Chapter Ten:
dissolving
Joanna had no chance of sleeping that night. No matter how many glasses of warm milk or words she read, her eyes couldn't flutter closed. She tried different sleeping positions, more or less pillows, colder temperatures or warmer temperatures; nothing seemed to work for her.
Aggravated and flustered, Joanna threw the covers off of herself and scooted her butt to the edge of the bed. The moonlight spilled underneath her blinds, illuminating her wooden floor with innocent light.
The path led its way across the expanse of her entire floor, before thin streams reached up her drawer to rest upon the large book sitting atop. The light surrounded it, as if it was cuddling and clinging to the leather-bound book.
Curiously, Joanna padded her way towards the dusty, heavy paper weight. Brushing her fingertips over the cover, she felt a chill tremble down her back.
She needed to open the book.
That was the first command that shot through her mind, while her hands followed the order and snatched the book off of the surface of the drawer. She cradled it to her chest, before carrying it over to her windowsill.
A flick of her wrist brought the blinds soaring to the ceiling, allowing the moonlight to spill across her frame. It chilled her and soothed the fiery burn that now scorched her neck.
Obediently, her fingers filed through the pages. A chant had formed inside of her head, growing louder and fiercer in tone.
Flip, flip, flip, it echoed, each word bringing forth another bypassed page.
Joanna's eyes scanned the first few letters on each unimportant piece of paper; latin terms were thrown around here and there, along with an italicized word that held too many constants next to each other.
Finally, the loud shouting had reached its crescendo, and with it her fingers hovered over the page.
A scrawl of ink titled the page as, conjuring. With that scripted indication, followed a sketch of a star with each edge touching the rim of a circle.
Something inside of Joanna marveled at the symbol, wistfully staring at its intricate design and pattern. Now edge had been untouched with the circumference of that circle, and its infinity brought coos out of her mouth.
It was beautiful, so beautiful that Joanna knew she needed to have that mark upon her skin.
The chant had now changed to an appreciative hiss, as her nails quickly scribbled the design into the flesh of her wrist. It was choppy and scratchy, but seeing the mark upon her own body made Joanna's blood soar.
The voices wailed and cried, as the blood dribbled from the wound. With her nail-beds full of dead skin, Joanna pressed those fingers into the inky writing of the page. Red mixed with black, creating a whimsical blend of darkness and temptation.
The burn at her nape was nothing compared to the flaming hot pain that trailed up Joanna's wrist to elbow. It throbbed and ached, the steady beating of her pulse raging through the agony.
But Joanna didn't frown or cry at the sensation, instead she could feel her body thrive off of it. Her head felt lighter, as if it could float through the depths of space.
The words on the paper grew fuzzy, but the chanting voices inside of her mind ordered her to repeat the lines, to speak them under the illumination of the night sky, to bare herself to the sensations overriding her.
Joann tipped her face to the pale lighting that cascaded through her glass window, and for a second she could believe that it was caressing her cheek with motherly affection; as if it was proud of her decision in give herself up.
The words stumbled past her lips, broken and sketchy like she was in a drunken stupor.
But she did feel as if she was drunk; Joanna couldn't feel anything but the radiating pain of her wrist, the burning itch of her nape and the vibration of her lips as the words tumbled past.
The last vowels escaped her lips, as the remaining air in her lungs followed suit, and she felt her legs dig into the wooden flooring.
With her eyes wide open, Joanna watched in a panic as the innocent white light shining through the hazy windows turned into a rich red color. It trickled and injected itself into the path leading to her body, and while the heat on her neck disappeared, she quaked in fear.
Her limbs refused to move, allowing her to stayed kneeled beneath the languid moving light; it spiraled and trailed its way directly to her body, before spattering its hot, thick coloring all over her.
Joanna screamed in horror as it sizzled the flesh it came in contact with, before heading straight for her newly carved wound. It festered around the marking, shaking and trembling at the perimeter of it.
The moment the red ooze trailed the pattern of her mutilation, Joanna felt all the air leave her body, and her heart stop rigidly in her chest.
Her eyes shut without preamble, and she couldn't help but bask in the confusion and questioning
of what had just happened.
Her chest hit soundly hit the floor, knocking any sense straight out of her mind, but she could feel the entity that was entirely her inside of her withering body scream out for mercy.
YOU ARE READING
The Boy In The Crystal Ball
Teen Fiction"You never truly value something until it is forcibly taken away from you." Joanna Granger had a daily routine: enjoy the summer while it lasted, drink until the sun began to shine above the horizon, and always trust her girlfriends' judgment when i...
