Days seemed to merge into weeks under the reign of the house’s new leader. Sometimes the small girl would only leave her room to eat food, choosing rather to read all day in the comfort of her small room, head resting against a pillow that had been stained countless times by her tears.
Staring at her small, bruised hands, contracting them had become twice as hard as it usual had been. The same was true for the rest of her limbs.
Although, along with that came numbness. A devouring feeling that froze all her feelings away, locking them in a cage, key held tightly by the shadow that constantly stalked her.
And then, one day, she found herself standing in front of a polished black container.
She froze, eyes halting at the words embedded into the ceramic material.
There it stood, solitary and unanimated. A collection of what had been a key figure in her life up to this point. A black mist began to disperse from the container, shrill groans of pain escaping with it.
The longer she stared at it, the louder the moans emitted from it seemed to get.
Chloe quickly clamped her ears shut with her hands and closed her eyes tightly shut.
The next place she found herself at had been in a medium sized room, adorned in a simple full black outfit, she saw people she’d never had seen before, sombrely clambering around the older woman and offering her words of consolation.
An out of place youth stood closely next to what was presumably his father, somewhat uncomfortable around so many adults.
He fiddled with his hands whilst looking up to the downcast expression those around him wore, attempting to wear one himself to look the part.
“This hardly seems like the place to bring a child.” The small orange girl pondered before pushing the irrelevant matter to the back of her mind.
*THUMP*
Finding herself in a familiar position, Chloe’s orange orbs glazed over as she peered at the older woman who was currently attempting to maintain her balance, lips deeply tugged into the bottom corners of her countenance.
Two black lines stained her face, lips suddenly opening as an unintelligible slurred sentence flowed from her mouth.
Chloe’s eyes clamped shut before she could make any sense of what the older woman was trying to say. Although, she was sure it probably wasn’t anything good.
Green rain drops sharply contacted the small girl’s round face as she looked towards the two black eyes in the sky.
Wherever she went, they followed.
After being in this same dream for a few days, she realised that, at some point, she’d gained the ability to control the body she had been previously trapped in.
If she wondered away from Mikhail, he’d pause, stuck indefinitely as if he was waiting for Chloe to come back, bringing with her a painful demise.
Her eyes looked down towards a reflective neon green puddle below her feet, peering into her own reflection.
A black shroud engulfed her body, bright red blood still present from the accident that was yet to come.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
One disturbing feature that she’d come to realise was the large grin that her reflection always had equipped. Chloe didn’t even know if she could physically make herself smile that largely. Her usual white teeth had turned completely black, the same texture as the shadow’s body.
“How large is this city? It feels as though I’ve been walking for hours.” Chloe groaned, swiftly turning around to meet the figure who’d been trailing behind her all this time.
This distorted city, filled to the brim with red towers and green rain, a motley colour palate for a dream about death and despair.
Even though Mikhail would be frozen in time, the black figure followed her anywhere she went.
No matter where she ran, it’d find her.
“Probably something to do with the eyes in the sky.” She murmured, her body drooping over, filled to the brim with fatigue.
Walking to the front of a particularly large red tower, she tilted her head to look at how far it went in the sky, the bright green drops blocking her vision some.
It seemed as though it pierced into the endless black expanse, perhaps leading to some sort of way out.
The silent dark figure a few steps behind her unexpectedly spoke a few jumbled words, noticing the small orange haired girl’s trained gaze.
“cLi..mb... Cl..imb i..t” it strenuously groaned out, staring at Chloe as it seemingly gauged her reaction.
A large crimson ladder emerged from the side of the building, the ladder becoming outlined from a liquefied metal the same texture as the rest of the tower before quickly solidifying.
The figure pointed towards the ladder, prompting Chloe to climb it.
Chloe looked back towards the figure before pondering over her next actions.
“That ladder looks real long... but I don’t think there is anything else but more city apart from this tower. It must be of some significance to this place.” She concluded, neck starting to ache from looking up to much.
Although she felt tired within the dreams, she could not accumulate more fatigue inside the dream than that of which she came in with.
“I won’t fall.”
Putting her fingers on the red ladder, she found it hard to grip due to how slippery the rain made the metallic surface.
“Probably.”
Climbing the ladder for what seemed to be a few hours non-stop, a normally impossible feat for the broken little girl, but there was no end of the ladder in sight.
Taking one hand of the ladder, she turned around to see the city below her. A maze like structure of never ending buildings enfolded below her. Even though she was so high up, there was no end in sight.
“Looks like I made the right choice to climb up here. I would have been walking for forever otherwise.” She thought, refocusing herself on the task at hand.
But when she looked upwards, there was no more ladder insight. Only a rounded edge which signified that she had in fact made it to the top.
The roof of the tower was flat and smooth. Walking across it, Chloe made extra sure not to slip. If she did, maybe she might just slide all the way off the building.
Looking up towards the even closer than usual pair of eyes located in the sky, the incomparably small girl stared into their obsidian orbs, which seemed to engulf the girl in their gaze.
A heavy hand firmly grasped her shoulder, a voice soon following.
“Ed..g..e sit o..n th..e edge..~” it demanded, a chubby finger pointing to the north edge of the building.
Chloe found it hard to move around on the slippery surface that was the floor covered in all the rain, but soon made it over to the edge, choosing to sit down and dangle her legs of into the city below.
It wasn’t a bad feeling. Being so high up, away from any of the death and despair that being down there brought.
And then she was flying.
Before she could say anything, a black hand had pushed her off the edge of the building, sending her into a lethal free fall.
Chloe let out a high-pitched scream as she felt the air bash against her body, velocity slowly ramping up as she plummeted to the streets below.
The cool neon green raindrops were dropping side by side with her as she plummeted towards the streets below her, the black figure in free fall beside her.
Turning around to look at the eyes in the sky, they creased upwards at the sight of the girl plummeting towards her demise, almost mockingly so.
Almost as if she had been spell bound by those orbs, Chloe abruptly stopped screaming, feeling more at ease whilst violently descending.
Chloe didn’t mind the look that it gave her. Those eyes were softer than those which the older woman had used to look at the orange haired girl.
Desensitised to the scene of someone dying, even if it were to be herself who would be the next to die, she closed her eyes, seeming to be at peace before reaching terminal velocity and hitting the floor.
“Dad. I’ll be with you soon.”