Bleak Issue #1

Chapter 2 - Violets

December 23th, 2015 [Violet POV]

Petals fell down against the white as my boots dug into it trying to cross to his grave. I softly laid them tucked into the snow. In loving memory of Henry Winters, 1969-2011. Violets were his favorite.

I turned around to walk back to the cemetery path passing grave after grave and the old willow tree dying this season. I rustled my hand through my pocket until the keys clanked out of it. My hand lost its strength to pull the keys up to the door and then my shoe had drops of blood on it. Turning, and turning, and turning; falling, and falling, and falling. The blood was a droplet of red rain swirling across the street. The gush and grime came off the bullet as it spun out of the chamber of the revolver. I laid on my knees staring up at a powerful man, a terrible man. With another cock of the gun and another turn of the chamber, the snow was pure red with pieces of brain scattered across the side of my car and mixed in with the red.

On the oddly painted pavement, the blood trickled down into the sewers with a plop sound that echoed every second until my dead body was picked up. I was pale and was lifeless in my eyes. He shoved me into a black trash bag to dispose of my identity and threw my back into a truck.

I was moved from one place to another to travel to death. I was placed down gently in a stream that led to a drainage pipe. I was touched by a hand that gently grabbed me out of the stream. I was taken out of death to go by another name.

* * * *

Everything was red as I saw and could smell large amounts of blood in the room. I threw up and coughed up blood after the scent reached the tip of my nostrils. I looked up slowly from my left side and saw kitchen cabinets on the wall and a sink piled with dishes, and to my right was a man with a bloody knife and a pair of metal scissors in the opposite hand. I threw up once more.

"Are you okay?"

"The blood..."

"Smell or sight?"

"Both."

"Madison, get some cotton balls for me, would you?" He wiped sweat from his brows and flung it to the floor. "Sure, thing."

He wore thick lensed glasses that would have made him blind without them. His plaid shirt was drenched in sweat that gave off an odor that eventually blocked out the blood. His hands were shaking and were red. I saw the nervousness in his eyes that blended in with green.

"Here you go."

The girl that walked in had a different tale written from her face. She wore nothing but a dress that was a skyblue and had little designs in it that looked like rough sea waves a child might draw. Her skin was that of a caramel color and was smooth and rigid at the same time. Her was curled all the way down to the elbow.

He snapped in my face to get my attention. "Hey, you okay?"

I gave off a blank stare not really knowing what to think of the situation or the people in front of me. His face wrinkled just a bit after five second of no response. He took a glass of water to my mouth and said, "Here, drink this. That any better?"

"Yes..." My voice was like a creek the house would make, the type of sound that you could only hear if you listened close enough, and he definitely heard me because of his response.

"Good, good." His face took a break and his eyes turned blue out of relief. "I'm Nicolson Leestan. This is Madison, my daughter."

"Hi."

"Hey..."

He took back my attention. "Let's try to get you on your feet."

"Sure thing..."

He grabbed my hand and I slowly slid off the table. I fell to the floor having barely any strength in my legs to stand so he took his arm around my shoulder and smeared blood all the way to the bathroom. "Clean up. After that, we need to talk."

"Okay."

"I will grab you some clothes to wear." I had said enough. No more words needed to be communicated. I stepped in the room and closed the door with what weakness I had.

I stared at the mirror and saw someone else there. She was more blonde and wore eyeliner. Her eyes were less distinct and her hair more flush. There were no lines of stitches going across her head nor her chest. The one thing we had in common was the blood still trickling down her cheek and plopping into the sink. The reflection wasn't me.

It was a dream of something distant. So distant that no echo or scream could be heard. So I shouted, and the reflection didn't mirror back. It pained me to look at her. She was a person not so far off from me but on a different side of the globe. She was threatened and she echoed back the anger and the fear into her voice. She was not a reflection.

She punched the glass and shattered it to little knives and shanks. She came out like a nightmare, and we fought and danced out the room in a craze. I threw her to the ground in a final and quick blow. In loving memory of Willow Winters