A Collection of Short Stories and Poems

Red-Handed

Prompt: write a short story in ten minutes based off of the following excerpt: "Silvery flakes drifted downward, glittering in the bright light of the harvest moon. The blackbird soared."

Silvery flakes drifted downward, glittering in the silver of the ethereal glow of the moon. The blackbird soared swiftly in the grey clumps moulded to the sky as the crunch of snow and stiff orange leaves under my feet brought out the crispness in the air. A distant train whistled while it passed by slowly on the East side of town. Trees were unnaturally barren, their blackened bark twisted tightly like a new rope and their scraggly limbs stretching up to the sky like the talons of a vulture. And still the trees had a sort of softness I could not explain within them -- the knowledge that even the coldest can be reborn into the something with the warmest heart.

It'd been years since the city saw so much snowfall, or even just a thick frost for that matter. Children and teenagers were by far the most excited by it, stealing the peace of night with the occasional scream from a snowball soaring too close to one's face or from simply falling off of their rusty sleds. I, on the other hand, sat motionless on the swing in a large playground, the swing farthest away from the play structure per usual even without a single child on sight. Not a word left my mouth; not a smile, a chuckle, a titter, nor a sound. It'd been so long since I said anything that I wasn't even sure I could speak anymore, though I didn't mind that much. He once told me that there was a sort of strength in silence that went unseen by most -- an independence that refused to conform to language. That was the only thing I could remember from Him; He didn't even have a name to me, but the distant memory of his smiling face made me feel oddly safe, warm even.

My fingers were bright crimson, their warmth causing steam to spill out from the thin layer coated over my skin. I couldn't feel anything anymore. Not even the cold bothered me anymore as the snow would land gracefully in my hair to gather or on the slowly drying liquid stained to my trembling hands, and yet there was a twinge of something within my chest. It was like a small mouse trying to burrow through hardwood with tiny, almost insignificant, scratches that strangely tickled me behind my ribcage. A strange, strange sensation it was as it multiplied and migrated to my stomach to intensify.

And then sound suddenly attacked my dry throat as the numbed ringing of sirens caught in my ears like an echo. Perhaps I wasn't the only one that could taste the moist copper in the air as if I were a child sucking on pennies. The sound broke through my lungs sharply as my head snapped back to gaze upon the sky once more. Most would call this sound a laugh -- a sign of joy. This, however, was not made due to joy; rather a sound made from the sensation of feeling returning to me in waves. No, this noise left me because of the sudden and overwhelming flood of anxiety tearing through every vein in my body at once. The laugh burned like the fire devouring the small house behind me. Ashes mixed with the snow on my sticky, dirty hands as the noise came ripping out of me in short, rapid gasps.

His body, His now unrecognisable body, lay at my feet, that sanguine liquid pigmenting the purity of the snow with the dark blossom of a black rose. That horrid sound crawling out of my body grew louder as the scratching or the mouse within me began trying to rip itself out of me -- from under my flesh as it gnawed at my brain -- with such an intensity that I almost collapsed next to that lifeless shells sprawled out in leaking chunks in the snow.

I didn't know this man. I couldn't remember my name, let alone His. But what I did know was that He was killed and that I was His killer. I devastated His body with my own hands that no longer felt as if they were attached to my arms.
I killed Him, I killed Him, I killed this man.
And I had no idea why I did.

~Um. Alright, so this happened when I found this prompt on the internet, and I can't explain why it became like this after such a good start???? Like, it's almost three in the morning and I'm listening to Parks, Square and Alleys, so there was absolutely no reason for the dark turn this made. I hope you liked it, I suppose? (Unedited, as usual)