How Could You Forget The Sun

XXII

ANA’S POV

The saturnine tiptoed in the atmosphere like small ballerinas of death when the stars began to twinkle on. The smudging horizon was smoking as if burning, but the only thing burning to crisps was my sanity. The only thing in cinders any longer was the sense I once had. All that was left was the soot: like the sooty skies speckled with white ash.

The night was especially nippy, tingling my fingers and toes with chill. Puffs of wind shook the first few leaves from the trees. They blew past me, free; so much unlike myself that it hurt to watch. I shivered in spite of the warm wraps I had cocooned myself in. The sweater that hugged me tightly seemed to grow as many small breathing holes as my skin had pores.

Though I couldn’t see it myself, I could imagine how the harvest moon, yellow and orange and on fire, was flickering like candlelight in my own eyes. It had only been three days since we had arrived in this old house of the colonists, but I could feel the very essence of wasting away.

The cheer had diminished, or what cheer we once had. Trinvilla had shut herself and Tanger in their bedroom, amusing themselves only by playing simple games. I had not spoken a word to Laughing Jack since the shower three days ago, but only because he had not been around to speak to. Otherwise I would be asking him questions.

In fact, the only creepypasta that was hanging around constantly was Hoody. After all, he was the only one that got along with all three of us: Trinvie, Tanger, and me. Masky had not even shown his face to me since Laughing Jack took his bullying too far. I felt bad, but the embarrassment I felt had not lessened since.

So I was left alone to the cold-growing world that seemed all too dead for me. I found it as a pool showing me where I would be if I had not Laughing Jack or Hoody or Masky on my side, Eyeless Jack too. I would be dead. I cannot tell anymore if it would be better or worse than what I have now.

Eyeless Jack entered my mind for perhaps the thousandth time since I had been trapped without chain here. Immortality had its limits, as even I knew. I did not want to even imagine the torture they were probably giving him now for helping me. Hoody had explained that an attempt to help him would be suicidal for anyone involved.

I was beginning to think that it would be worth it.

As if to agree with me, a small bat flittered across the dark sky, invisible except for the blinking of the stars as the silhouette extinguished their cold flame for blinking heartbeats.  I scratched the skin of my arms with my sharp nails, pricking my skin in some areas. I watched as the beads of bright, bright red rolled down and fell like miniature marbles.

I swallowed sigh, and felt like something along the lines of swallowing a puffy cloud of sheep’s wool: it choked me.

“You look like a corpse,” I heard Laughing Jack’s raspy voice.

I let out a breath that held a laugh somewhere in it. Glancing over my shoulder, I rolled my eyes and smirked. I turned back to the night and rolled my shoulders within the sweater’s grey fabric.

“I know I look beautiful,” I joked, examining the scratches I had made on my forearm.

“Don’t turn into Jeff,” Laughing Jack growled, sitting down beside me with his abnormally long limbs draped across the entire four porch steps.

I grinned and actually let out my sigh this time. I crossed my legs and ran my sore fingers over the dark, tight denim. I cracked my neck and bit my lip when I thought of Toby and how he always, uncontrollably, cracked his own neck.

“Don’t you think this all is a bit pointless?” I asked him. “It’s not like I can stay here forever. And even if I do, I’ll die at some point. ZALGO will only chase me in a different life, then. It just is kind of a circle.”