H&S: Story Of Dorothy Oneshots

Man Is Mortal, In The End

    “When the grandfather clocks chime, your time is up.” The girl’s angelic voice was icy, bitter, unforgiving, as if he had wronged her. It gave him shivers, not like the sparks that warmed him inside when her giggle rang in his ears like tiny bells, but the tingles that ran down his spine as the hairs on his neck were raised. Unnerved could not begin to describe what he was feeling, neither could terror or depression.

       Sue looked at Dorothy with misery, the beautiful girl with the peculiar purple eyes that he met, quite curiously, down in the hidden sewers of the manor his family just moved into. Yes, he had suspicions for at least a minute or so, for the adolescent had appeared from a grandfather clock ticking away in the corner of the crumbling desolate room he found her in. But even the possibility that she could be a witch, or simply a child practicing witchcraft (which was unheard of to him) didn't phase him as much as it should have. Her charming, innocent, and playful personality blinded him to his better judgement.

      “If you have not found me by then,” Dorothy continued, sounding the utmost prim and proper as she stood before him in her beautiful pink dress, “then, you have all but lost. For the umpteenth time, my dear Sue.” A taunting lilt crept upon her tone in the last sentence, as if she were mocking his constant failure. Her red hair glowed a glorious, neon tangerine as the flames from the candles lining the first floor central hallway reflected upon the pencil-straight lustrous locks.

       Sue’s eyes shifted to his dress shoes, thinking about how she lured him into each game with the promise of gifts. Whenever he found her before the grandfather clocks inside the luxuriant house chimed collectively, he’d practically drool as she thought about what priceless collectible, antiques, tomes, and more she could possibly give him. Hide and Seek had become a dreadful, deadly game for poor Sue when a terrible misfortune befell those who lived in the grand dwelling with him. Death, and mysterious accidents. It all only frequented as he started to continue playing the games to revive those that died, and he was failing quite pathetically

      “My servants, the housemaids, even the cooks, the people that aided my parents in bringing me up the way I am, are decaying in the back of our property...” Sue couldn't allow his pride to be damaged further by crying in front of the she-devil that tricked him. But his voice shook with the weight of grief and remorse that seemed to create a black hole in his chest. He thought to himself that must be what depression feels like as he continued. “And still, as if that weren't enough, you've grown ghastly briars and vines to knot and tangle themselves around their headstones...”

      Sue’s brown eyes suddenly boring into hers delivered the question without any more words having to be said. Dorothy could read people as easily as the raven-haired boy could open and read the first chapter of one of his countless books. She didn't even have to put her mind-reading powers to use. She looked the pitiful creature before her up and down with indifference. It was painfully clear she was to give no mercy, no empathy, sympathy, or a shred of pity. It chilled him, as it was a reminder who he was dealing with wasn't entirely human and wouldn't offer any compassion, especially to a greedy child like him.

    “I do not feel remorse for your actions, you silly boy.” Dorothy suddenly burst into the adorable, high-pitched giggles he used to admire.  

      “So I am the one who has wilted our entire garden overnight,” Sue retorted with a drastic change of attitude, knowing how hard his family worked to keep the property beautiful, “and planted so many briars and thorny vines and weeds around each grave that I couldn’t even begin to wade through without shredding my legs to a pulp?” He had planned to place flowers over each grave and sob about how sorry he was while, unbeknownst to him, his parents gazed at him fretfully from the windows.