Skip to main content

Angel

She slides down the wall next to him, fidgeting with her grocery bags as she does. "I have a roll-top can of Spam. And soft drinks." She smiles apologetically. "The convenience store doesn't have much now. They only carry things that don't spoil."

In the shadows she sees the barest glimpse of his smile. "You're kind to share with me."

"What else would I do? Go home and eat it alone, while you shiver in the dark? We might be the only two people left on this earth, for all it seems."

His pale gaze meets her. The look in his eyes is unfathomable, almost otherworldly. A shiver runs down her spine.

"What is it?" Josette asks. "Why do you look at me so?"

He puts one hand over hers and the can of Spam she is holding, surprising her to silence. A howl pierces the quiet, chilling Josette's blood. "Oh, God," she whispers with dread. There are wolves nearby: their population has increased rapidly with the decline of human civilization.

These are not scruffy forest wolves who hunt rodents and fear humans: these are virile descendants, fearless and set on dominating the abandoned city. They have an intelligence between one another that seems akin to telepathy as they hunt their prey, which is of a human nature.

"We must hide." There is terror in Josette's voice as she meets the stranger's golden gaze. "It sounds like they're coming this way."

He stands: he is much larger than he seemed when crouching against the wall. An aura of energy surrounds him as he looks around, his rags blowing in the wind. Then he looks at her.

For the first time, the light reveals his face. His skin is the palest golden white: his brilliant eyes too are golden. His age is indistinguishable by his lovely face: he is like a marble statue with the apparent likeness of youth but for the faint chiseling of age and weather.

He extends one hand to her and Josette looks at his long, graceful fingers, those of an aristocrat, not of a transient. "Come. We must hurry."

Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

Popular posts from this blog

Where does it lie

I look out onto the yellow and brown vegetation beneath my window, at the castle-like buildings far away and wonder where do I lie in all of this? There was a time when I was unfettered. This was a time before I entered the working world, before I was independent. My heart was free as a bird when I was in college. I did not know what happiness I experienced in my creativity because I had never known different. In other aspects of my life I knew pain but my stories, sprung up lately from a gothic mist into an immersing Pre-Raphaelite painting, were a richness and the most beautiful thing I had ever known. That the most beautiful thing I knew to exist happened inside of me made me very happy, even though I didn't know it. Now I know the sun is setting, even though I can't see it, because the bank of brown, twisted trees and shrubs is lit gold, like a reflection from a golden chalice. Slowly, slowly it will fade until everything is a homogenous, uncertain gray. This is the nightma...
more &

Cassandra stood poised at her vanity mirror. Her long hair, which spilled past her waist, was twisted in one hand, and in the other was a pair of jeweled scissors.

As she lifted the scissors to cut, a larger hand wrapped around hers. Cassandra withdrew with a cry. "Kell! I didn't see you come in." He took the scissors away. "I take it you got the job." "I did," she said crisply. "Return my scissors to me." "Not if you intend to cut off your hair. What do you mean by this nonsense?" "I can't have long hair in the laboratory. It might catch fire or something." "Look there." He guided her to the window. Below them lay the scattered remains of a centuries-old city park. The benches were near invisible due to growth, while the pond had extended far beyond its original boundaries. Ducks floated serenely on its surface. "We played as children. Do you remember how you prized your hair?" Cassandra laughed a little drily. "Of course. I insisted all my powers as princess lay in my hair. I was haughty. unworthy of the friendship of you and your sister." ...
more &

Snow White and the Prince

I dreamed in darkness, cold and alone. Phantasms shifted around me, frightening me, but I was powerless to escape them or even move, as I was sealed in a casket. I thought of the Queen, my Stepmother, and tears dripped from my eyes as I considered the quasi-poignant moments we had once shared, when we might have been considered to be close, when the Queen had nearly been a mother to me, and the face of love had shone radiantly upon me, before eclipsed again by the storms of Venus. I thought of the huntsman, stung to consider that my only friend had been poised to betray me, to kill me, and again in my mind I felt the horror of his shadow, of waiting while he came behind me, knowing there was no escape for me from a death he would inflict. My heart lifted as images of the Prince entered my mind, his grace atop a white-maned horse, always out of my reach, just beyond the words I longed to speak. If only there had been more time for us to fall in love. He might have saved me from those...
more &