ghost

>> ambivalent

Oh you lie next to me
Heart is beating heavily
There's blood in your ear though
Blood on your shirt
- Bloody Shirt by To Kill A King 

The chorus of chortles and chuckles should have been my first and last clue. The smashing of bottles against pavement should have been my second clue. The sound of grunts and pleas should have been it.

And yet I didn't notice, I didn't understand until I walked by the corridor alley in which the noise was being produced from. Three big hulking men were walking down the alley, all laughing and talking loudly, but they were all speaking over the top of each other I couldn't understand a word they were saying. Blending in with the shadows I made sure that they passed me without seeing the ghost that watched their every shady move. They had done something. I could tell.

The leader, the tallest and most formidable was zipping up the fly on his jeans as his friends continued to cheer him on even though whatever they had done was finished. My breath caught in my throat and that's when I heard the whimper of a woman's sob. The coffee in my hand dropped and the hot liquid spilled onto the ground, the splatter catching my pant leg as I ran to the source of the cry.

It was hard to see through the darkness of it all. But even in the darkest of nights, torn and bloody she still shone like a lone star. She was destined into my path. She was a blessing and a burden.

Her dress had been discarded and her limbs were coated in bruises and mud from the alley. Stunned beyond belief the realisation of what those men had done to her came into the light like a demon with gnashing fangs and a twisted body. It was horrendous and evil.

She was crying, so softly and brutally that I was sure she was trying not to shatter. Hair as black as night, skin as white as snow, blood as red as cherries caked her inner thighs.

That's when she noticed me. She glanced up at me and I was momentarily stunned by how beautiful she was. How beautiful she was in a place filled with nothing but filth and evil things. Unlike anyone I had ever met she did not even flinch when she saw my face. Instead she propped herself up as well as she could on her elbows and looked me in the eye,
"Are you an angel?" her voice was torn and sounded like it had been used to scream to an inch of her life. Kneeling down a few metres away from her I shook my head.

"No. No, I'm not" I told her softly, my eyes looking down at her harmed and destroyed body.
"I will not ask you to tell me what happened. I will only ask if you would feel okay if I put my coat around you" I didn't make a move until she nodded and shifted out of the muddy puddle. I felt bile rise in my throat as I saw that the light displayed to me a canvas of pain and destruction upon her skin. Her bra and underwear were severely stretched and torn, she had a black eye, her mouth was bleeding and so was the space in between her legs.

Tears swelled to my eyes but I held them back as I took off the large woollen pull over and gave it to the girl. She was a beautiful woman. Hair like midnight and she reminded me of a swan the way she moved, even when she was beaten and bloody. She pulled her loose hair out from under the collar and looked to me.
"Can I carry you to your home?" I asked her gently. Our voices were merely specs of pixels in the world around us of buzzing traffic but she heard me.

"I don't have a home" she told me, "but will you carry me?" without a second thought I had my arm around her and under her knees. She weighed nothing and I picked her up into my arms. Her hand came up to circle around my neck very weakly.
"Are you able to pick up my violin case and my bag?" she asked me. I turned around and saw a very old and handsome violin case and a small drawstring bag.

Walking over to it, the girl picked up the bag and with the hand that was under her knees I picked up the case, careful to not jostle the violin around too much.

***

A few blocks down there was a nice looking bed and breakfast that rented out beds every night. Pushing the door open with my shoulder, I was glad to find that there was no one downstairs in the café. I approached the owner behind the counter who was reading a newspaper. He stood to attention when he saw the girl in my arms.

"A room for the night" I told him with a weathered voice.
"Certainly" he said. He was a middle aged man with an old fashioned moustache, one that made him look like a trustworthy person and made you think that he owned a pocket watch. The man swiftly got a key and showed us to the room himself.

Gently placing the girl on the bed which creaked slightly under her feather like weight I approached the man at the door who had a very concerned expression upon his aging face.
"Do you need a first aid kit, sir?" he glanced at my face in the candle light and his breath hitched slightly,
"Or the police" he added.

"A first aid kit" I told him, smiled slightly and closed the door. The girl was crying on the white pillow and I felt like I shouldn't go near her for fear of scarring her. But she noticed my hesitation and glanced up at me in the full light. But still she did not flinch or reject me.
"Do you want a bath or a shower?" I asked her and knelt by the bed, so that I could speak at her eye level. The girl nodded her head and I helped her get up and walk to the shower. However I didn't linger or attempt to help her.

For godsakes I had just met her. Why was she not repulsed by my appearance? Why was she not running from me? There was a chair in the corner of the room and as I sat thinking I was wondering what would have happened to the girl if I had not helped her. I knew what had happened, in general but I needed to know how it happened so I could track down the sons of bitches and cut their throats out for hurting such a beautiful creation.

The shower went on for a long while and I watched as steam floated out from under the door. This had been the easy part. The awkward and challenging part would be when the girl emerged from the bathroom and the talking began.

//AN// 
This song attached has been my favourite for some time now. It is such a unique and beautiful song. I love how opposite the melody is from the meaning. If you haven't listened to it yet, do it! It's the kind of song I could imagine playing quietly in the background as Ghost meets the girl. 

Dedication to the person who can guess who the girl is ;)