My story begins with music of the most passionate. To many, what I listen to is repulsive. Perhaps it is, to an extent. I say this due to the fact that some of what I hear, describes in the most exquisite detail, nightmares. Death, blood and pain are all entwined within these terrors of romance and torture.
I relished in every lyric of such songs. And I found one whom I could share this obsession. Her name was Lucinda, and what a pair we were. My friends – which included Mac, Alli and Z – admitted to our fiery chemistry.
She was like no other. Her skin, smooth as silk and eyes the cat-like hazel. Flame red locks accompanied her slender form with a grace that I’d never seen in any other living being. Lucinda, my Temptress.
Though my friends saw what we possessed, I saw their hidden truths. They were cautious and untrusting of her. Long into our relationship, Z warned me. Almost pleading, she heeded that I do as she suggested.
“You must leave her, or be torn and broken!”
I did not listen. For what could possibly go wrong? How I wish at moments, that I had.
My love and I were alone in our own place. A forest, with a cabin that had been long abandoned. Frequently, she and I met to be alone. We shared much within those walls. Yet we traveled everywhere, from A Place Where The Sun Is Silent.
On one of these occasions. She produced two vials and told me her vision. To fill each with our life blood and keep the other’s. I was intrigued, and wondered at her reasoning.
“To promise each other, that we belong to no other. And should we break this promise, to live alone, forever, in these woods with tormentuous souls.”
Vowing to never break such a promise, I filled the vial from the palm. From that day forward, I kept out vow around my neck with a silver chain, as did Lucinda.
Much time passed afterwards. My friends, Lucinda and I all grew, changed – as youth are meant to. Lucinda changed drastically from the person I knew. We grew apart and were no more. I met another whom I fell in love with. Her name was Isla. Ink black hair with luminous, ebony orbs that fitted her light, olive toned skin. I’d long forgotten the vow I made with Lucinda since, and carried on to marry Isla.
My three friends openly approved of her more than the previous. It often amused our group of five to reminisce about our youth, and all the idiocy. We agreed that the one thing to never alter was our genre preference of music. I was still enticed by the writings of Alesana – their tales of Annabell.
Isla was neutral to favorites. She enjoyed everything, no matter how vulgar I found it.
At this time I was seven and twenty. I laid myself next to my wife, my music player embedded in my ears to The Dark Wood Of Error. I closed my eyes and slept.
Abruptly, I was woken by a hideously loud cackle, and stared up into the face of Lucinda. Nothing of her beauty had aged. She still looked as when we were young, but sounded to be an ancient being, prepared to pass through the veil. She suddenly screeched at the top of her lungs, “You are doomed! Forever, these woods shall keep you, trapped with the souls chosen to torment and drive you! You will be Hand In Hand With The Damned for all time and eternity!”
I stared with horror and turned to face my beloved Isla. But when I looked, she wasn’t visible to me. I frantically searched our bedroom, but any trace of my wife was lost. Quickly leaving the mussed room, I stopped in absolute shock. The cabin that Lucinda and I had spent so many hours in together, stood before me. Turning to remain in the comfort of my former walls, I cried out in complete horror. I was in the forest that the cabin dwelled in.
