Tick, Tock.
Tick, Tock,
Tick, Tock.
The clock was slowly ticking it's way to midnight. It was 11:50 and my life would be ending at midnight tonight. It was peculiar how I knew that. Not even I knew. It was this feeling that I had in my mind, my body, my soul. I just knew.
My heart was beating in a slow and steady rhythm, just like the ticking of the clock.
I was sitting on the beige couch in my own living room that smelled faintly of blood. My blood. The whole room reeked of my blood. The sight and smell of my own blood made me slightly dizzy but I tried to hold onto consciousness. The huge gashes all over my hand were from...well...I don't exactly remember what it was, it was slowly dripping onto the light fabric of the cushioned couch and staining it blood red.
11:53.
My heart was starting to beat slower. My eye lids drooped and the cuts on my hand stung even more as I felt Him approach. That "Him" is not who you're thinking of. Not God for he does not exist to me, but the other. His opposite. The devil, death or whatever you want to call him. He is not who he seems though. He could be your dentist, a random pedestrian walking on the sidewalk on his way to work, the creepy neighbor who never leaves his house. No one knows what he looks like. I do not even know. But I know that he is coming.
11:56.
The time is near. I am not scared. I am at peace. I would imagine at such a young age I would be afraid to die, but I'm not. I was prepared. At 19 years of age I was going to die.
11:59.
This was it. He should be near. I heard a rustle from outside. Could it be him? My heart rate accelerated a bit at the thought of seeing who it was. Then I heard the familiar sound of the front door creaking open. I almost managed to smile as I thought about how I intended to fix that door whenever I moved here but I was too busy to even give it a thought.
12:00.
The chime on the grandfather clock that was sitting only 10 feet away from me rang and I jumped. My eyes were wide open and searching all the halls that lead out of my living room. Where was He?
Suddenly I felt light-headed again and my eyes began to droop. My upper body wobbled a little bit and I fell back into the couch as my eyes closed shut. I couldn't move. I was paralyzed. Even though I couldn't move it was like all of my senses were enhanced. I could smell the lavender bushes just outside the window of the kitchen and I could hear the buzzing of fireflies in the summer wind, I could feel the soft fabric of my couch under my fingertips and one drop of blood slowly slide down my finger and I heard a little splash as it landed on the floor. But what was the loudest and more alarming sound was the heavy sound of boots walking across the carpet and straight to me and the strange smell of men's cologne, roses, and...death. It was Him.
I struggled to open my eyes to see the person standing in front of me but it was like that part of my brain was shut off. Like I completely forgot how to function my eyelids.
"Hello Paige."
My body stiffened a little bit as if I was slowly gaining control of my body. His voice wanted to make me curl up in a ball in the corner of a room and beg for mercy...but it also wanted to make me wrap my arms around him, inhale his perfect but strange scent and never let go.
"H-hello?"
My voice came out raspy and hesitant as if I wasn't trusting my own voice to speak. I cleared my throat and tried to speak again but I was cut off by his beautiful yet scary chuckling.
"Don't try to speak, I don't want you to hurt yourself too much. Now all I want you to do is when you gain control of your body again I want you to open your eyes very slowly. All you have to do is concentrate and think especially hard about the certain thing you want to do. Don't think about anything else...just opening your eyes. And while you do that I'll answer some questions that I think you might have."
And so I did what he said. I thought and thought but I couldn't concentrate because his voice was too much of a distraction. So I just pretended to sit there and move my eyes back and forth which I was still capable of doing and just listened to him.
"So I bet the biggest ones are who am I and why am I here right? Well let's just start with who, what, where, when, why, and how. OK.?"
I managed to nod my head a tiny bit and he chuckled again and went on.
"So who is me obviously and who I am is a mystery. Hey wow that rhymed." I could hear the smile in his voice and that wanted to make me smile too but it seems I lost all control of that too. "Now what...I don't know how to answer that so let's move on. Where is obviously here. When is right now, a couple of minutes after midnight on a lovely summer night. When I was walking here it was absolutely beautiful. A wonderful day for a death...anyway...why am I here? I think that's the biggest of them all. See my little princess I've been watching you over the years and you are a very peculiar person. Ever since you were born I've been watching you and my dear you are quite special.
You see your mother and I go way back...like way way back. She is not who you think she is...and neither are you. All I can say is don't put your life in someone else's hands cause they're bound to steal it away. But I guess you had no control over that. Your mother tried to hide her mistakes but I found her quite easily and she was burned. Don't get me wrong she was a wonderful person but she had to go for what she did." He lowered his voice for a second. "I'll tell you all about that later OK sweetheart?"
My heart accelerated when he called me that. Goodness Paige get a hold of yourself.
"You're mother died in a house fire...so did your dad and precious brother. Tsk tsk I suppose I have to take the blame for that. Sorry."
Anger shot threw me and my eyes snapped opened.
The only thing I could think was...wow. This man was beautiful. I only saw half of his face because it was hidden by the hood of the sweatshirt he was wearing. I started inspecting him from toe to his head.
