Godless Creature

Hope's Hand

Well,what was done was done.

Victor Frankenstein was dead. And so was his Mother, his brother, his wife,his best friend, his father, and all he had once loved. What was there left to do?

Live?

But what kind of life was there to live now?
Maybe a very tall cliff and gravity could fix that. Just step right off the edge, close your eyes and don't worry about what happened next.

But what will happen next?

Frankenstein's creation was a tall, black haired, ice blue eyed monster with death in his very grip. He had learned, through the years past, that squeezing just right, for just a little time with his massive hand ended a person's life very quickly. And painlessly. Thank goodness.He would have gone mad if all his victims had screamed in pain as he ended their lives. He preferred the silent moment where they'd simply go limp and he could lay them gently in a peaceful place to sleep.

But now all that was done. And all he had left was his rugged clothes and dirty hands. No matter how hard he washed those large, pale,mangled hands of his, the stain never went away. In his mind at least.
"Out,out damned spot!" he thought over and over, to quote the play he had once read about a murder.
But he wasn't thinking about his hands now.
It was only a matter of getting to a high enough place to jump from. He didn't bother trying to keep the cold out with his long cape and furs. He didn't care anymore. He only climbed.

His pallid skin was iced over and a sickly blue. His dreadlocks of rough black hair where stiff and his feet....did he even have feet? He wasn't sure. He couldn't feel them anymore.
But no matter. He shook the thought of his feet away. He filled his mind with the image of him falling. He saw himself spinning through thin air, falling, falling, falling....
He didn't think about the love he almost had, or the child he once loved, or the father he once had, or the beautiful wood that was once his home.
No.
That was all blocked out by the snow. All that snow. He had never seen so much of it at once. He felt a strong hatred for it. So clean and white. Not like his hands.

Finally.His cliff.

Frankenstein's monster stood at the edge of the snowbound ledge, looking over the windy storm of white. His eye lids dropped and he took a long, deep breath through the nose. His eyelids shot open. He could smell something. Very faint on the wind.
Was that....smoke?
His eyes darted around. Surely his senses were playing tricks on him. He took another sniff. Nothing.Not even the slightest smell of smoke.
He shook his head to clear his mind. It was just playing tricks on him.He turned his face to the edge of the cliff once again. He closed his eyes and lifted his foot dramatically to take the step. Then he stomped it down hard.
There it was again! He spun around. This was annoying. Could he not die in peace?
He sniffed again. There it was again. The smell of woody, clean smoke.
Well,it didn't matter anymore, he was going to throw himself from that cliff and it wouldn't matter if there was a warm fire just over the hill, surrounded by kind people...and food.
"Why do I have to even think about it?" he asked himself aloud, "It doesn't matter! They would hate me as all the others did,"he spat hatefully.

There were faint voices on the wind.

The monster let out a long sigh, his breath freezing before him on the wind. He hated that little warm hand that grasped his heart. Hope.How dare it return? Had he not learned his lesson? Hope was lost for him.

But it held its place, pulling his feet away from the ledge. He stumbled across the ice and snow, sobbing at his own weakness of heart, and cursing whoever had invented the annoying little hand of Hope.
He walked, following the thin drifts of smoke that lead him in an aimless trail through the snow and ice. Snowflakes began to fall softly about him.
The warm blanket of that damnable Hope grew thick and caused him to walk faster.
This is pointless!! he thought, the images of every face he'd ever seen flooding his vision.All so hateful, disgusted, fearful and loathing.
Even the captain, who had allowed him to take Victor's body to bury, had the look of disgust. Even the blind grandfather,who, on hearing his son and daughter scream out, became fearful of him.
Then the little Hope grew tight about his heart at the thought of the little girl...Eve. She did not fear him, she was not horrified a this appearance. She danced with him, laughed and spoke with him.
But she was too far to reach now. There was no way to see her little smiles and hear her ringing laughs out there in that desolate, cold and empty plain.
And why, for heaven's sake, was he following that stupid smell.
He forced his feet to stop, he bade the cursed Hope in his own heart to leave. He then turned to go back, but saw the distance he had walked, and fell to his knees. Miles from his cliff.How had he walked so far?
Well, no matter, death by freezing was no better than jumping off a cliff. He hugged his body with his arms and bowed his head.
He wished with all his might that he might have had someone to pray to, to ask forgiveness of and bid them save his soul. But God was not his, and Victor was dead.
Do I even have a soul?
The creature's mind began to falter and waver, thoughts became like snowflakes, small and rushing away with the wind.
His eyes fluttered and closed. He fell down and wished with all his heart that death would come quickly.
And for a peaceful moment, he thought it had.