Ripples of grief

Chapter 13

She held in her hands the thin curtain of white which those vipers scrawled upon the page, squinting through the trembling paranoia of night to see the cruel light that encircled it. Encircled those sharp, piercing edges, those cruel daggers of thorns against petal, rose against tulip as the lyre is played and the melody begins to play with an uncanny dissonance of eerie heartbeats. An incessant pulse of shadow seeping into the scar left behind. After the footsteps echo there is a tear upon the very image of innocence that will never fade; a petal of a cruel, cruel rose tossed upon a grave with carelessness in every movement. It can leave a lasting ravine of misery for that delicate spell of innocence to be shattered, and along with it the shadows. The cloak of ominous gloom had settled upon the sky so long ago, dust gathering and tears appearing as she clutched the shred of paper in her hand, watching as the stars began to reveal their gaze upon the forest, a cruel revelation as the silhouettes began to quiver. It was just that. The page could never be read under that cloak, that hood of pure darkness that quivered – but surely it was simply the stars that revealed themselves as dust gathered upon the night – she heard coughs. A writhing before all seemed to fall. And then the once phlegmatic silhouettes began to awaken from an eternal slumber, thrashing against the veil as it descended, the shadows engulfing even the moonlight that circled the crows, curious heads cocked in curiosity; the serpents of black ink upon the page then fell still, an eerie stillness with no calm, but simply waiting for the dust to gather and the sinister shadows to emerge. She'd never see as they crept off the coarse surface of the page, the torn edge simply a corner. An absence of a lyre's string to inch it forward. They held gazes of disdain – glares full of hatred and mockery. It almost trembled and she tried to grasp it still, holding it desperately against an unseen force. They gazed into her eyes full of dull, hollow compassion of the night, motherly yet deathly silent. Then the shadows began to peer around the edges as more moonlight stared through cracks in the veil, branches that brought great scars through the page; more light only revealed the gloom and dolour that was unseen previously. And the serpentine figures slithered away, leaving no path – and she would never see, for the cloak was a veil over her sight, the page clear as it fled her grasp.

Paper can be so easily burnt. So easily left to turn to ash. So easily left to linger as flames among an icy melancholy of sinister cold, so full of sorrow that scorched hand with tendrils of cold talons. Paper can be so easily burnt, tossed aside to set alight ice in flame and fire – that threat loomed above her, making her hands begin to scream in agony as she watched it flutter through the air and fall upon the ground. They simply danced before her, vipers of petals and thorns, in insidious shadows that she knew held nothing but deceit. Cold, stale deceit – deceit of a flame among flowing water – deceit of crows among doves, or smiles nestled among the graves of the loved, the hated, the quiet, and the deafening voices of joy before death watched them all fall. Before the memories burned in fires of amber and scarlet – flames lapping at sin as if it held joy – merry smiles. As if there lay a sight within that engulfed the horrors in such shimmering, fantastical greatness. The words were hellhounds that tore out of her gaze, silhouettes grasping at their desperate shapes and letting them lurk there, crimson eyes watching every step she took as their ever-looming flame was whisked away into the shadows and forgotten. It writhed still, light flickering as the cloak trembled and dust gathered upon the veil. The flames were hidden now, among the moonlit silhouettes. And the only joy to remain were the glinting blades of thorns upon the scales of those serpentine hellhounds. The moon still shone upon the scraps that she could gather of joy among these desolate ruins, a grave of so many that had perished and never spoken goodbye. Verdun. Another corpse lain as an ember in the ground. A seed of battle. That shred of joy scorched her skin and left her cowering from the scar, the moonlight simply revealing escape from the serpents that dangled from the tree branches. Light revealed the thorns on a rose, the fangs on a serpent that could hiss vitriolic daggers, veils torn away by a single, looming flame. Paper could burn so easily. So easily.