colours

iii. dull grey

"Raindrops and roses, and teardrops and prickles," sung a little platinum-haired girl, skipping on the dull grey rocks that made pathway to the exit of the park. Her voice was like an echo, dim, but still present and ever resounding. She followed a butterfly similar to the rocks, cold and almost as grey and inanimate, only fluttering when it flew too low.

Her small trim figure spends time humming and singing the same lyrics over and over, like an eerie little lullaby echoing in a low haunting whisper on your ear. The flow of her little song dips into slower notes, turning flatter by the next lyric, like the butterfly's fluttering. Up, down, up, down, up, down, down, down.

There was another girl, watching. Gwendolyn, her name was. She hadn't known what she had been doing there, but the quiet rolling of the clouds and swaying of trees had been wrong--they had felt wrong. It was only her and the little girl, in an abandoned old park with rusting little swings and monkey bars.

Shivers skid on her skin when the song's whisper grew harshly loud behind her, as if the little girl had been getting closer. Gwen stares at the back of the little girl still skipping towards the exit, heart pumping out of her chest as all blood drains from her face. She dares not look behind her when she's sure the girl's sickly sweet voice was directly behind her.

"Raindrops and roses, and teardrops and prickles,"

Several feet away from her, the little girl's skipping comes to an abrupt halt, the girl being exactly an inch away from the exit. In that moment, Gwen feels no heartbeat, no pulse on her when the little girl cranes her neck to look directly at Gwen. She doesn't know how she knows, but she just knows.

In that moment she knew what was bound to happen, and she screamed.

"Raindrops and roses, and teardrops and prickles, Gwenny and Laney, are going to start playing,"

The colour red splattered the dull grey stones.