The girl from the mire: part 2
Were we ever alive? Were we ever here? Were we ever?
Judith exists in a graveyard. Her tombstone is so old that it looks like a smooth glacial stone. Protrudes into her dusty, dormant grass world. Inhabitants are terri...
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"You are a ghost waiting to be a ghost."
The shy little glowing emerald eye apparitions are as an indoor brush stroke painting in a Victorian Grimshaw, late evening landscape. The green glow circling each eye is a technique of a lighter and lighter touch. They crowd around Judith like she's warm and the darkness behind their darkness is a horrible trap. They're as ghosts of a Christmas past that never was. Everything here survives in a winter that's never heard of or tasted or listened to Christmas. There's no such thing as such a thing. Never was. No white witch took it away. It was all an aesthetic made out of an old book and an ancient belief. Though Terra enjoyed such Dickensian tradition, Judith did not. Every tale of kindness was only that. An imagination. But here she is, looking at eyes like lights and thinking to herself for a moment how nice it would be if there were red eyes to compliment the green.
Whispers continue saying that phrase over and over, speaking children sounds in unison.
"You are a ghost waiting to be a ghost."
It's like they're chanting it in a carol of sorts.
A distant roar behind the carolling plays with Judith's frustrations. Her language is as frozen as her body.
"I'm a ghost waiting to be a ghost? Your words are redundant. So's your existence. So what? Even in my frost bitten state I see through your empty eyes. Everything is a ghost of another ghost! Why so ubiquitous and mysterious?! What do you want? I'm about to get eaten alive by that motherfucking bald ass bear kinda thing! Could you be more specific in word if not in mind?"
A green glowing set of eyes hovering beside the graveyard girl lets go of its hiding place like a favourite blanket and a thumb in a mouth. Comes out from behind its shadow. Holds a gaze with Judith. Turns its whitish, cherub Dickensian rosy cheeks side to side while holding the gravity of eye contact. It's a child. A young boy. Judith recollects who he is or was from the last horrible memories within her rebooting recollections. This boy is BJ Coal. Her younger brother. Her apparently dead younger brother whom she never knew and will never know. Or at least this possible apparition has his countenance.
The other whispers stop and a single silent cold whisper is the only sound left in Judith's ear. The tiny voice is sweet yet unsettling. The message it proclaims stops Judith's heart and warms her soul for a moment.
"Don't worry, sister. Help is coming."
Judith can't look away. She's distraught but also beside herself with the sad joy of recognizing a slightly familiar face. A piece of herself. A long lost family member from the family she should've had. The family that she more than likely murdered in her horrible state as a puppet of David Leonard, planting the dark forest. But the boy's proclamation gives Judith the Christmas gift of hope.
This feeling is instantly forgotten as a roaring scream blows all the green eyes and the boy away, like candles burning out. The rabid voice and its deliverance is execrable. Judith looks around the room. Can witness nothing useful to defend herself with.
The walls rumble. The house shakes. The roof collapses violently like something is trying to rip the structure from its foundation. Pieces of the ceiling and its powdery dust fall on Judith. What foundation though? It's a house meant to live at the bottom of the dirty lake. It floated up. What foundation? If it has no foundation, the beast will easily topple the old homeless homestead.
Judith jumps to her feet. Stands on painfully frozen toes. Backs away from the front door. Avoids collapsing two by fours and splinters and shingles.
Like a blanket torn off, the roof goes. Giant green glowing eyes loom above her. Turns to the back of the house and runs.
Witnesses the back door. The dead portal. Frozen snow covers the entirety of the way out, like heat and condensation were at war with winter and not too long ago. Did the house recently have heat to cause such an ice formation on the inside of the frame? No. The portal must have been open before. Recently. Heat has emanated from it. That's why. That has to be why.
A giant claw paw of a hand grabs Judith by her back. Grips her. Crushes her. Slams her into the floor face first. Over and over and over. Skull fractures. Shoulder blades pierce through skin.The belligerent beast climbs into the house and begins stomping on Judith. Claws her back like a Roman scourge. Again and again. Her back breaks from the stomping and clawing. The rapturous pain in her feet disappears. She's paralyzed at her waist. Can't move her arms and it's about to get a lot worse.
Her skin feels a humid heat. Tuurngait breath upon the back of her neck. Screams its roar. Pushes its weight onto her. Crushes her bones and pulps her flesh. She's done for.
Eyes water. No breath. A tiny white light. A spark in the darkness. Flashes bright. Catches the beast's attention. Bulbous creature halts itself from destroying Judith completely.
The entire room lights up, as if the apparition of electricity hallucinates within Judith's eyes. It's bright, like the dawn after the worst night of her lives. The back door portal beams. Frozen snow cracks and shatters into millions of shards.
Judith feels the beast become extremely uninterested with her. Knows it's looking to the light for new prey. For new amusement now that its conquered Judith.
Through the portal, a double bladed axe flies round and round. Twirls above and past Judith. The graveyard girl listens to the demon weapon slice into the skull of the human bear giant. Tuurngait screams above her. Feels something like its weight release from her broken body. The beast must be standing behind her now, trying to get the axe out of its face.
A person jumps out of the portal firing an enormous shot gun. Boom! Boom! Click. Click. Boom! Boom! Glides like a ghost past Judith toward the monster.
Judith hears a loud crash behind her. chopping noises like flesh and bone cracks and severs. Muscle and tendon and cartilage crunch and pop and tear. Senses the person come from behind and feels that person take her hand. It's a girls hand. Judith looks up to see long blonde hair with a face hidden behind a skull mask. The girl holds the axe like a queen holds a sceptre. It's covered in blood and bits of gore and shrapnel bone. Judith knows the mask and definitely recognizes the double bladed battle axe.
The girl says, "Boo!"
Jane drags Judith through the portal just as it closes and the lights go out.
The room is silent. The open sky roof reveals winter constellations. There's a message in those stars. It was placed there upon the simulation's creation. The phrase "I Love You My Tasty Treat" twinkles like diamonds in an allegory. Judith never would have witnessed those words since this is the first time the clouds are gone, as if they fell away like curtains turning into frozen ash. Maybe that's all the clouds of this world ever were. Frozen ash.
The beast lays on its back, headless but still conscious. Watches what twinkles with a hatred beyond its own understanding.
