Scary Stories: Continued

22

Fluttering like tattered cloth her lungs hung from their cage of ribs, heaving and whimpering as the chilled tower air filled them in time. Dust fell softly in the drifting wind, wrapping itself around her shuddering form and deadening the wheeze that emanated from the many holes in her abdomen. And though her skin was stripped away, exposing bone and gristled flesh, her eyes twitched disconnectedly and her mouth gasped for another breath. Her fingers, flayed, moved slowly and deliberately, tracing out a pattern geometric and preternatural. From the crimson figures she composed billowed dark black smoke, which curled seductively and glistened in the sharp beam of light. The cloud hovered close above her, then slithered into her open throat, arching her back and causing her flesh to sear and blister as it moved down. But while she writhed, her bones were wrapped in creeping tendrils, skin as pale as her milky eyes and the candle light she was bathed in. Her body, now complete and unblemished, ceased its erratic shuddering and arose with a stilted grace.

She shook her waist-length hair and stretched her newborn limbs as she smirked and nodded in an apparent show of pleasure, a successful test of concept. At the toll of the distant bell, she lifted the gleaming dagger, still stained and spattered with her recent blood and bile, and plunged it into her soft, vestal thigh, rending the sinew and skin. With each cut her skin fell, draping her body like a wrinkled coat, exposing her bones once more. She fell to the dust covered floor as she let loose a piercing shriek turned to laughter.

Mumbling swiftly, the black smoke filled her and once again she emerged immaculate and pure. The bell rung once more, provoking the next round of tortured flaying. With each toll, another display of ripping and regeneration, another soul she stole as below in the town another fell lifeless.

At last the bell hung still at dawn, the dark festival complete, and the crouched residents of the ancient town sighed a breath of relief. Twelve dead littered the courtyard where they had gathered to watch out the night.

The lady necromancer cleaned her blade and tucked it away into the rune-covered box it would rest until another day. She closed her eyes, looking inward to stifle the hectic banter of the twelve collected souls, pushing them to the recesses of her internal void. Each year twelve would join, filling the infinite corners. A million souls filled her in silence, and yet the expanding blackness ached for more.

Her eyes snapped open and head back as a voice from within rung out sharply:

"MONAD, AWAKEN!"