The deafening, never-dying sound of the church bell rings through her ears, masking away a song she is trying to remember with desperation. Her eyes glare at the divine building, accusing its noise of having broken the chain of thoughts she struggled so badly to form.
Reasons for not being keen on church outside of this particular event were already there, running mazes inside of her synapses, but this is her very last straw.
Evelyn's pace quickens as her skin fights with November's unforgiving rush of wind that is forcing itself into her tissue barrier. It takes away the ravens' shrieks and jumbles them in the air with the tintinnabulation, violating everyone's hearing senses.
She forces her hands to remain in the black coat's pockets and not cover up her ear holes in pure annoyance. That would do her no good, a state of serenity would have even lower chances of shaping, with the people's attention on her.
Instead of giving in to the urges that seemed to have their own consciousness, she settles with keeping up her steps in an attempt to arrive at her comfortable house before the dangerous, intimidating clouds decide it would be a great day to ruin her new clothes.
Her hand finds the length of long black charcoal hair, moving it to the left side of the shoulder ever so elegantly before stuffing it back into the way-too-thin material of the coat. The weather given is not appropriate for the poor choice of clothing she made.
Autumn has made its presence known, staining the streets with faddy shades of Stygian and the people's faces with more than the usual solemnity.
Evelyn is no exception to those people. Her heart holds as much misery as a human can take, her mind is constantly bugged with unexplored and unimaginably graphic images, and her face is the best mirror of a soul anyone can create in a lifetime.
Her eyebrows furrow together as a wave of dust, leaves, and cold air slaps her face with unforgiving strength. The reasons just add up to the imaginary list of things to hate for the day.
The girl's mind cannot process what God's reason for this exceptionally gloomy day of fall may be. Truly, she can't figure out any of his reasoning, his motives, or his choices. She turns her head once again to the Gothic church's tower, watching as the old tiles are nearing the edge, just waiting with eagerness to fall and hit the freezing ground. But they don't, at least not when she is looking.
A few short seconds later, she refocuses her gaze on her front, her street, and, respectively, her house. Her old house, looking like it came straight out of the Dark Shadow's dystopian background. It is small, scary, presumably scary enough to keep the curious minds away, but tidied up and her own.
Her body flinches and almost falls on the cold, hard ground—like the tower's tiles never did—when an ear-shattering scream of ravens fills the air for the thousandth time. Although the town is an expert at stealing away silence and any remaining happiness from one's soul, the deafening sound still shakes her.
Her ears seem to be in a constant fight with the outside world as even her steps begin to sneak into her audible sense, the cracks on the paving weaving their noises with the present howls of the death harbingers—the ravens.
Evelyn feels the shivers down her spine, creeping too close to her neck like they are trying to bite it and suck off her blood—as if her essence is not already drained and dry.
She remembers the bell just rang, meaning it had to be a little past six pm already. It occurred to her that it was just another day with even less free time than the others, although she didn't have a thing to attend to or do or watch or care about whatsoever.
Meaningless is not the word to describe it, but for her, it goes along the lines, her life.
"Maybe it's not about the meaning or purpose one holds. Maybe it is just about feeling something other than heart numbness," she thinks, ruminating a just-read book, "a purpose is, anyway, just an excuse."
Her eyes close for a brief second as she takes in a deep breath of the cold air, a breath to calm herself down and give herself time to wipe off the ringing of the bell, the faces of the people, the old church tiles, and the flash of wind that stroked her just a few minutes ago, as she wipes off her feet on the mustard-colored doormat, blinking at her with the letters 'NOT WELCOMED' written widely. She thought it pretty suggestive.
Her lingering fingers find the switch, and she turns the lights on to reveal the bleak space she calls a home, or whatever a home is supposed to look like. Only a faddy light bulb releasing a dull, white light—not enough to hold all the room's space in its shine—explores the ceiling and the floor and everything from a narrow angle of the inhospitable living room.
It was never meant to be hospitable, for who could she ever welcome there other than herself, who, in every possible shape, enjoyed the darkness?
The pleats of her dress, all the colour of a bad-luck-bringing cat, flow through the air, grazing her bloody knees, now covered in thin cotton, a consequence of her previously falling on the cement the day before. Her mind didn't register when she hit the ground, all too busy following the moonlight in fear that it would run and hide, and she would never find it again.
