Affinities

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Nefarious

The sky was blue, cloud free and perfect. Just how I imagined it to be on this day.

The air was crisp.

Green.

It was the smell of grass, and trees, and just everything... nature.

I haven't seen—much less smelled—anything fresh or natural in ages.

Mother never let me outside.

I breathed in the fresh air one more time before stepping out of my old backyard, over the broken fence, into the new world ahead of me. I was free. I was finally free.

I took one step forward, fearful of my mother's rule, but then I remembered that she was gone. I don't know what it was, something took over me, it started with a nervous chuckle and ended with a burst into hysteria. I was laughing.

You know that feeling you get when someone tells you do something but you're not sure if they were being serious or not?

That's the feeling I had and I wasn't going to let this freedom slip away from me so easily.

Taking another step forward, adrenaline pulsed through my veins and my heart beat like the footsteps of a thousand men, but it felt good... right.

I took another step not looking back, there was a field that stretched out into a vast nothingness. I always wondered what the outside world was like from my little window in the attic, that curiosity kept me going. It powered my legs to move faster one step after the other. My erratic heart was all I could hear besides my breathing.

"You're not safe for the world!" my legs moved faster and I shook my head. The tall stalks of grass were tickling, itching and cutting my bare feet, but I didn't care. I'll keep going until I meet the end of this expanse... wherever it is.

I never looked back I was too afraid that she might still be there.

Following me.

The wind was sharp and cold as I ran, burning my throat with each quick and shallow intake.

I felt like the only person in the world.

I let out another laugh. Only this time, it was composed. It was happy. Free.

I was in glee even though my long night gown got caught up around my ankles as I ran, making me feel restrained.

I closed my eyes in pure bliss enjoying the feel of the wind on my scalp. I had hair once, when I was little but when as soon as I learned to speak mother cut it all off. She said creatures like me didn't deserve hair. I always thought she was right.

As if I unconsciously conjured her up I heard something. Sensed something.

It was quite silly and juvenile of me to think such things as sensing people. I've never seen any besides mother.

My sprint faltered but my legs kept moving, going nowhere but heading everywhere. My arms were stretched out at my sides unconsciously when I noticed the wind cutting through the spaces between my fingers playfully.

"Ring Around The Rosie

A Pocket Full Of Posies

Ashes! Ashes!

They All Fall Down!"

I stopped in my tracks fearing to open my eyes.

The voices were everywhere, it sent an icy chill down my spine.

The voices were haunted and taunting, all struggling to keep the menace under control. They were like banshees, ghost stories mother will tell me. I was lucky I wasn't with them she'd say, she'd walk away singing that song with the most soul jolting menace you ever heard.

Opening my eyes may not have been the smartest of things but the singers only got louder and louder and I couldn't take it anymore. It put me on edge, it made me itchy inside hearing that song in the outside world.

There was a boy standing about twenty feet away from me.

A smirk—I read about the sinister twist of the lips and was glad I could finally put a name to it—was evident on his face, mother gave me those a lot whenever I misbehaved.

"Ring Around The Rosie

A Pocket Full Of Posies

Ashes! Ashes!

They All Fall Down!"

He sang and chuckled eerily, I blinked and he was directly in front of me now.

"Who are they you ask?" he chuckled again. He was quite handsome—that or the fact that I'd never seen a real boy before—his hair was dark and spiky, like the thorns on mother's rose bush, and his eyes... they were piercing... glowing really, I couldn't tell which colour they were. His jaw was sharp, lips pouty and rosy piled up in a menacing corner. Tall and dressed in all black.

I made a noise that sounded off and he laughed.

"They, aren't Nefarious," he said darkly before he grabbed my arm with his steamy hands and I felt the earth jolt then everything went black.