The Lordly Ones

-My Sweetest Downfall

Smoke rose and fell in little upside-down waterfalls, lingering only long enough for it to be brushed aside by long pale fingers as they grasped and tugged at the air like a puppeteer's hands, pulling the strings. Her smile spread wider and wider, her eyes glinting, filling with tears as the smoke bit her eyes. Slowly the Queen rose from her daze and her eyes saw the world as it really was. Biting her black lips she yelled hoarsely for more of the thick smog to be piped into the black room in which she sat as she struggled in the chair which she had strapped herself into.

The leather straps tugged at her wrists and the drug began to fade, escaping through the lines of light outlining a door. Yelling louder this time, she screamed. But this wasn't replied either, only by the empty air that now surrounded her. Coughing and spluttering she ripped at the straps, releasing herself. However, when she tried to get up she found she could not. With weak attempts came no benefits and soon she gave up, giving her eyes time to adjust to the darkness. It had always been this way, no matter how hard she tried to escape, she would always end up trapped in a black room. Alone. Whether it was her choice or not.

How ironic.

It was odd how quickly her obsession had grown. Her addiction had become just as twisted as herself and what hurt was that she understood how broken she was, how pathetic any effort to be normal would be from now on. To be truthful, once she met him...she'd never had a chance. She should never have taken his hand. But she did. A flash of the pain of her realisation hit her, how far she had fallen. And yet, even though he had fallen from the sky, it felt as if she had fallen so much further that she couldn't recognise herself anymore, she had forgotten her name, her life. She was no longer anything. But so many people trusted her, feared her. They feared this shell she contained, the empty smile and blank eyes. And even though she had forgotten almost everything, she remembered one name.

Ben.

And in her lap lay part of her letter. A letter to him. To her Ben, her stupid old friend. A symbol of what she had lost, of what she could never touch again. And she read her explanation, guilty and hurt. Her writing had become so scruffy that she could only read one paragraph and bits of phrases muddled with tears and apologies.

I'm sorry... I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I left you alone on that hill...with your stupid telescope and star maps. But you should have seen him, his eyes glinting like flames, like an inferno, glowing under the stars. I admit, I should have known better. And when he called my name I shouldn't have turned. But he was just there. Exactly when I needed him. When he fell he burnt up the sky. And we were only prepared for a flash of a meteor but, instead, I witnessed a blaze. Red, all sorts of red, burning, spreading like wildfire and splashes of paint, in an instant it was like sunrise.

I wasn't close, but I still felt the heat. My hair cracked in the wind like a whip, crashing against my cheeks and eyes. I should have closed my eyes. Should have covered my ears. They felt like they were burning. And hot tears fell down my face. It was the first time I'd understood why you loved the sky so much. It was hypnotic. And I ran. And you know me. I never run, I've never been good at running. But when I did I felt as if I could fly. As if at any moment my feet would stop beating against the ground and start beating against the burning air. 

.......

It's getting late. I have to go. Ben, no matter what I do please remember me as you said you saw me. "Kind","hopeful", because those words seem to have no place in this world.

 Just as she began to fight a pitiful smile, a familiar rattling noise came from the door. 

Good luck trying to get inside.