The night visits of a lonely street have always piqued her interest; they are always there in the back of her mind, begging her to stop caging them. When set free, that is exactly what she started doing.
And it's been two years, and that is all she's been doing at night. Her forever worry always the same—the moon will vanish if she looks away for too long.
Her darkened brown eyes, more evident with the indigo paint on her eye bags, take an ephemeral peek at the mirror hanging from an almost-collapsing nail on the wall. Her brows form a frown, and she quickly shifts her gaze to the coffee machine on the counter.
Bored steps, accompanied by an equally bored attitude, make their way to grab the coffeepot. Her cold, white fingers, contrasted by some greenish veins, get hold of the machine, and she turns it on with a light push on the red button.
As Evelyn sat at the wooden table, her fisted hand finds the end of her face, supporting her chin as she waits for the water to boil. The well-known ding echoes through the empty space, and she is up again, already pouring the steaming liquid into her mug.
A single inhale of the flavoured coffee, black and sugarless—much like her life, a touch of the hot wave on the tip of her nose, and she swallows a little of that flowing poison down her throat.
Her legs, covered in black tights, aggressively drum on the hard wood as her fingers are still absorbed by the cup and her teeth pick at the fragile skin of her lips. Her mind is elsewhere, and there is no one to stop her from all the noise she is self-polluting with.
Only the furious throbbing of the sky erupts in the grim silence, and flashes of light from even angrier celestial phenomena break the barrier of darkness set in the room.
A small sigh, tedious and doleful and carrying the hardships of the week, escapes involuntarily from her rosy lips, slipping like fish from bare hands.
"Quite late for coffee, is it not?"
She stills.
Her widened eyes stared for a split second at the air in front of her, the space that was supposed to be empty. Her heart clenches in her chest, her eyes water, and saliva is stuck in her throat, not braving up to continue the fall.
Infinite theories agglomerate in her brain in the minuscule second she tries to understand who the owner of the voice is. She dares not turn her head for another terrifying moment, while the fear throbs inside her and the blood freezes in her veins.
Slowly, ascending and with the fear's anticipation blurring her sight, she plucks up the courage to bring her eyes to the source of the unknown, horror-inducing voice.
With her lips trembling and her voice mute with terror, she catches the uncanny, unfamiliar gaze of black eyes and an arm leaning shamelessly on her perfect white wall. The panic fueled her, restricting her from moving or doing anything one could do in such a situation.
Watching the trapping pupils of the stranger, she descends on his face low enough to identify an eerie smirk, which sends shivers through her entire body, from the last black hair on her head to the very edge of her toe.
Her body seems not to grant her the single wish of protection from the unknown, as she is stuck in that wooden, old chair while the stranger paces dangerously towards the table. Her limbs don't move and her eyes can't look away from that evil smile.
Although her heart crashes against her ribs, echoing in her head mercilessly, her legs still don't move. To her terror, they become noodles, and she feels as if time has stopped. But it hasn't—the loud, heavy steps of shoes on her perfectly cleaned floor seem to tap into her ears, refusing, with frightening determination, to take their leave.
In a moment of freedom and breakage from the time of stillness, she finally manages to pick herself up and take a stumbling step away from the intruder, now not daring to glance elsewhere other than into that man's eyes. Just like she watches the moon every night, carefully and steadily (the current situation, although far more urgent than the big bowl of light slipping away) she looks.
But like all the nights before, she cannot be careful enough to watch her steps and the image in front of her at the same time, and like before, she falls. Her great fall forces her body onto the already bruised and damaged knees, as she views with trepidation some Beckett Simonon-looking loafers, closing the space between her momentarily biggest fear and herself.
She trudges her head with the slowest rhythm she could find to what is above her, taking breaths of anticipating panic.
A tilt of the head and a sly smile—so unwelcoming and spine-chilling—is what she encounters when her dilated orbs meet the man of mystery.
He gradually lowers himself to her panicky face, and, as his wicked tips of fingers, completed by black-painted nails—a black so black that it seems completely alien—find her pointed chin, Evelyn recoils in holy terror. But the vile hand doesn't withdraw from where it first touched her; instead it hardens its grip and ensnares her face again.
A hard glance pierces her eyes and she reciprocally eyeballs those globes, fortunately avoiding the hair-raising grin on the pale, peculiar face. Without a word, she uses the pause to zing from his grip and rapidly tries to lift her body off the ground in order to save herself from who knows what the man in front of her wants.
