The Mysterious Play of the Crimson Night

Rosaline

Forgive me Father for I have sinned. Please find it in your heart to pardon me and take me within your arms to hold against the darkness of others.

Forgive me Mother for I have sinned. Please watch over me and guide me through life's obstacles with courage and humanity.

Forgive me Jesus Christ for I have sinned. Please bestow upon me the wisdom to act rightly no matter whatever temptation hinders me.

Forgive me Holy Mary for I have sinned. Please give me the grace and the equity to accept the words and criticisms of others without false pride.

Amen.

There she sat slumped against the rowan tree, pinned to the bark like a morbid museum exhibition of the common moth. She held this darkened beauty about her even in death. The sickening spectacle cried out through the glade, wailing the discontented dirge of Life being robbed of a child before her time. Autumn leaves could not sorrow less; and they streamed down upon the scene like fiery tears from Hell itself.

Her stomach lay butchered and drooling. It gaped with the open lips of her wound as if it were gasping for breath. She did not stir. Whatever entrails should have glistened beneath her skin had been robbed, leaving the temple of her little body hollow. Hollow like the winter tree long since perished and abandoned. A child that had once been so full of life lay ruined. A ghastly wreck of her former self. Her life's blood speckled her ashen cheeks with the violence of her fatality. Her glassy, open eyes, staring out in waxwork fear, seemed to see things that I could not. Things so traumatising and tormenting that I was glad to not have her unwavering sight.

The dice had rolled. The thread of her being had been severed. It was as if a little less joy had seeped from the world, casting a looming shadow on existence. Everything had become that bit darker, and it was wrong. So wrong.

My mouth felt dry. Even my senses had abandoned me. I was left with nothing but the cruel touch of death for comfort and the ebbing silence that was so mercilessly snatching at the oxygen in my lungs. I squeaked with the effort to breathe. And it did me no good.

Mortality lingered like a bad smell here, leaving a coppery sample in my mouth that tasted of nothing which would combat my shuddering disbelief. This could not be happening. Not to one so innocent. There was no creature alive that could be as cruel as this. And if there was, what was I to do with that? All the morals and beliefs entombing my life in a protective shell had collapsed around me. All I was left with was her, and my ruin. There had to be some kind of mistake. This could not be happening. This could not be happening.

"Blood..." I uttered, for that was his nickname and all that I could see in this warped world. He stirred from his rather agitated position beneath the kosher, untainted tree to my left which did not bear this crucifixion. There must've been something in my tone that had captured him, for otherwise I would've wagered his prolonged ignorance to my little discovery. He was far too occupied with those heated words that I had so recently, yet so long ago uttered in the face of problems that seemed so trivial now.

He had wanted me to move into the manor house with all of his minions. All who suffered the same barbaric affliction as he. I did not think myself ready to make such a forward move, glad of my place in the Williams House. It was comfortable and familiar there. Mr and Mrs Williams were friendly people. And I'd had enough change after uprooting myself from my own house in Town to move in with them. All because I had discovered Alex's secret. He was adamant that I was to move into the manor house nonetheless.
"It is for your safety," he had said, "Now that Gregorian has returned. "Yeah right...like you care" I thought. I was stubborn though and had refused this, believing quite arrogantly that I could take care of myself. I'd only been to the manor house once. Once. And had never wished to return afterwards.
"They won't harm you whilst you are under my protection!" he had exclaimed and I wished that I could believe him. Their eyes had told me different. Saturated with unconcealed hunger. I'd wondered whether Alex's protection would be enough. And had come to the conclusion that I doubted it. I was reconsidering all of this now faced with the current predicament.

As soon as my warped tone had recieved his attention, I knew that he saw it as I did. Not with my eyes of course, they were otherwise occupied. Some other sense took me by the hand at this moment, something in the inconsolable air alerted me to his epiphany. Perhaps it was the absence of his steady breathing which had thus far centred this rather chaotic, parallel universe. Perhaps in this world where such deeds could be executed, all logic and protocol was abandoned. Come to think of it, he had mentioned before that he could smell blood in the air. That was my first coherent thought, and it had seemed so deceitfully naive of me that I had not heeded his words. Not that it could've changed anything. "Could've it?" I pondered.

