Withering Starlight

1. Gods & Monsters

 

                                                 Chapter 1

                                           Gods & Monsters

In the blithering, early morning cold of East Marrowvale, Genevieve Haring hurried down the ice slicked sidewalk, her dark red Mary Janes clacking against the frosty cement.

Not a single person on the street was without a thick jacket or coat, otherwise their skin would be blue and they'd be shivering in the gusty winter winds.

Stupid cold. Stupid season, Eve cursed as her cheeks flushed red with the chill.

But despite her resentment of the city weather, she was in a surprisingly good mood. It had been exactly three days since she'd last seen one of them, and she held a delicate hope that maybe - just maybe - her infernal sight was gone for good.

It had been a curse that hung over her head since she was a child. While other eight-year-olds were terrified of the monsters hiding under their beds, she was pointing at the real ones standing in her closet. It was because of this, because of her forthright honesty about the creatures she saw scurrying through the darkness, that she spent a good four years in a children's mental institution.

But there was nothing good about it. The halls were hauntingly empty, the bed sheets felt scratchy like lying on hay, and at night you could hear the sobs of other patients echoing around the cathedral-like building, ghosts all on their own.

It was the worst years of her life and she spent the early days of them trying fruitlessly to convince people that she wasn't crazy, that the monsters were real. It wasn't long before she realized that no one was going to listen.

So she let them drill their incantations into her head - Eve, sweetheart, monsters don't exist - and she ignored the shifting shadows outside the hospital, turned her head away when she stepped outside her door, pretended that everything was okay.

After nearly nine years it became a pretty powerful habit. It was second nature to her to slip inside the door of Ink Drop, take a seat down beside Raffe, sketch designs for tattoos, aid new costumers in their searching, go to school, talk to her friends. She thought and believed in normalcy until it just was.

Except there was always that one flaw. She could never change what she saw.

As she neared the corner of Saint street the tattoo parlor fell into eye shot and a smile spread across her face. She knew the owner would be inside, flipping through folders, swiping down the glass cases, patiently expecting her to walk in the front door at any moment.

As she turned the corner she nearly collided with two figures, one big and one small, pulling up short just in time to scarcely prevent from tipping the two steaming cups of hot liquid she was holding all over herself and them.

"Oh! Pardon me," the tall woman apologized. She was holding a little girls hand - her daughter presumably - who was wrapped up in more pink than Eve had worn in her entire life.

The little girl smiled up at her.

And in the reflection of the glass window beside them she saw the scream that was tearing itself out of the child's throat, the monster that thrashed and clawed beneath her skin. The one that lifted pink lips into a friendly greeting, taking in the world around it with stolen, frosty green eyes.

Eve's heart jumped painfully inside her chest but she managed to keep a straight face for her own sake. She took her gaze away from the girl and looked up to the woman instead.