vignette 2

Megan’s story started with a kiss.

Her focus was on Joaquin’s soft lips insistent on her own, on her tongue tasting the inner outline of his mouth, and on their soft moans drawn out by well-placed pressure. She tilted her face, and felt his mouth slide down her neck, to that part below her jaw, and she had to lean back further against a wall to steady herself.

Joaquin took in the subtle perfume behind her ears as his rough hands skimmed her back, her curves, her behind. He pulled her harshly to him and grounded their hips, his dark eyes meeting hers, and she gasped at the clouding of her senses. Her long, gossamer skirt that hindered their touching was hastily discarded. She could only clutch his shoulders.

They did it straining against the wall of that air-conditioned classroom. Her mind slowly, unknowingly traveled through a dark tunnel, her consciousness pulsing, her control lost.

But out of nowhere, a dead girl’s face flashed in her thoughts. And she could only jerk in surprise at the exact same time her heartbeat matched the pounding on her body.

When he shuddered after those infinite minutes, and she opened her eyes to the sight of his hair slick with sweat, Megan tugged at the silver necklace she gave as a gift to draw him closer for another deep kiss. But that face was still on her thoughts.

She looked around and saw no one. In a low voice and already reaching for and putting on her clothes from the floor, she said, “Let’s leave. I’m getting cold.”

Quickly, she moved towards the creaking wooden door and partly turned the bronze doorknob. She impatiently looked back at Joaquin, who was scrambling to button his pants before following her out, and saw a departing streak of white at the right corner of her eye. She gasped out loud, and spilled out the room only to stop at the sudden warmth of the dark hallway.

Megan dimly heard him call, “Hey Meg, wait.” But her mind reeled from the onslaught of life silently spinning in the lifeless air around her. She couldn’t walk. The space close to her body was filled with images of the same decaying mouth. Spiritus. Speis.

In unison, the gaping holes opened and she was engulfed in their high-pitched shrieking, like knives on metal, like a crying child whose mother just died. She turned on her heel and sprinted down the stairs to the hulking main door, leaving the shrieking echoes behind, oblivious to Joaquin running bewildered after her.

There was no sleep for her that night, only shivers from warmth and cold and fear, and a sudden aversion to mirrors. She just closed her eyes and kept them closed until the sun rose again.

*written originally for LitCritters but was scrapped by this blog's author.
**this blog's author still doesn't have a story.
***this blog's author has to stop referring to herself in the third person.