Codex Mortem

Hope

Dawn

"Mother?"

Was it a dream? It was her voice... I wasn't sure if my mind played tricks or if it was real.

The answer came fast.

"What kind of sick game is this?" The woman shouted into the darkness. "Have you not inflicted enough pain to me? You want to make me lose my mind now?"

My heart's beats went faster and faster, and I inhaled deeply to overcome the frenetic emotions built into my chest. "Mother, it's me, Dawn."

The small noise of whatever she was doing stopped.

"My daughter is dead! DEAD!" she shouted again. Her shallow breath filled the empty darkness of the cold, damp space; I got on my feet and found my way to the bars that separated our cells.

"No, she is not dead. I am here."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Do you enjoy tormenting me?"

"Mother, follow my voice. Come, feel my hand. It's warm, not cold. I am alive and there is no trick. Let me prove it to you!" I extended my arm through the bars, waiting.

An image flashed in front of my eyes of a strange water, where glowing ambers were dancing under the surface in a slow, sad tune. Two pairs of eyes stared at me and vanished in a blink. One red like an angry fire, one green like the moss of the trees.

"You say you are her, and you sound like her." she paused. "But my hands say a different thing. Under my nails I still keep the dirt of her grave."

I heard her steps closer. "Tell me something about her, and you might fool me."

On a cold night, nine winters ago, the sky broke and tears fell to the ground. The wind howled through the holed roof like a soul damned for eternity as I nested in my mother's safe embrace.

When the lone candle's flame went to sleep, we sat under the cover of each other's warmth. She smelled faintly like wood and smoke, a soothing scent for my senses.

The lightening filled the blackness of our hut thru the wooden wall's cracks and a hellish thunder filled my ears. I tightened my arms around mother and buried my face into her chest.

"Don't be afraid, child," she softly whispered. "Is just a storm, it will pass."

"I am not afraid of the storm, mother, I fear for the lost souls out there. The ones that don't have someone to keep them warm, like I have you."

She held me tight and kissed my head.

"Let's pray they found shelter to protect them from this bad stormy night."

"But mother, the night is not bad."

"Oh Dawn, the night is bad, the dark is bad. It's when the demons hunt."

"I'll tell you a secret, mother," I said in a low voice. "The night is when the day is tired and goes to sleep."

Her breath stopped its rhythmicity. The earth trembled with another blast of the weeping sky, and I thought the old roof will shatter and fall upon us.

"And the dark?"

"What do you want me to tell you? Ask anything."

"Why was my daughter afraid of the dark?"

"I am not."

Her pacing stopped. "She was."