Blood Stained Floors - wlw

Chapter 4 - A Dull Idolization

My eyes snapped open, met with an unrelenting downpour. It stung, flooding them with water before I managed to squeeze them shut, the motion accompanying the searing pain that spread from my cheekbone to my temple. I felt the ground around me soaking in the rain, mixing with its element to become the sticky mud that often clung to my ankles after a walk to the physical education department. I would tramp through the woods, my main prerogative avoiding the snickering of the boys who passed me, their unbuttoned shirts flickering in the wind as they circled around me for a moment before I squeezed my way through.

Once though, I had been gripped by the arms, the strong fingers of the boy sinking into my flesh like they belonged there. His hold so severe he carved out his own gaps, his hands fitting to my bones like puzzle pieces. I had tried to shake myself away from them, but they enclosed atop me, their square jawlines and broad shoulders forming a shield around us. Passerby couldn't glance inside, though none would care. They had only verbally taunted me, the shrill shriek of a whistle disturbing their fun. Their brainless heads had twisted on their thick necks, peering over their shoulders at the tall figure approaching them. The gym teacher let his footsteps thump into the cobblestone, and it sank in– as the boys sneered –that if the teacher knew who was inside, my pleading look would've fallen on blind eyes, deaf ears.

The boys dispersed, the class bell echoing through the tall stone buildings around us. The teacher had finally caught my eye, and I watched a frown tug at the side of his mouth, a look of almost regret plastered across his skin. His back faced me, his retreating footsteps full of a subtle anxiety only I could notice.

I lie in the rain, the cool liquid pounding down onto the skin of my stomach. My shirt and skirt had been soaked through, and though I was wearing a thick shirt underneath; the faint outline of my bra appeared through the drenched cloth. I sighed, the flicker of a memory tracing its way along the lines of my brain. I imagined my backpack sitting lonely in the pool of blood that seeped from my tormentors, the shiny ID card fitted securely in its smallest pocket. I tried to attune my ears, listening for the sound of sirens, but only the pounding of the rain rumbled around in my mind. Its presence louder than my heartbeat had been earlier. I planted my hands into the mud by my side, my fingers falling underneath a layer of muck. My eyes scanned through the trees, watching the way the rain smacked past the leaves, bending them until they snapped back upwards, letting the drops that pulled them fall to the earth. As if the flooding dirt needed more water. I felt the whisper of a voice pass my right ear, and my wet hair smacked my face as I whipped my head to face it.

My eyes expected to fall on nothing but relentless rain, a storm that clouded the world three feet in front of you. However, my breath hitched as a chill ran through me, its tendrils wrapping my limbs in a freezing feeling. A warm puff of air spreads across my features, rustling the long lashes that stretched from my irises as gray as the gargoyles that loomed atop the heaven scraping roofs of the academy. Before me, was a creature I could have only imagined inside the fabric wrapped covers of a book. One that I would pluck from the back of the library, the place where the school's collection became the walking museum of horror. I often strolled along that row, running a long finger across the bindings, scanning their imprinted names. I would pluck one out, and if the first description of the monster made my stomach clench and my eyebrows draw together then I would carefully slip it into the backpack down by my feet.

This thing had dark gray skin that seemed as if my hand could push its way through; for the rain drops didn't glide down its rough face. An eyeless stare that met mine caused a wave of nausea to overcome me. Its stature was lean, its body containing no dimension as it crouched before me; it seemed to swirl like the black smoke from a house fire, the tendrils of its skin fading off in the corner of my vision. My eyes were frozen open, the sharp sting of the rain not forcing them closed. I breathed in, the smell overcoming me. It was a stench of death and blood, the metallic tinge feeling like it wrapped itself around my tongue, leaving it shaking inside my mouth. The stench of the creature and the smell of the rain felt like it would overcome me, like they themselves would be the ones to drag me down to hell. Their spindly fingers already crawling their way over my body. The creature's pigment waned as if the spirit was merely projected onto the earth in front of me. Its face was emotionless, for it bore no features to express. The projection seemed to flicker before me, and the faces of people I did not know tumbled over the creature's "features". My mind drew back to the stories I had been told, how the ghosts of dead students would scrape their way past people's dorms, leaving a chill that no one could quite explain– even in the dead heat of june.