling lump wouldn’t disappear. My mind tugged for me to run, it itched my legs but I was intrigued so I turned too marble instead and stood my ground.
Is it possible too have a white shadow? Because that was the only way I found my self being able too explain it. It was distorted and unclear, but defiantly a person stood by the tombs. Cold sweat welled up on my palms. It was too far away, I really couldn’t se- I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them.
Gone.
Like smoke carried on a gust of wind, it was gone but it still left a disturbance in the air. I controlled my breath from racketing my lungs and put it down too something else. Anything else that didn’t mean it had to be explained.
I felt a convulsion of guilt run like a spark through my veins but I was unsure why, so I pushed that aside too and imagined I was cleansing my mind with a flawless white. Lily petals falling, falling; their tips blissfully tinted in a soft pink. I inhaled the mundane scent of this place and let my lilac lids flutter open so spots of silver could bubble into my vision once more.
I shook my head and aimlessly wondered towards an arch that lead into …
I wondered what this place once was. I leaned my back against the coolness of the stone and stared into the penumbra of the shadows.
Flash.
Walls lined with books of dark royal covers; the smell of leather filling me; printed gold letters reflecting black ink that was spilling like glass beads from a pot; a small round table; breathing of a monk hunched over a book and parchment.
And yet as I looked round me it was a small desolate room, dark as the pupils of my eyes. With a single, glassless window letting in a strip of light that mocked me, the room was laughing at me, playing with my mind. I could see the smile painted on its smug lips that were cracked through its crumbling walls. Crumbling, see? HA you’re crumbling. There’s no library in here, your simply nothing! It curved corners echoed my thoughts, although how did thoughts echo in a room? I dug my cold slender fingers through my hair so it pinned into my scalp.
The idea of ripping my head off was satisfactory right now.
I could hear the crows again… it seemed… closer.

They rattled through the walls.
They were alone in this place, it was so empty the silence was madly loud, like thunder too my heart that had began too race again. I’d seen what I’d seen, or had I? I was flashing through the years. I sniggered. That was wild, delirious, demented, deranged. Maybe I was all of those things.
I didn’t know.
I turned round hastily and padded from the room back into the emptiness, the moon had slid behind a flossy grey cloud now, its edges tinged in a dark satin purple that bruised the night cruelly.
Complete darkness now abominated it, so dark it was pressing down at my chest like a weight, making each breath thick, like breathing water. Dragging my lungs down as my heart rose in my throat, compressing my sanity and welcoming my insanity. That thought made a hysterical giggle cackle from my lips, but it was a laugh I no longer recognised and I found the horror of it swelling my tongue and silencing me. I glanced round back at the arch that went too the garden, scanning the gaunt horizon.
The figure. White. Now less… distorted.
The figure was closer now. In fact it snatched the breath from my lungs and span my eyes.
The crows squawked.
I found my legs sprinting me too the old chapter house. Over the cobbles, their vast dips and uneven floor.
I lunged, my thoughts scattering behind me. My breath and heart dancing as uneven as each other now.
How did I know it was the old chapter house? Too me it looked like yet another frail room looking out onto the admonishing forest. The forest crowned the sky on top of its spindly silver branches, branches that were stretching up too things they’d never reach, cradling the stars with their harsh long fingers and picking at the sky too the rhythmic beat of the wind.
The moons light was ebbing back a little but I didn’t count on it.
I looked back around only too gasp in shock.
The room was intact. A group of sacrosanct monks sat in a circle. One monk in the middle, on the floor crying in desperation repeating his sin over and over and over and over, his hair covering his melancholy face. Oh the angst.
But there wasn’t any one there, and the walls were in perish. But It’d been as real as a memory.
Memory.
In a 14th century building, makes sense! I snarled too myself sarcastically.
The crow’s squawked. A lot closer now, I was surprised I couldn’t see them, as if they were doing it on purpose just for dramatic effect. Or too annoy me.
Or warn me. It sounded like they were crying out, sending rolls of sound waves over their obsidian plumule.
Fear was creeping up inside me now, curdling my insides. Entwining with my acumen, unwanted ivy wrapping its tentacles substantially tight round the hand that was grasping onto my reality : causing it too let go. Its exultation sparkled the emeralds of its sleek skin as my eyes widened and tears brimmed my thick frame of lashes, dripping off them like glossy dew.
