The Lives of Adeline

Adeline

She sat there, right on the stage in the middle of the ballroom. 

The stage itself was raised high up, to a point where people needed a ladder to get on top, though this was none nearby. It was as if she had just... appeared there, with her cherry red hair, a color that was impossible to get with any sort of dye, clearly unnatural.

Her crimson red dress hugged her figure, as if it had been tailored specifically for her, a sweetheart neckline with a slit for her leg. 

One of her hands rested behind her, leaning back against the stage, her shoulders relaxed as she sat there. The other held a mostly normal looking cigar, save for the sparkly red tobacco. People watched her as she held the microphone, a mixture of curiosity and hesitance.

"I am a creature of many," she said into the microphone with a hint of a southern accent, her red lipstick still smudged from the moments before. 

There was no other way for her to have gotten into the ballroom, so a little kiss was nearly nothing. She did her best to not lick her lips, the poison still fresh on them. 

She wondered if any of it had gotten into her system. "Really, it depends who you ask. Some people would say I'm a monster, though I say I'm an artist."

A series of gasps as she pulled out a small gun, and a few people screamed, yelling to put the gun down. "Oh c'mon now little fawns, no needta fear." 

She smiled down at the crowd below her, her smile wide and cruel, sharp like some sort of animal. "I aint gonna hurt none-a you," she sighed, smile still plastered on her face. 

"You know, if theres one thing i value most, its freedom. The freedom to go where i please, to be whoever i want, to bite at whoever i want," she leaned in, her eyes looking almost dazed. "Though if there was one thing i could neva' escape, it would be this," She tapped the gun against her own head.

"And i'd ratha die than be slave to such an indecisive thing," she whispered with an airy laugh.

The curtains closed.

The gunshot rang through the room, and for a moment she could pretend like it was her own warm blood spilling over the stage, painting it a bright, crimson red. 

Where her dress started and blood ended was a mystery, and her body collapsed back into the trap door, leaving nothing but red in her wake.