I lay upon the soft sweet graas Unaware of the world come and pass The skies yawn; sweep me asunder I am free to breathe in my morning slumber

When the bird above sings a honey hello My eyes flutter open to see its coat of yellow How it warms my bossom to have a friend Who doesn’t want me to miss the slience end

The valley swirls and dances with the wind I notice the sun’s glow has thinned Perhaps the time is now to go home And leave this field as the thunder roams

I’ve forgotten already the beauty it holds When the world slows and twirls in deep folds I sing to the winds and its melodies follow along I sleep now to the rains melencholic song

Tick tock, tick tock, The clock would drone on. My back to it’s looming, glooming presence; staring at me with it’s cold inevitable stare. I try to look at it, catch it in the act, but it’s not there. I’ve gone mad, I think, but then I hear it again, Tick tock, tick tock. I spin around, and I see it, there! Just as it hides behind the grandfather clock.

Hector knew that something was amiss the moment he saw his friend.

Standing in the doorway of their favorite pub, stood Victor, looking as if he had one foot in the grave and the other on a wet fish.

“Vic! What happened? You look just awful.”

And that really was an understatement. Victor, the one who’s always got himself put together, the one who’s perfectionistic ways cause him to have obsessive tendencies towards cleanliness and outward appearances, now stands before Hector in his favorite suit, at least what’s left of it. Torn and ratted and smeared with dirt, Hector thought he looked something from a Poe poem.

“Hector… I- I have to tell you something. I’ve- I think I’ve found something completely morbid.” Victor looked as if he might collapse, so Hector quickly put his arm around him to steady him. He tried to guide him to the nearest table to sit but Victor shook him off.

“NO!”

Startled Hector backed off.

Urgently he spat out, “ We have to go now, I wa- this can’t wait… you have to see it NOW.” Victor’s voice was as hard and cold as ice, and Hector knew that whatever this was, it was an emergency.

So they hurried out, Hector following him on horseback.

~

They were a long ways from the village. Hector had never seen this area of land in his life, and growing up he had always been the adventures type. Victor however, had always been the hermit and stuck close to home in his study.

“Vic, my friend, how did you ever end up here?”

Victor had been frighteningly silent the whole ride there. With only his back to gaze at, Hector’s anxieties have been cranked up to an all time high.

“We’re almost there Hec,” his voice was a rasp and so low that Hector hardly heard him. “You simply will not believe it. It’s terrible.”

Victor always been straight as a pen, the one who kept Hector out of trouble growing up. The one who was always there. Always.

“We’re here Hector.”

“Here?”

There was hardly a difference to where they were now to where they were an hour ago. Just trees in every direction; so tall that they seem to go on and on.

“Yes, but we still have to go pass that boulder over there, just on foot.” This came out of Victors mouth in a frenzy. Whether it was out of nerves or excitement, Hector couldn’t decide.

They hopped off there horses and made there way to the spot.

“So my friend, do you plan on telling me what it is we came to see?”

“Oh believe me, you’ll know it when you see it.”

Hector hardly had a choice but to believe him and walked passed the boulder to see- nothing.

“Vic what- wait.” There was something. A LOT of it.

Mounds. Everywhere piles and piles of disturbed earth for as far as Hector could see. It-it’s a gravesite.

“Victor what the fuck-.”

THWACK

That’s when he fell unconscious.

~

Victor always had a fascination with death. As a child he liked to perform autopsies on the small critters that wandered around the village. He dreamed of becoming a surgeon. But because he lived in such a small village in the middle of nowhere, the opportunities were slim.

He was an outcast because of it. Nobody dared to come near him because of his peculiarities. Exact that one idiot. Except his best friend. Except Hector.

They always stuck together after their bond. Never apart, they went on little adventures, much to Hector persuasion, and Victor happily complied, thankful to have a friend.

Everything was good for a time. Everything was perfect.

Until two weeks ago.

Victor shakes himself from his thoughts as Hector lays gasping, waking up from the blow to the head. In his newly dug home.

He looks strange from here Victor thinks, almost too small, too vulnerable.

“Vic- why-?” He stops and bursts into a fit of coughs

Oh, I’m going to enjoy this, thinks Victor.

~

Hector looks up to his childhood friend in horror. Victor leans over him, resting himself on the shovel that’s now coated in his blood.

“Why, he asks,” he’s laughing now, he doesn’t sound like himself, it’s too crazed, too awful “ I’ll tell you why. You were the one thing in my life that wasn’t fucked. The one person who I can count on as a companion for as long as we lived-.” He choked on his words.

“Then I wake up one day with you GONE, you never told me where you went. I half thought that you were dead. Which I probably would have preferred.”

Hector can’t do anything but stare.

“Months go by, and I find you at the pub with a ring on your finger, and your arm around a common WHORE.” Victors eyes go wide with intensity.

“So that’s where you had gone. Some local village you had wandered into like a moron, and went and got yourself hitched.” He’s laughing again more forced.

“Hmm but I got busy when you were away, you see. Without someone to keep me occupied, I had to find my own ways of entertainment and ohhhh my friend, how I’ve found my calling.”

Victor smiles down at Hector like he’s telling him, warmly, about his accomplishments and not about to kill him.

“The first was a quick death to try and get used to it but it felt so easy, so natural. So RELIEVING. I couldn’t stop myself from doing it over and over.”

“And now my friend, it’s your turn. Now, I can finally bring this sad part of my life to a close. I do wonder though, how much soil I’ll find mixed with your blood in your lungs, when I dig you up and cut you open.”

Hector’s final moments were spent gazing out into the starry sky, dreaming of a sunny morning, where he and his friend would play.

I had always been taken aback by my Hyacinth’s beauty.

