Etcetera

Safety 1.22.16

The night is peaceful. The moon hides behind the safety of the clouds and silence hangs over the air like a blanket while she sits, brooding in her cell.

She rocks back and forth on her haunches, restless in her inertia. Fingers claw desperately at her forearms, blood flowing freely from her skin, taking the last of her lucidity with it. Hazy eyes glare at the door of her cell, at the handle, at the lock.

The lock is the only thing keeping her in this cell.

And its key hangs around her neck.

It would be easy. It would be so easy to yank the chain from around her neck and shove the key into the lock and be free. Already, her hands implore her to do just that, twitching imperceptibly in their anticipation, and she can feel herself begin to give into temptation.

And she's reaching for the key, the despondency weighing down her mind is being lifted by alacrity, and her mouth is remembering how to smile because she'll finally -

A howl tears through the air, tears through her cell, tears through her hope and rips it to pieces.

Oh. Right.

Her hand falls down into her lap obsequiously and the young smile flees from her face and leaves an apathetic ghost behind.

She forgot.

She can't leave.

It's for safety.

There are monsters in the night; they stampede and ruin any semblance of tranquility that may have resided under the moon's light. She's abdicated her own freedom for safety.

Safety.

Safety.

Safety.

And soon, the light of the moon will sneak in through the bars of the cell window, creeping its way into the recesses of her mind. It'll infect her.

She's doing this for their safety.

She was wrong before. It's not the lock that holds her in this cell; the job has been usurped by that one word, chaining her and keeping her captive in this misery.

Safety.

And as she sits, rocking on her haunches, she repeats the word until its carved into the flesh of her mind. The sounds begin to blur together, the beginning and end of the word welded together and soon she can't even recognize it as a word.

That's okay, though, so long as she recognizes the reason behind it.

As the night wears on, the moon sheds itself of its clouded cloak and its light crawls along the ground outside. It's not long before it slithers its way into her cell.

Pain shoots throughout her body as her bones begin to crack, snapping in half before rearranging themselves into new positions. Her hands, pulled away from her arms in her suffering, fold in on themselves and her fingers concave until they resemble hideous, gnarled claws. Her jaw pops and by now she imagines that her face begins to mimic the deformed, contorted image of the rest of her body.

She opens her mouth to scream.

All that comes out is an anguished howl.

The night is agonizing. The full moon blazes over the rural country and howls rip through the air like claws through flesh while she transforms, roaring in her cell.