I felt the tears roll down my cheeks as the perplex and trepidation forced me into the most wretched part of my mind. Because although I could not see the scene any more, his desperate cries of his sins kept repeating under the breath of the night’s obscurity, his sins were breathing on my ear. Whispering. Biting. Like a – “Alicccccia.”
My head flicked up as the salt started to weep through my lips.
“Alicia, Alicccccccia.”
The figure had followed.
It was a sort of taught with a serpents hiss.
“Aliciaa.”
I turned, with tears blurring my vision and burning my throat. Panic raging through out my body so hard I could of vomited. Fear crippling my sense and allowing instinct too transform my mind.
Everything blurred round me as I ran, my world was spinning under my feet.
I pounded up the turning steps. They echoed, bouncing round me and off the walls, crashing with my breath and thrashing heart.
Through the smell of my own boiling blood there came a decaying, wooden sort of smell as I brushed past the rough exterior of the rotting wooden door, the bleak cold bolts and penetrating, rusted nails.
Into blackness.
I felt everything spin round me.
I tilted my head up too the ceiling, exposing my pale, swallowing throat, too scream my insides out. I felt so trapped. There was no one too run too. No real world.
Then I saw the ceiling. Huge burgundy, abundant panels of wood created an architectural arch that ran right through the high, large room. I let my head fall back down.
Rows of cold wooden beads lined the wall miserably, and although I couldn’t see the men there was a gentle murmur of some sort of twisted prayers lingered in the room that very much so put satin in my head. Shadows abducted the room.
Empty hollowness screamed at me, told me too turn back. I took a step forward.
Footsteps.
Running up the stairs behind me. Echoing through the whole room. Approaching my back.
I span round.
Nothing was there. The top of the stairs was empty.
A white flash corrupted the room out the corner of my eye. I span. My breath panting, my chest burning so hard I could of ripped my heart out.
“Is that what you want!” I screamed with insanity. “My heart!?” my breath was out of control.
My heart numb.
A flash of white again, advancing on me. FLASH. I span round to face it.
Nothing was there.
I turned back and the beds were gone. It was back too the ruin. Because they weren’t really there, were they? Were they? Who was I expecting an answer from? No one.
Silence.
Nothing.
“Alicia.”
Spinning round I was faced with the white figure, I still couldn’t see his face. The crows were squawking so loud now. I herd some one scream.
An ear piercing ripped out blood filled scream.
It wasn’t until my throat heaved raw I realised it was me. I turned and ran. But the wall was dead, my slick palms slapped against it as I threw myself at it. Hysterical sobs breaking my face as tears washed me.
I turned and slid down the wall as the figure approached, my eyes flickering hopelessly for an exit. My eyes swelled up in my skull.
“Aciliaaa.” It hissed. Its distorted face was beginning too flicker into detail now.
My limbs aching I pushed myself up and threw myself out of an arch way that would of once been some sort of swinging door too a second floor. As I fell I fell into a different… memory. A memory that couldn’t off been my own because I hadn’t seen it before until now.
I landed in the corner of a cold room while I was still falling, the room of the abbey, I wasn’t sure which one. It looked like a study, with a desk and chairs, ink and parchment. Dim soft lighting and dark, simply decorated walls. There was a crimson rug stretched out on the floor that had faded distressingly. And a lady was stood there, her dark falling hair in ripples down her back. Her skin as pale as the moon itself, petal flushed cheek bones. That harsh scraped look in her eyes that pulled shadows from cobwebs.
There was a little boy in front of her, he looked terrified. Tears were leaking from his eyes.
I remembered him. His name was… his name… I racketed my brain.
“Arthur.” she ordered, but too the boy. She raised a cross that was clutched in her white knuckles, whispering prayers around her. “You’ve sinned.”
“No..” he trembled, he must have been six or so. “Please believe me I haven’t.” his voice sounded like a distance nursery rhyme.
“LIER!” she screeched, her hoarse voice ripping round the room and making him shudder and shrink away. “I don’t have time for liars. I’ve tried everything too drag the devil from you.” She snarled in disappointment, a sort of animal radiating her being.
He nodded, memories of what she did previously flooding him making him step further away till he was up against the wall.
“I’m.. I’m not possessed p – please.” He pleaded.
A cold, high laugh peeled from her lips. “You’re possessed by satin Arthur, this is all an act.” She insisted.