"Holy Mother of God..." he uttered in a transfixed fashion, and I did not chide him for the blasphemy. He did not hesitate to act as I had and all in all sounded far more collected than I. In fact I felt as if every muscle had been paralyzed with horror itself. Yet, I felt him almost instantly stir from his place of controversy and act in a way all so very unexpected. Of all the things I would have thought him to do, something so compassionate had not occurred to me. Though in my rather distraught state, I was far beyond the ability to appreciate the gesture.

I felt a strong, controlling pressure upon my right shoulder which my brain took all of three seconds to identify as the gentle guidance of a large hand. It scooped me away from the child, burrowing my face in the warmth and gentle blackness of his shirt. A soft protection from the butchery which I had so unsuspectingly stumbled upon. This gentleness that smelt of earth and the musky scent that I had long since related with the precipitance of men, was a minor consolation. Unfortunately, the scene was etched into the back of my closed eyelids with trauma and with blood.

"Oh God..." I whimpered. "Where is he now? Where is that all powerful, all loving being? She suffered innocently. She suffered so brutally." I thought that If such a God would adhere to such violation and foul malevolence, I would much rather commit my soul to Hell and be done with it. For the devil was at least honest in his evil principles and did not hide behind divine, paternally loving falsehoods. What Father would allow a child of his own to suffer so? I questioned in torment.
"You bastard..." I murmured, feeling as if I were the one who had been personally betrayed, "You unfeeling bastard..."

In a way I guess I did feel betrayed. I felt as if I had been leading a lie all my life, blindly following a God who had let my Uncle die, my Mother die...and now. I didn't want to think on it. "It is all so unfair! This is the final fucking straw" was my rather childish mindset. I felt as if he were laughing at me from the heavens with a rather large magnifying glass, burning everything cherishable away as if we were simple ants on a summer's day, and he was a petulant child, watching us squirm beneath his wrath, taking some disturbingly sadistic pleasure from it all.

I tried to focus on the way that I could feel Alex's shovel-like hand woven in between the short strands of my hair as a method of distraction from these blasphemous thoughts. When that failed me, I tried to focus on how small I felt with the bulk of his body to shield us from this rather precarious and potentially dangerous situation. Yet none occupied my mind as the child had. In fact, my vulnerability accented by his strength brought me gasping with lung rendering sobs. I felt as if I were breaking through icy water's surface and finding that I could not swim. Actually, never mind the water surface. I felt as if I were the one breaking- full stop.

Alex gathered up what was left of me into his arms. His hand still forcefully plunged my face into his chest. My nose was being crushed. It hurt. But I did not protest. I did not wish to even glimpse her cruelly dismembered body again, not for even a second, and this was the most secure way to ensure that I did not.

I had never been very heavy, but I was quite a tall girl for my age, and being whipped off my feet was all but a new experience for me. This evening is full of surprises I mused distantly. I had expected to feel like an awkward, unbalanced lump in his arms. Strangely, this was not the case. The best way to liken how it felt to be so forwardly picked up by Alex was the feeling of being picked up like a helpless rag doll. Nothing. Perhaps just a little harbouring to carry but nevertheless, relatively weightless. It made me feel like a child. And that was exactly what I wanted to be at that point. I wanted to curl up. I wanted sympathy. I wanted to be fussed over and told that everything was going to be alright. I wanted a paternal figure to wrap me up in his arms. I even wanted to be kissed better. By Alex. Yet, such a thought felt a little more than inappropriate to be even contemplating after such a discovery. Regarding my attitude towards him, quite contrary of me also.

I couldn't help myself though. I was being self indulgent, eating greedily from the consolations I was receiving because of my shock and Alex's naturally protective instincts.

I clung to him desperately, glad that he had not ventured to speak yet. "I will let go in a minute. Just once I get a grip on myself." I promised myself feebly. How was I going to tell everyone though? How was I going to tell anyone that little Lens was dead? That she lay lifelessly in the forest, her perfect, golden curls matted with curdled blood and her little stomach wrenched right open to the world. Broken. Unfixable. How? I could barely believe it myself. And I had seen it with my own eyes. How I wished I could rip them open for all that they had seen. And how I wished...oh I wished so many things. But, as Soul had once said to me, "faith and wishes are as empty as seashells, actions are for the courageous". By that measure, today I had proven myself a coward, a child and a fool.