A Collection of Stories

Sharp Teeth

I went hunting today, for the first time in seven months. The human part of me hates hunting, but I have to do it for my more cannibalistic personnel. I have to sustain her cravings.
She was a pretty girl, with white hair. I think.

I was sitting in the bathtub now, I kept my mirror sitting across from me. Long antique cloudy glass with a chipped black wooden frame and I remember my grandmother giving it to me when I was twelve. Some people would think that it's weird I watch myself bathe, but I'm not watching myself bathe.

I'm watching myself

feed.

Damn, I hate that word. I hate it, but I have to watch myself. I have to remember the pain I cause people, to keep myself sane and teeth dull.

Within the black frame I saw the pretty girl, and she did have white hair along with contrasting long black fingernails. I knew she was- in her prime- pretty but right now she looked ugly: her skin was sagging and pale, her striking ice eyes were sunken, and she was skinny. God, she looked starved, looked like it had been seven months since she'd last eaten.

I would know, it had been me starving her. Her cold eyes flickered towards the red vase sitting on the bath-side table, it was my mother's vase she'd given me when I was twelve.

"What an age to become Marcy, twelve."

"But why mother? I don't understand, grandmother told me the same thing. Why is twelve such a marvelous age? Well, I feel the same this morning as when I went to bed yesterday!"

"Oh my dear Marceline, the year of twelve is the best of them all! It is the year you become of age: the year of sharp teeth, my dear."

Her eyes met mine, and then flickered back to the vase- she knew it was filled with her meal. She was pleading me, I found it strange that such a feared creature could be sitting naked in a pool of water, half dead and pleading with a human- her human, she reminds me. I think this makes her feel less pathetic.

A sharp feeling of pity runs through my dead veins, and she smiles because she's felt it too.

"It's not for you!" I want to scream in her frail face, but I can see them-

her teeth.

They're the sharpest I've ever seen, a top row of ragged nails extending towards her bottom lip- our bottom lip. I'm reminded as I reach to touch them and prick a finger. I run my thumb over the daggers, I have eighteen of them.

"Mother why do I only have thirteen and you have more than that?"

"Well my Marcy, you get one for every year you stay alive. You're thirteen now, so that means you get thirteen. Does that make sense?"

But I wish I'd have none.

My teeth are about an inch and a half long, they aren't always that way, only when I let her in. They are yellowing- a sign I haven't been feeding her enough- and have a curve at the bottom, so I can hook into your neck and rip out the skin. She hates eating the skin. They also have a taste- they're sugary- they kind of taste a little like candy canes, I guess that's supposed to make your blood taste better but trust me it doesn't.

Marcy- come on we've been sitting here forever. Give it to me.

No.

Marceline. Now.

No. I don't want to.

Hunting is over, your gathering is done- I am hungry. Now.

And with an overpowering burst of energy she breaks through my mind and grabs the vase- choking down every last drop of the staling liquid.

"Mother, why do we need to go hunting?"

"Well, my child, it's because we only get thirty two years. Our souls are deprived the memories and feelings that they need to survive. So we hunt for what we lack. We keep our souls alive"

"Why do we only live thirty two years mother?"

"Oh my Marceline, one year for every tooth my dear. Once all your teeth turn sharp your time is up."

"How many sharp teeth do you have?"

"Thirty one, my dear Marcy."

As the sour sludge slides down my throat, my heart drops and I begin to feel an impeccable sorrow within my chest.

Why do you always pick the depressed ones, Marceline?

But I can't respond to her right now- to my soul.

My eyes flash in between the scowling reflection in the mirror and a stranger's face in a different piece of glass.

I know who this is, and as I begin to connect with her memories I become one with her pain. I become her.

*

I sat there, it was three in the morning: I don't remember much. I was too drunk, but I do remember the long streaks of black running down my face parallel to the red ones that my tears had made when they went burning across my cheeks. Not even my headphones could drown out the voices in my head. The isolation had hit me harder than ever before. I was alone.The pain stabbed so deep in my mind, not the pain that you get when you stub your toe on the coffee table, but the pain that invades your thinking and fills your body, demanding to be let out; so I tried, I tried to let it out by the razor that sent my blood down the drain and hoped that the pain went with it. But it didn't , it never does. The pain came back so strong that I stumbled to the mirror, and stared at my reflection, begging myself to hang on. Just one- more- night- but I know its never just going to be one more night. So I stumble back into the kitchen to grab the last beer in the fridge and the bottle of pills I hid behind the coffee cups. I prayed for a sign not to swallow. I looked at my reflection one last time, I let the noises in my head devour the highway of my thoughts, the highway to my hell and I swallow. I feel as the pills slowly go down my throat, there were so many that I almost choked trying to get them down. It was three o' one in the morning when I let the darkness slowly overcome my finally peaceful mind.

She was buzzing, vibrating in my mind higher than I've ever felt her feel.

What was her name?

She would only want to know to label the memory, but I'm too tired to fight her protesting. Feeding will do that too you.

Her name was Angel.

A lone hum was her only response.

I sunk deeper into the freezing bath water- my toes are numb- I pull my knees into my chest and fight off the last of Angel's memories. They are all so strong, strong enough to keep her full for another long period of fasting.

Within the mirror sits a fully fed monster- with normal teeth and icy eyes flush against her pasty skin.

Thank you,

her deep voice resounds inside my head.

Shut up, shark mouth,

I bite back. We chuckle in unison because no matter how much I fight her I will always see her white hair in the mirror, she will always depend on me to live, and we will always share the same sharp teeth. Thirsting for our next adventure, and you better hope it's not yours.

*****

STORY CLASHING! That was super fun to write by the way.

So Red, has had her story finished for over a week now and has been biting at the bit to upload it. But, she has patiently waited for my slow writing problems and can UPLOAD IT! next week.

Whoops, sorry redroses818

-much love, Blue.