Heart [ON HOLD]

Chapter 12: Godfather

If nothing saves us from death, may love at least save us from life.
-Pablo Neruda

Cora's bare feet touched the sleek, obsidian sheet. Scarlet cracks wound through it, incandescent and tossing lava light across her skin. Darkness cloaked the view in front of her, broken only by pulsing, red light. The ground seemed to vibrate beneath her feet, warm and alive. A faint, irregular, bass pumped through the air. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump…

Cora turned her head, locked in a daze.

A new scene greeted her. Her head cocked of its own accord, her feet carrying her forward. There was a dark puppet strung in midair over a chasm of bloody light. As she neared it, the puppet grew, still limp, head hanging, arms like a scarecrow. The strings were scarlet, glowing, casting an eerie glow across the black form. They were wrapped around its arms and wrists, cinched across its torso. And they were strung around its neck.

It was a noose that snared the dead man's body, tangled like a fly in a blood stained web. It was a broken, discarded, toy that would still twitch if the strings were pulled. The body could still writhe, a phantom memory of last moments. Cora's eyes grew. Her stomach twisted. But her feet refused to run. She couldn't get out, she couldn't stop. She couldn't do anything but keep walking towards the dead man, hanging.

Her eyes forced her to see the body, twisting in an imagined breeze. It was clothed all in black, mourning it's own death. Only the white face of a bleached, canine, skull stared back at her, grinning with sharpened teeth.

Cora tried to scream. She tried to cry. But her eyes only showed her the black jerkin on the body, torn open over the chest. On the skeletal rib cage, the ends of the red cords that strangled him were tied. Her eyes followed the cords away from the dead man and into darkness. Her feet followed them too.

The cords were tangled together in a single rope. Cora's feet drew her towards them. She began to see another figure in the darkness, at the end of the red strings. It was a woman, a woman with midnight black skin and raven hair, only a shadow of a human. She stood, faceless, frozen. Her hands held fistfuls of the red ropes, but they all wound to one source.

The mirror in her hand.

The thumping sound grew louder. The very air pulsed, booming in time to her heart. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, THUMP. Cora grimaced. A sick twist gathered in her stomach as her feet propelled her forward. Don’t look. Don’t look. But she couldn’t pull her face away as it peered into the depths of the mirror.

There was no reflection.

Instead, its contents sent ice cascading down her neck.

Inside, beyond the glass, was a throbbing heart.

Cora found her voice. She let lose a banshee scream that ripped her throat. But the thumping only grew louder. It thrashed wilder, an animal, the sound burning beneath her skin, pulsing, screaming in her veins. She clapped her hands to her ears, still screaming, brow ground into lines, eyes screwed shut. But her tongue tasted blood. Her skin was on fire.

And all the while the throbbing slammed louder.

Hands closed around her throat. Her eyes flew open.

His eyes were ablaze, amber, lit with violence, with blood. He squeezed tighter and Cora choked. She scrabbled at his hands.

“Can you see it, Cora? Can you see it yet?”

The Wolf growled.

“The monster?”

Cora woke with a shriek.