“No, no please. They’ve told you before that isn’t real. They, they warned you. Its all in your head-“
“THAT’S where you’re wrong!” She was hysterical now; I could see a mad look on her face. “God sent me too do this work! He said get Satan off the earth, and if I cant get it out of you then…” she trailed off, looking into nothing with a hungry look on her eyes. I noticed the sofa pulled up too the door and gave a shudder.
“That’s not true…” he could barley speak any more, he was so scared, tears were filling his throat. Her eyes flamed as she took a step forward to wards him with the large cross raised higher.
“Oh but it is, I can see him in your eyes!” she screeched. She was disillusioned. That was clear enough. I wanted too get up and save the child but I couldn’t, I didn’t even under stand why I was here. But fear was churning me over and over. I could taste my blood on my gums as I ran my tongue over my teeth repeatedly.
“Please, Alicia.” I froze looking at the child. Thinking he must of seen me, huddled here. But he was staring at the evil woman that was clutching too the cross like it was her life.
Wait… was that me? From my past?
There was banging on the door now.
”Let us in now.” Panicked men’s voices arose from the other side.
“DADDY!” the boy screamed, his wide, innocent eyes staring at the door, then too … the other me. “Don’t please don’t!” He whispered.
I mouthed the words with her as it flooded back too me.
“Only. GOD. Tells. Me. What to do.” She screamed and bought the cross down into the boys flesh splitting his chest and punctuating deep into his flesh. Knocking him too the ground. His face rolled in pain and his eyes popped. She tugged it out, lashings of dark blood spurting out with it, rubies on her face, and trickled down the wall. His mouth opened as she bought it down again, his eyes following it distraught, and again, and again. She pulled it out of his tiny body and plunged it deeper each time. I herd one of his lungs go like a punctured ball, hissss.
His face lolled and went blank, the last flicker of life burnt like the last flame in his eyes as spots of blood tickled into his whites. His flesh sprawling out over his body.
She bought it down one last time into his exposed throat. A fountain of blood spurting over her chest as his last couple of heart beats rhythmically pumped the blood out around the wooden cross. Blood slowly trickled from his pale baby mouth. His eyes now nothing more than a china doll’s glass eyes.
The men burst through the door, splitting it in half as they did and charging for the delirious woman but she pulled the cross from the boys throat, who was now a bleeding angle slumped on the floor, his insides trickling out of him, and plunged it into her own heart. She turned too the men
And smiled.
“Now, I can be with god.” She whispered as there horrid faces imprinted her mind, being the last thing she ever sees.
Before the scene has even fished I was falling again, the pit of my stomach dropping, I didn’t even feel it when I made contact with the earth till I was lying under the window I had jumped out of.
The crows.
So loud now.
They were inside my head. I couldn’t hear anything else now. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t. Couldn’t. Inside my head.
I tried too escape, open my eyes too the grey reality. But he was stood there.
He was a monk in white. But he had bright amber beady crows eyes and an acrid, repugnant beak protruding from his mouth.
I screamed. It withered the air and shook my mind to its last tethers. Kill me now some one please.
I opened my eyes again, they were too dry and exhausted for tears now. My whole body too exhausted too live any more, I give up.
This time where I was had restored itself, it looked like some sort of class room with a low panelled ceiling and it looked like I was lying next too a desk. The room was pretty drab and empty, it had a sinking feeling about it. The monk was standing there again this time, but instead of a crows face it was soft with folds of past in his skin and a receding hairline. His face looked uneasy, scared. Where was the danger? I tipped my head too the side as I observed him and took him in.
“Alicia?” He trembled. “You okay?” I nodded slowly and he took a reassuring breath in.
“I’m sorry.” He sighed. I frowned at his sad expression. He looked down at me. “That you have to stay and watch the abbey till the walls fall down.” He said it like it was obvious “I really am.” What was he talking about?
“But you have too remember Alicia, it’s too repay your sin so you can move on. But I need too ask you just please. Just stop.” My blood slid cold as my brain bubbled into more confusion, the feeling of being trapped over whelmed me.
“Please stop it.” He pleaded again.
Anger split me now, I felt my eyes flame and my jaw clenched.
What! I cried in my mind. Stop what!? I’m lost, I don’t understand what’s happening or who I am. So stop what?!
As if he had herd what I was thinking he answered my very simple question.
“Haunting.”
The walls crumbled down around me.

By Aby Floyd