This man, if you could even call him that, was wearing army style boots with tight fitting dark wash jeans that suited him very well. He was wearing a belt with a grinning skull as the buckle. How ironic. Also to finish his outfit off he wore a simple black hoodie that covered half of his face. His lips were perfectly defined and slightly pouted. His tongue flicked out and licked his upper lip quicker than a second...but it was all in slow motion to me. His jaw was set and tensed as if he was gritting his teeth together in anger. He had slight stubble on his face as if he forgot to shave this morning and it made him a thousand times more attractive. Everything that I saw about him was perfect. Almost a little too perfect for someone with his reputation.
His lips slowly curved into a smirk showing one almost un-noticeable dimple on his right cheek. "Like what you see?" I could just imagine one of his eyebrows raising up sexily while his eyes sparked with humor. Oh how much I wanted to see his eyes.
I just sat there in silence, gawking. My senses were still heightened and his intoxicating smell still overwhelmed me. To others they would probably smell some expensive men's cologne. But not me. There was this overwhelming smell of death masked with the scent of 100 dollar cologne. Surprisingly it was a good mixture. Weird right?
Both of his hands were stuffed in his pockets and he reached one hand out and scratched his chin. "What do I look like to you anyway? For each person it's different and I always like knowing what they see. It's peculiar really. Once someone saw me as their dead husband, another as their doctor, and one even saw me as the actual grim reaper and another person saw what their dream man looked like...I think I even appeared as a girl once. That was an adventure." He shook his head and laughed, probably remembering some good old time.
"I...I can't really see what you look like."
His hand lifted up to his hood and my heart rate picked up. I could finally see him. But instead of taking his hoodie off he just scratched his head and smirked. "Dang girl, calm down. Your heart rate just took of like a roller coaster downhill. I'm nothing special." And with that he took off his hood and I gasped as my jaw dropped.
This man really was beautiful...but I couldn't actually focus on what he looked like. His hair color keep flickering from brown to a dirty blonde to a midnight black with blood red streaks and then it finally settled on a really dark chocolate brown color. He had bushy eyebrows that raised in amusement at my reaction. And his eyes. Oh dear his eyes were like nothing anyone has ever seen before. Just like his hair they flickered from color to color until they too finally settled on all black and he had thick, girly eye lashes but that made him even more attractive.
His eyebrows went down...and then back up again. "Well? Who do you see?"
"Your eyes." I mumbled. God Paige you're such an idiot. 'your eyes'?? That's all you could say?!
He blinked once and they changed to blue. Blink. Green. Another blink and back to black. "What about them darling?" Blink...but this time they were red. "What do you see?"
The more I looked all I could think was..."You look so much like someone I had a crush on years ago." His now red eyes lit up. "Yes...I remember now. You look my brothers best friend...but much older. I was 13 and they were 17 and I had the biggest crush on him ever. He was so nice to me..." My eyes were down cast and I trailed off remember how he cut off all communication with me when my brother died. My eyes stung. It hurt so much to remember him and it had already been 3 years. I was 16 at the time...19 now.
I looked back up at him, his eyes back to black, and I swear I saw a smidge of guilt in his eyes but it quickly disappeared.
"I look like someone you had a crush on aye? What if I was him? Maybe that was how I kept watch over you all of these years."
All of the sudden my hand started throbbing and I looked down at it and gasped. It was worse than I thought. Cuts and gashes, both deep and shallow, crisscrossed my right hand and it was still bleeding. I just realized it was still there. I slowly lifted up my arm despite the pain and inspected it closely.
There were small pieces of glass stuck in my hand and a small bruises forming on my knuckles.
The man in front of me tsked. "Mymy what happened here? What exactly did you do before I got here you naughty girl?"
I tried to remember but all I got was nothing. I can't even remember what I did earlier today. "I don't remember..." Unexpectedly images and emotions filled my head of what happened.
My reflection in bathroom mirror. My heart was accelerating. Anger. I was scared...oh so very scared...but of what? My eyes were wide with fear and they were puffy and red with silent tears streaming down my cheeks. I also felt really sad. There was another reflection in the mirror...someone vaguely familiar but it was so blurred I couldn't make out who it was...and an overwhelming sense of desperation to get rid of the person and hatred toward him and I felt worthless because all he did was stand there and smirk at me in the mirror. So I did the rational thing and punched it. Blood...so much blood. And pain. But it was quickly replaced with relief. I started walking then. My shoes crunching over broken glass...almost as if I was in a trance and I came here and sat down on the couch and waited...then all of this happened.
"I remember now..." I trailed off wondering what drove me to punch a mirror and who was in it.
He quickly changed the subject, "What was your brothers friends name anyway?"
I snapped out of my daze when he said that. "Speaking of names. What's your name?" I suddenly blurted out and I quickly covered my mouth with my hand in surprise.
He chuckled. "I don't have a name Paige. I have many names. I can't really pick between them although 'taker of souls' is my favorite."
"Why me though?" I asked.
He grabbed his hood and pulled it over his head again. "Now that is a story for another time. But for now you're coming with me and I want to fix your hand too."
"And where exactly is that?"
"My place." He smiled this time but there was an evil glint in his eyes. Well he had one the whole time but now it was obvious. "But you have to be dead to enter."
~~~
dun dun dun...lol :)