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Ophelia's vision

From my story Cambriel, in November 2006.

The next morning, I went out into the city alone.

The sky was gray and everything felt dead in the cold mist. Even though I was frightened of the rusty elevator, I stepped inside and lowered myself as I had seen Shelley do. Every time the wind blew, the cage swayed, clanging against the shaft, jarring me mentally far more than physically.

I knew a thrill when I stepped out of it. For once there was no one to check what I did. My mantle wrapped firmly around me, I moved furtively along the alley. I did not know where I would go—only that I would see this place that humans had long forsaken—and at a time when the werewolves would be at their weakest.

I crossed a deserted parking lot which weeds had mostly overtaken. There was one car which was dilapidated almost beyond recognition. Every available crevice was stuffed with straw where birds had made their nests. As I moved across the pavement, a vision came to me in a blinding flash.

I was carrying a heavy burden, my strength from a surge of adrenaline. A trail of blood followed me, darkening the cracked pavement with crimson. My mind moved from one thought to the other—from the past to the present—and I could see shifting images of horror and blood.

In the adjacent field I lay my bundle, then picked up a shovel and started digging. Blood covered the front of my dress. I moaned and wailed as I dug up the dry, dusty earth, wiping my running nose on my dirty sleeve.

It took hours to dig this grave. I had to crawl inside and trowel out the earth. I shook all over as I did so, barely able to suppress the scream rising in my throat. Shakily I crawled partly out, fell in again, then dragged myself onto the grass, dropping my head near the linen-wrapped bundle.

“My darling,” I whispered. “I failed you. Forgive me.”

Then I dragged the form into the grave as gently as I could and started covering it up. Tears streamed down my face as I did so.

The vision affected my physically. I felt it pierce my heart, and I began to cry senselessly as I made my way across the parking lot. There were no spots of blood on the pavement—as there had been in my vision. They would have faded long ago. However, in the adjacent field there was a pile of pieces of asphalt, mostly sunken into the ground.

I approached it, knowing as I did so that it was that grave—lain undisturbed for a hundred years. In it were the darkest of my memories.

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