But the plan you make doesn't always work.
A strong yet unseeable force obliges her right back to where she tried to get up from a moment ago. She was back on her knees again before she could even register the face of the person, which she did not know, being only inches apart from hers. And she is stuck—stuck, for her hands, legs, fingers, and even toes don't listen to her commands.
"No," the stranger says, "I like you just like that." Once again, the girl's heart stops in her chest.
For the first time since the strange presence of the man, she opens her mouth and lets the words escape: "Who are you?"
Despite great difficulties and an iron determination not to show any signs of weakness or fear, she manages to speak without stuttering.
The mysterious lips rise up in a curious, mocking, and arrogant smile as the sentence leaves her mouth.
Evelyn is petrified of that smile. She can tell it is of no good, but again she finds her body denying her of anything that's right, as she is planted forcibly on the floor of her darkened house.
Not even the flash of lightning or the screams of thunder seem to exist anymore. In that inexplicable picture the girl finds herself in, it is only her and a stranger.
"I could tell you, but what would you know?" he responds.
The response is of no use to Evelyn, whose hair starts sticking awkwardly to her forehead due to the cold layer of sweat that coats her.
The strange fingers reach up her alluring face and find a stray strand of hair, moving it so slowly that you'd think it was an innocent gesture.
Evelyn doesn't find it a single bit innocent as she scarily tries to wrest her face from him, only to be brought back by the same fingers, now probing her neck lightly, tracing invisible marks up her skin and stopping only when they reach behind her neck, where they elegantly stroke her.
Her gaze is fixed on him, but he is only searching behind the heavy coat of dark hair, getting past the slightly shorter sections at the very start of it.
"Ah!" he exclaims, as if he had found something revolutionary.
Out of thin air, an ocean-blue, detailed decorated butterfly, with contrasts of black and indigo and just a small pinch of white in it, flies away from near her ear.
Evelyn flinches, and this time the sinister hand doesn't reach for her again. Instead, it reaches for that beautiful, eye-catching butterfly, now flying freely through the room.
With his thumb and index finger, he captures the little being, without a bit of regret in his eyes when the small thing struggles to get free.
He snaps his head at the girl once again with so little expectance that she almost jerks away for the third time — or attempts to.
That Cheshire cat smile is already plastered on his lips when she gazes at him, and he mischievously raises an eyebrow and moves his head slowly to the side as if pitying her.
"Would you look at that..."
The butterfly in his hands starts pulsing with small flashes of color, fluorescent and bright enough to nearly blind her.
"You're scared."
He tsks in something that looks like disappointment and shakes his head from side to side, swaying the pink-reddish hairs on his head briefly.
Her eyes only now recall the vibrating colour on his head, before being busy with finding a way to not end up in a situation just like this one.
He follows her eyes as they acknowledge the hair, and he cracks a smile again, picking up his pace in the meantime and nearing her.
With her legs still stuck to the wooden floor, she feels the bruises deepening and the ache developing gradually, but she ignores it, finding the stranger much more urgent than some redness.
"Look," he commands, and her eyes snap at the creature still trapped in his fingers. "Those little lights are your doing."
He reaches for her face again with his free hand and rubs it against her chin, earning him a cold look—the only thing she could do in her circumstance. She watched in confusion, trying to make sense of his words that made no actual sense to her.
She considers spitting on him, if not to facilitate her escape, then to satisfy her inner self, given how much the man in front of her irritated her. She talked sense into her mind, though, debating whether she wanted or not to play with the deranged man holding a butterfly in his hand—one that came out of nowhere, as much as he himself did.
She chose against it.
"Smart choice."
A chuckle empties the previous silence, and Evelyn's bewilderment grows significantly. 'If he can read my mind, I'm doomed. '
"It's all in this little insect right here." He caresses her hair mockingly as her hands and legs are still in a trance.
"Let me enlighten you."
His hand stops dancing through the length of her hair and he turns around, pacing loudly with a sound much more terrifying than necessary, watching the butterfly with as much fire in his eyes as he had when he was watching the girl.
"You humans"—he takes a sharp and sudden turn right back into the position he was in not a second ago—"are all made out of those emotions of yours."
Her curiosity and, at the same time, perplexity make her listen with great interest.
