They thought of her dead.
Now, Vanessa Fletcher was many things, but she was in fact not dead. Or at least, not truly dead compared to the predicaments mortals placed upon those they deemed deceased. Fletcher was in Midway. She was not dead nor was she alive, she was in the middle and while in the middle, she took it upon herself to greet those she found wandering the foggy lands.
Just as she passed a young boy with unruly black hair, a thought struck her, just as it did any other day, that where was she walking to? If not to the afterlife - if there indeed is such a thing - then where? The possibilities are endless compared to the thoughts Cassia spurted just the other day, or to Vanessa it was a day. Time was a pain to keep track of, it either ran too quickly and crawled too slowly, never an in between.
Never, that is, until the Midway.
Vanessa had given up hope long ago of ever understanding time, she had once been one of the few who ventured around the bare landscape in search for a source of light emitting from a certain direction, such as the Sun, to cast a shadow and help understand time. None seemed to comprehend how much of an importance knowing the time way.
She couldn't hold it against any of them. She truly couldn't. She knew each of them had their own hummingbirds at a nest they called home, they may not even remember those members of the same nest, but she could.
All Vanessa knew is that she arrived recently, well, quite recently compared to those who wore tunics and those who had shields strapped to their forearms. Everyone in the Midway looked odd in some way. It was not the markings on their skin, the markings were nothing but proof of their difference from those they knew. Those they trusted. Those they loved.
Vanessa bristled at the glare she received from a raven haired man. He couldn't even be considered a man by the youthfulness his face was shaped in, he was younger, much younger than a man, a boy. Her age in fact, unless time has also distorted her memory, then she wasn't so sure.
He was surrounded by a crowd of confused new belongings, a name Darryl had come up with for those who have newly entered the Midway. It was ironic, in a way, as those who have newly awaken in the Midway are not new, they've simply moved on from where they were.
A misdirection of some sort.
She scoffed at the mention of misguided direction and strolled towards Maddox and those who cowered around him. His black eyes appeared violet once, a lifetime ago or so it seemed, but now the coloured bleached out and left only darkness in return. He'd come to her when it had happened, Vanessa had dragged him into the makeshift cottage she made and tied his hands down with vines from the forests she lived close by, he'd withered in pain for hours with Vanessa watching on the side, a piece of cloth tied around her mouth and nose to stop her smelling the blood.
Blood that turned to ash once exposed to air.
Blood that was meant to be red but tuned grey.
She was terrified by that point, his skin blistered and burned red while she flitted around and dabbed his skin with wet towels. He howled and that was the beginning of his end.
"You sure took your sweet time coming back," he said, eyes narrowed with a hand pressed onto the forehead of someone who refused to stop running towards him, Maddox's hand kept the figure at arms length. "Its blackening meaning it's your shift."
Vanessa looked up to see still darkness surrounding her. The grey fog she's accustomed too had crumbled away to allow black snow to fall. She hummed a comment and turned around, marveling what fell from the sky.
She found herself moving towards the darker part of the landscape, the part of Midway that she built up her home to live in. Several heads turned in her direction when she hummed a tune, a soft, melodic tune that seemed to entrance those who newly entered Midway. Her arms were spread apart and she danced atop the cobblestones and mildew that covered a majority of the ground and found herself chasing after the black snow.
"...Fletcher?" Maddox snapped his fingers in front of her face several times, a scowl on his lips. "You're doing the thing again." She shook her head at his comment and carried on with her dance long enough that Maddox's crowd began to lessen and form a line behind the trail she'd created.
"Poor souls you are
with hearts taken by shards.
You all may believe
that you are indeed
dead among us vultures."
Maddox groaned softly and rubbed his face, his hand dropped to his side as the pest that kept running into him followed Vanessa and her hypnotised soldiers. He had grown accustomed to her riddles, her poems, her songs. The simply process of her opening her mouth and her vocals cords emitting words was something he wished he'd never faced, but unfortunately, he has. And so are the newcomers.
"Stars save me," he muttered, his head back while blackness splattered onto his face and seeped into him as if he was darkness alone. Perhaps he was.
* * *
© 2015 Zoe Nightshade
All rights reserved.
-unedited-
new story time! aha, this one's been in my head for a while and I'm posting it now because I had some time and wrote this up quickly. I won't be doing much writing until after the twentieth of May, possibly up till June 10th :/
I hope you enjoy this, I'd love to know what your thoughts on this are :)
-Zoe
dedicated to Chocolov3r for making the gorgeous as frack cover!