Darkest Places

re-an

As dawn broke and cast its shattered rays across the world, the boy huddled in the corner of the basement.

He'd been there for so long, it seemed, the dust had forgotten he wasn't actually a part of the structure - the beams and walls and dark corners desperate for the silky touch of a spider's web. When he moved, which was rarely, the dust shook slightly, shocked at the disturbance from something it believed inanimate.

But, he wasn't inanimate. He wasn't dead. He was not, even, undead. He was a living, breathing sack of self loathing. He sat in the darkest corner of the room because he didn't feel he deserved the light. It was fitting that the hard stone floor let its cold soak into the boy's bones. He welcomed the chill as it ate away at the last fragments of his warmth. It was right that the damp was causing him, more than the cold, to shiver. It seeped into the fabric of his meagre clothing, making it cling to his flesh - the clammy, disdainful hand of justice.

He shifted slightly, needing the ache in his joints to be the constant reminder of his guilt, but unable to prevent his body from having to adjust its position lest it locks in place and then does become the oddly shaped lump that the dust had thought him to be. He moaned and the sound hung for a moment on the air, testing it, tasting it, before falling to the floor, its brief energy depleted. There was no echo. His voice hadn't managed to reach any other surface to give him the satisfaction of being returned.

He was alone, huddled, cold and welcoming of it all.

He opened his eyes and turned his head. He scanned the floor, his eyes wandering everywhere other than where he actually wanted, or at least needed, to look. The old barrel, its bands tarnished and barely able to hold the wood together, still had the hole near the bottom where the long-legged and small-bodied spider had entered... however long ago. The mud clinging to the tines of the pitchfork was still a dark brown doing its best to appear black to match the boy's mood but failing. The long cabinet against the far wall was still locked shut. It would stay that way. Nothing had or would change no matter how many times he stared at it rather than...

Her.

Finally, he allowed himself to look at her. She hadn't moved, much like himself and everything else in the basement. Her hair fell to the side in a spray of gold that glistened even when there was no light. It looked exactly as it did when she would fall asleep in the large, under-stuffed but overused chair that she liked to relax in as evening drew out the last hours of the day and eased you into night.

He shuddered at the thought of the night.

Her eyes were staring straight upwards, wide as if taking in a panoramic vista but dull as if they had been left out in the sun for too long and the colour had faded. Her hands gripped her dress, stiff claws frozen in the act of tearing it off. She looked like a corpse. The rosy glow that had been ever-present in her ever-smiling face had gone, perhaps exiting with the green of her eyes. It was difficult for the boy to tell if her chest was rising and falling, the in and exhalations being so shallow, they may as well not even bother to take the air through her lungs. It wasn't exactly giving her life.

The boy wondered if she still had a pulse. With every part of her being seemingly absent, had her heartbeat left also? Had it stayed behind to be the captain of the sinking ship, remaining until the last gasp? He felt he should prod her. Poke her with the shaft of the pitchfork. See if she moved or reacted. He didn't, though. Fear held hands with reason and skipped away with his senses through fields of golden terror. He was not going to go near the woman until he had to. He wasn't going to move until he was forced. Until it was time. He dozed, slipping between a light sleep and the knowledge that sleep could finish him. The hours sang to him, a Harpie's song designed to lure him to his doom.