"Fear, excitement, happiness, and all those jokes"—his eyes roll back, amused—"and those adorable sentiments of yours turn into..."
He releases the butterfly, it gets close to her face in a split second, and the insect doesn't wiggle anymore. Instead, it hovers in the air still, as docile as the girl. In both cases, docility seems like a forced characteristic.
"This."
Its wings are flowing gracefully above her as she struggles to contain her rising fear. She doesn't understand a word coming out of his mouth. It all turns into an enormous cloud of haze, and words seem much rather like the product of a complicated scrabble game.
As confusion and approaching anger are making an appearance on Evelyn's face, the man makes his way inches from her face, almost sending a hot breath to her red cheeks. They were red with anger and frustration and the disappearance of fear, now replaced by much more intensified feelings.
"What do you mean?" she forces out in a voice she only uses when people bother her.
"So you're feisty behind that mask of coldness," he states, "I like that."
The stranger drags a chair from the wooden table and sits himself, with legs intertwined with the backrest and carelessly placed in the middle of the tidy room, almost ignoring the scene in front of him.
The warmth of the air and the gravity of the situation seem not to touch his perfectly pale face. His eyes are proud and look as if they hold an inexplicable fire behind them. They are so black and soulless, yet somehow so passionate and intriguing that Evelyn finds herself inspecting his expression more than she planned to.
The remark passed by, although she could feel how he dared her to lash out by the small lift of his lips. But her anger was not winning; she could control herself and calmness was a natural trait of her personality.
She breathed in and out for a moment, and there she was again, her collected usual self, with dead eyes that could freeze anyone's blood solely from a glance and a look of sternness.
"I asked what you meant."
And he was lifted off the chair, already planted at her eye level.
"So demanding..." he trailed off. "Every human has their emotions rooted in a being, be it mystical or real. It signifies your inner self, Evelyn."
She raises an eyebrow at the mention of her name but doesn't question it any further, rather waiting for him to continue his bizarre, yet captivating explication.
"This thing lives inside of you, it's yours—normally." An uneasy grin makes its way to the brink of his mouth.
"Anyhow, it reflects your emotions, and when those light signals glow, I know what it means."
Evelyn tries to make connections in her head, and although all that is him is more than bewildering, she restrains herself from clarifying the 'facts' he already spoke of.
"And how do you know?"
The man's eyes light up with what seems like excitement—a scary shade of excitement.
With a snap of fingers, her body rips her off the floor she was imprisoned on just seconds ago, and she nearly collapses to the ground. Almost, since strong hands already reached for her before any damage could be done.
"I got you, sweetheart."
With a low voice and a stern grip on Evelyn's body, he portrays a well-known face for the girl—confidence and flirt.
With a swift motion, she pushes him away as she stands up straight, frowning eyebrows and hands cleaning the non-existent dust off her dress.
"Listen, you psychopath! Get out of here before I call the police and get that butterfly of yours with you too, Houdini."
In an uncharacteristic way, she almost yells, her voice so enraged and hiding the fear beneath it.
But all she gets in response is an out-bursting chuckle, infuriating and confusing. She lied to herself that she'd get out of this odd situation quickly, but it doesn't look like it.
"What?" Suddenly, his long and bony fingers catch the fragile, blue pair of wings, all done with such harshness that Evelyn can't hold back a gasp.
"You mean this one?" He lets out a mocking scoff as his hold tightens around the entrapped creature.
Her eyes widen, and she just starts opening her mouth and reaching her hand for the butterfly when he interrupts, "Aren't you a pure soul?"
His eyebrows lower themselves, creating light waves on his forehead, and his lips form a derisive pout before furthering up and putting on display a full-on white-teeth smile.
"You're actually scared for the poor thingy." Laughter fills the room, and more flames cage Evelyn's heart.
The butterfly flies again, vibrating with neon lights of blue and flapping its wings in the air near the stranger's head.
"You should know though, I could play with it however I please." His hands reach for her upper arm, him drawing his head so very close to her ear that even his breath stained the skin with warmness.
"But don't worry," he whispers, "I won't."
Just as his lips try to press themselves on her skin, she hits him with as much force as she has, and that is a lot since she is not one frail girl, yet he wasn't slightly fazed. He just kept on the grin, standing straight and tall and demanding—much more demanding than he claimed she was.
Demanding would be an understanding of what was to follow, a small part of it—almost insignificant.