By now, many of you have in all likelihood heard the story of
The girl with the green ribbon,
But what you have not heard, commoner, is the prequel to her headless prison,
The one in which she was given the ribbon to keep her head on her shoulders,
The ribbon that remained and kept her warm,
As life grew colder.
There once was a girl,
Her name: Phoebe,
With short black hair that would not grow,
And a long white neck that would not shrink,
And a pair of lips: one large, one small,
She was oddly beautiful,
And the boys in school seemed to notice.
One boy in particular:
Averill
A monstrously beautiful tormentor,
Almost all of the girls in the academy wanted him.
All but one:
Phoebe.
Being the insecure beauty she was,
She could not understand why a man, hardly a boy,
Of Averill’s stature would want a puny,
Long-necked, long-legged girl with short hair,
And pale, unscathed skin.
When the two were young,
He thought her appearance grotesque, vile,
She found his signature reptilian smirk off-putting,
But something had changed when maturity hit.
Foul obscene words from the beast’s mouth
Turned into velvety strokes of genius coquetry.
When Phoebe turned 12,
And Averill was 16,
As he was held back thrice,
Averill made his move.
My dearest Phoebe, he said,
Your beauty illuminates my life,
As the sun does the moon.
The unexpected adoration I have found for you
Frightens and motivates me,
Willing me to court you.
Do you accept?
Rather than smiling in response,
As the other, normal girls would have,
Phoebe grimaced.
The very idea of sharing a kiss with this gravelly-voiced, looming entity
Seemed unimaginably revolting.
She declined,
And he became enraged and callous.
With a face now a stony grey,
Averill looked on,
Watching Phoebe with a cold, hard stare.
She felt his gaze,
Sharp and penetrating,
Deadly daggers,
A constant reminder of his incessant hankering
For the nectar of her skin.
One night,
As Phoebe walked home,
Alone, of course,
A second pair of footsteps echoed her own,
Nearly perfect in their synchrony.
Unnoticed were his beastly stomps,
As she studied the shaking shadows she passed,
Which seemed to whisper something to her,
A warning.
In one swift move,
Her shadow grabbed her,
Revealing itself to her as the grotesque stalker from school.
Averill threw her to the cobblestone,
Ripping her black dress.
Her short black hair,
Now dripping with the honey-like substance of blood,
Cloaked her face,
Shielded her eyes from the atrocities about to befall her.
She lay senseless as his eyes and hands roved her body,
Amalgamating her uncharted parts with his knowing ones.
She awakened half way through,
An alarmed scream tearing through her lips,
Sending him into a panicked frenzy of fast-paced thrusts.
His feeling of elation converted into an emotion of fright and regret,
Not the regret of committing such a heinous crime,
But the regret and dread he would feel if he were found out.
He covered her clean lips with his grimy hands,
Concealing her frightened pleas for help.
Reaching into his back pocket,
Averill pulled out a hatchet
And when Phoebe sunk her teeth into his already flawed hands,
He sunk his ax into her neck,
And her head fell off.
