Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
CHAPTER EIGHT; sickly shit hits the fan (at full speed)
Time passed like water. It could pass slowly but steadily like a soft stream that drifted down the lake. It could run quickly, in the blink of an eye, the way a river with a heavy and strong current swam. Time could freeze like water that had hardened into ice and coagulated into shiny and shimmering statues and structures. She'd never noticed before, but water and time shared traits and characteristics, allowing them to blend into a semi-solidified state. Now she'd noticed.
Her eyes hadn't left the glass of water placed in front of her by Dewey in ten minutes. She noticed every ripple, every short-lived moment of stillness, and the haunted look of her reflection. The police station was cool and the air stung her skin like tiny needles and pinpricks of frost. The ice-infused air bit at her and attempted to pull chunks out of her soul with their icicles they used as teeth.
"Natasha?" Dewey's voice asked again. "Natasha, do you need a minute?"
There were too many minutes. Too many minutes had passed since the red. Red. The thought of the colour almost made her scoff. Red. Twelve hours earlier, Natasha loved the colour red. She burned for that colour, but then that colour burned her and painted her red at the edges. The red seeped in to her mind, heart, and soul. It bled in and stained.
Red.
Ripped guts. Torn eyes. Perforated organs.
Her mind wandered back to a time when the air wasn't salted with blood and anguish, to a time when four eyes locked for the first time in a sweet swell. Two eyes of blue and two honey-shaded cocoa eyes that couldn't escape the stare of the other's. The pair of striking blue eyes was shaded by a shroud of blonde bangs that were far too overgrown like a hedge in a maze. Her figure had a dainty appearance, small and short. The air was crisp at that moment, slightly bitten by a wind painted with frost. The blonde-haired little girl dropped the hand of the woman next to her and stretched it forwards towards Natasha's little hand. Her fingers wrapped around hers and tightened like tendrils. Natasha's eyes stared into the blonde's and her lips quirked at the corners slightly as a shudder of hope travelled through her mind and spirit. For once, she knew she would be okay in that little building her father had referred to as pre-school.
She blinked and the memory jumped away, out of reach. Instead, it was replaced by a small, but slightly taller girl with a short blonde shoulder-length haircut flopped on a yellow bedspread. Her chest fluttered up-and-down, giggles escaping through the shudders. The giggles were girlish and young, everlasting. It came in fits and bursts, rumbling around the room and hitting off the walls. Cassie's hair flounced up and down, moving vibrantly across the room with the drifting sound of her laughter. Her laughter was an embrace, enveloping its arms around strangers, friends, and family, inviting them in. Her laughter was texturized like satin; soft and encrusted with riches and beauty. Now, Natasha's clouded and fogged mind struggled to remember what resulted in the laughter and happiness.
