; THE MARIONETTIST.

DEAD GIRLS TELL NO TALES. PROLOGUE.

No, indeed, they did not.

Those melancholic cries were forever lost in their throats, their anguish to die with them. Forevermore, they were silent. There was always something awfully tragic about unfinished stories, wouldn't you agree?

That, however, didn't stop an unfortunate one from trying. So here is a tale for you, a tale of she who was consumed by grief, possessed by longing, and trapped within her four walls of madness.

And our tale begins with a woeful ball. It was there that souls found no rest, for it was by the time that they had been erased.

They screamed, and they shouted their unforgiving cries as their skin peeled off their bones, and they died, just once -- then all over again, because they were stuck not in hell, but not heaven quite yet.

She who was not a character in her tale, watched from the top of the grand staircase, watched with empty eye sockets as they trickled in, as her fingers bent and played those silent melodies, and the objects of her story did her will. Because she was the marionettist. She reigned over them all. She felt their grief, and she ached for them. She told their stories, because she was unable to tell her own.

Her own lips seemed to be stitched shut with a thread of remorse, her shouts silenced inside her throat, the vocal cords useless, encased within the flesh. From the hollowness of her eyes, red seemed to seep down the length of her cheekbones, giving the illusion that she cried blood. Those delicate fingers that spoke the words she could not, were bathed in charcoals , and they would rot, rot, rot. 

She was a grotesque.

She was the marionettist. A creature from the depths of her nightmares. Yes, it was so.

Yet, every night, she spun a tale from melodic words, beautiful and enchanting despite the creature they emerged from -- and though she could not speak, her characters could. Though she could not speak, the ones who played out the events of her sorrows could. Though she could not see, her characters could. Though she could not feel, through them, the pain returned.

and so our tale goes . . .

She knew that to love him that meant her own demise, but she cared not. Her heart sang a song for him, coated with all the melancholy and longing she would not dare speak of. Her tongue seemed to whisper those rites in sacred tongues, but all for naught. They couldn't reach the ears of her desire.

And from across the dimly lit ballroom, she would watch. Merely watch. She could read his grief as well as she could read her own despair. She thought sadness looked beautiful on him, like a shimmering illusion she could touch, only to then rip to shreds. 

She ached for the chance to prove she was happiness; she could dream of a thousand wonders and make them true. She could manipulate those emotions she knew so well into something lovely, it could all be lovely again, if only she got the chance to prove it could be so. Even then ; with that thought, came the somber realization that not even the delicacy of the rose she held in her palm, could outweigh all of her wrongs, all of the sins that tainted them.

Yet, as she watched, powerless, as the shadow from her dreams swept another damsel into his arms, that ache seemed to turn into something sinister. A resentment so acute, the little marionette stormed out of the ballroom, the tears of blood characteristic of her marionettist running down her porcelain skin.A mark

                                              The puppeteer startled with a gasp, fingers ceasing their never-ending tune. She felt this pain strongly; she knew it by its first name. It was heartbreak, and although it was not hers, she took a moment to compose herself before she was able to resume her story of a thousand woe's. Her eyes, unseeing, searched for she who was a character in her tale.

The little marionette, wearing a gown that seemed to blend in with the moonlight that shone down upon her, made her way through the riveting paths of the garden. A twisted turn, a maze that led further down the rabbit hole. Her breathing was labored, but it was all that kept her from heaving with her sobs of anguish.

She ought to have known she was not the fortunate one. She would not have her happy ending, not in this skin, not in her next life, and certainly not know. She ought to have known every story needed a villain, and her pain just so happened to make her the perfect, tragic little victim of such a fate.

                                   The marionettist paused, hands stilled in front of her.

The little marionette slumped against one of the ivy walls, her legs crumpling under her. Such a sad, pathetic sight she made, with one of her dainty hands clawing incessantly at her chest, willing the ache in her heart to cease. Her other hand, however, was fisted around something she had always loved dearly. And as her numb fingers uncurled to reveal the withered petals of the forget-me-not's she had previously worn intertwined with the locks of her hair, a sob so strong wracked through her that the petals flew out of her hand, carried away by the wind.

to be continued. . .