But today as we walked long the path toward the sea I could help but stare along the outlines of her shape, the color of her eyes, and the melodies of her laugh.

Darling what I would do for you in this moment. You are my moon, my stars, and sun above. For without you, I am shrouded in darkness.

Please tell me, assure me now that this is forever. That this snippet in time is but a foretelling of our eternal happiness together. Tell me now like a secret whispered in the dark, and I will be happy now, tomorrow, and always.

I adore you my love. Never forget that.

The job, I swear, was once quite enjoyable for me, it gave me a sense of fulfillment. But now, I can’t help but wonder why I bother anymore. It hurts too much.

And it’s all because I broke the one rule that we must live by in order to do our job; I fell in love. I fell in love with the girl I was supposed to watch, and protect and she doesn’t even know that I exist.

Even now, as I watch her cross the field of flowers at dusk, I can’t help but fall even more; she’s so beautiful. But that is not what did it for me initially; you see the thing that drew me near was her eyes, they shine like the stars in the heavens.

In those eyes I break, in those eyes I’m home.

But, still, we have no way in communicating for I am but a mere shadow, an entity forever tied to her being, tasked to keep her safe from all that wish evil upon her, and I shall, but I will be miserable doing so.

It is for this reason that my days have begun to drag, and somehow, that face of hers that brings the red rose to shame in her beauty, I’ve slowly begun to resent. And that is what’s most heart wrenching of all.

Today, I walk with her keeping close behind (without her knowledge of course) and watch her cross the street to her favorite cafe. This is a very usual venture for her and when these times occur I usually keep busy across the street admiring the hustle and bustle around me, and also admire her.

She’s wearing a sundress today, a stormy blue color that makes her white-blonde hair glow as much as those star eyes.

She’s truly both the bane of my existence, and the reason I go on just the same.

Her eyes wander and light up in recognition, as she spots the person she has been waiting for. Her partner arrives with a flower at hand, and a kiss for my love never to be.

And I do, what I always do, and watch.

The boy looked down below the bridge, and saw what can only be described as an eternal realm of darkness. And to the boy’s surprise, the abyss had a voice.

“What are you doing here, boy, all on your own?” The abyss said.

The boy, surprised himself, and was hardly phased by the fact he was talking to darkness.

So he said, “I’m not sure.”

This wasn’t a lie, he really WASNT sure. The most recent memories he had were in his own house, asleep next to his wife. Now, he was on a bridge that seemed to stretch on and on. With no one but the strange voice to talk to.

“Well,” said the abyss, “I can tell you why; I can tell you anything you want. Ask it, and I’ll tell, for I am the voice of wisdom unattainable by any mortal. I know all and see all, and I can see the darkness growing inside you.”

“Me?” The boy asked, vastly interested now.

“Oh yes, it has always been there you know. I can see it it has been growing it’s vines around you little by little. And now it seeks to have control.”

The boy felt a chill roll down his spine.

“Control of me?”

“Yes, and by the looks of it, it already has. You are ready, you are ripe, you are home now.

The boy blinked and realized that he was standing on the ledge of the bridge. It looked so easy to fall into the darkness, into the cold. And yet, he somehow felt at peace, for the first time in so long.

“Yes, now come down to me, and I can share with you the knowledge of time and space itself. I can give you the world and more; I can give you, EVERYTHING.” The abyss’s voice seemed to get very excited at the thought.

The boy felt a tugging at his heart just then; as if there was a part of him that wanted to go back home, wherever that was. He couldn’t seem to remember anymore, all that crowded his mind now was the voice, and the promises it laid before him.

And so he jumped.

You never really realize, how your actions, though unmentionable at the time, could lead to a catastrophic turn of events that lead to devastation.

But I am ahead of myself.

That morning, started much like every other, dull, uneventful, and carried the smell of burned eggs because I cannot cook to save my life.

Walking out the door though, I happened upon a small booth of bright colors that had a small crowd gathering around.

Curious, and having nowhere in particular to go, I decided to get a closer look. The crowd looked very interested; in the moment I hadn’t taken the time to look at the crowd itself closely, for if I had, I would have seen that something was amiss. Alas, I’ve never been the observant type. But I’ll explain the crowd a little later.

The booth itself, was hardly anything remarkable, it being what appeared to be a miniature stage, with bright lights along the frame and bright red curtains blocking whatever it was making the noise.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that, the almost nonexistent sound that could be easily missed. It wasn’t as creepy as it may sound, but I swear I could hear whispering; a faint voice that held no gender whispering things too faint to make out.

And me, of course the genius, opened the curtains.

Now, I know you were expecting me to reveal to you what I saw behind that curtain, upon the small stage. And to tell you the truth, I still wonder the same. For I never saw what lay behind the scarlet veil.

My next immediate memory after that was waking up in my bed to another dull morning.

Thinking , “Ah! Of course! It was but a dream, now I can proceed to get up and make my burnt eggs and carry on.” And so I did, first taking a detour to my bathroom to preform my morning ritual, when I was scared half to death with a loud “AHGH!” by my reflection, or rather the lack of what was reflected before me.

I had no face, at least, nothing resembling what was there yesterday, I had my eyes of course, but that was all that remained the same. The rest of what I could hardly call a face. Every feature was now a swirl of colors and sharp angles most unnatural and monstrous. I now wore a Picasso like profile that made me cower from my own reflection.

I want to take this time now to explain my vague description of the crowd from earlier; for if I had taken the time to glance at the people before me, I would have noticed their lack of human faces, and the unnaturally large smiles they wore as their whispers had me mesmerized under the bright lights, beckoning me ever so closely.

( I didn’t really follow the prompt but I hope whoever reads this still likes it )

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