Crux
The nights’ air was just crisp
enough for a mind to wander into the depths of the subconscious without
reservation. A girl, whose reality had turned upside down, was looking for a
peaceful escape, a space between spaces. When her eyes closed she would imagine walking
backwards underwater without moving a step, slipping into a world only she
knew. She drew in a robin’s egg blue breath, feeling the world around her unfolding
to its fullest potential, every euphoric thought was felt and every emotion was
beautifully displayed in a mask of color before her eyes. Every night, for as long as she could
remember, she would drift backwards with this blissful ease into the pristine
world.
A clear scent of freshness filled
the air; she took long, deep breaths which made the experience even stronger, she
could almost cry from the sensory overload.
There were hydrangeas and
chrysanthemum’s leading the way up to 5 monuments standing in the center of a
marble garden. The smooth, polished marble stone clicked and gently snapped under her
feet with every step. The challenge from dissecting the complexities of
the statues' design drew her curiosity, every time she looked at them something
new would present itself. She loved to admire this one particularly fantastic
bronze statue on the far right of the garden. Perched atop a marble Victorian pedestal stood a strong, tall, figure;
the only writing was on a plaque
at the bottom of the pedestal which read:
“Novem 29, 3474”
As she stared with a pink mixture
of adoration and happiness, the beautiful face of the woman on top of the
pedestal floated between elegant beauty and terrifying blurriness in a
matter of seconds.
That glorious statue began visibly
moving, but not as a result of its’ weight; something was affecting it internally. She
walked around the fixture, one careful step at a time, reading its’ condition
over with midnight-purple perplexity across her face.
An orange wave of curiosity blew
over her as if a sheer scarf had just brushed her face. She fought to keep her eyes open, but the worry that filled her was stronger. Her eyes squeezed shut, but only for a
moment.
The monuments crippling decent caused the bronze shell to flake off in sheets. It was collapsing on itself, becoming
more like a deflated beach ball every second. A blinding white haze of fear
fell on her. It was becoming hard for her to watch the statue
crumble in a painful heap atop the pedestal.
The creature dripped loose, slimy,
rotten skin on the immaculate marble as it crawled down on all fours off the Victorian
pedestal, its arms as thin as rails clicked and crunched from the bones being so
brittle. It struggled to drag its weak, boney body, across the smooth concrete.
‘Why is it coming closer? Can it see me?’, her brain was squirming to figure
out the strangers next move, but all she could focus on was its’ shrunken jaw and
her red-tinted reflection in its malicious black eyes.
Its stared at her as if
a twine rope were connecting their souls, injecting a direct line of
intimidation into her. She took 2 gliding steps backward, gently placing her
heels on the smooth white stone; she was still trying to figure out what had
just become of the once Olympian statue she so adored. Its’ shrunken jaw,
covered in shadow from the rapidly darkening atmosphere, lagged behind the gasps
of air it was struggled to attain with every movement. Drowning in air, its black eyes burned with agony, beaming a message of silvery wrath
toward anyone in range.
Panting and choking, the beast was making its’ way, the
marble stone skinned the pealing flesh off in the same fashion as the bronze
that once covered it. One misstep caused the deathly frightened girl to fall
back, she was vulnerable and this drew the hellion’s attention. Her
hands now moved in the same rhythm as the creatures but in the opposite
direction, she scurried backward, kicking her legs higher than necessary in case
the monster got too close. “Cruuux” “Cruuux!” ‘the little devil talks’ repeated
in her head until the brown, gravelly
voice spoke again. A peach colored terror engulfed her heart, making it harder
and harder to maintain the physical work required to escape the bee-line of the
ravenous, crippled demon.
She fought the internal paralyzing
fear for as long as she could, but she knew that the longer she crawled backward aimlessly, the quicker she would be brought
to the dreary side of the marble garden, which wasn’t by any means a garden at
all. There were patches of rough, broken concrete 100 feet away, she had never
actually been near them but they were noticeable from a distance.
The choppy
rocks started to cut her hands turning bloody hand prints into dark
maroon railroad tracks for the fiend to follow.
In her mind she began to reminisce inside a
tangerine light; she thought about the years when it was so
pleasant to be in this eternally secluded world where she was protected by the puffy, emerald-green fog of familiarity with the statue. Nothing could have ever prepared her for this
fate, being that she never imagined it was possible for a statue to crumble in
the way this one did.
Every muscle in her body was exhausted
and glowing bright red. A gurgle from the beast, “cruuux!” ignited her fear
once again. That thing would have its’
way with the girl who had done nothing to offend it in the first place. “And
for what reason?” She asked herself, half not expecting an answer.
Her arms finally gave out; the back
of her head hit the ground with a scrapping pound. A straining murmur “cruuux!!!”
escaped with every foot the frail body gained by rolling and dragging itself
toward the girl. After the 112 foot pursuit
Crux’s bloody, outstretched hand finally grasped her ankle, with more force
than expected. Crux lay flat against the ground, heaving itself closer to the
girl, intimidating her with gargled moans and grunts, “cruuux.”
Just as Crux’s grip began to
tighten around her ankle, the absence of earth under her hand rang out with a
red steak between her ears. She became very aware of a warm, tan heat covering
her chest and back, as if water had just saturated her already sweat stained
t-shirt. She couldn’t feel her limbs, the peach tingling sensation in
her chest made up her entire being in that moment. Her “shirt” was being lifted
off like two clasped hands slipping past one another, the contact was fleeting
without any sign of stopping; she felt terribly helpless. She weightlessly fell
backwards through mid-air, the unknown fear of what was to come returned, but after
what she just experienced, it didn’t disturb her much.
That must have been the fall; the ominous cliff that
everyone has lurking one step behind them. It engulfed these two tragically
innocent beings without warning. Now, any new thought she had about the
predator were just a dwindling, flashing pin holes in her memory.
Continued in part II
