Night

The hard packed sand gave way beneath her, cushioning her bare feet on this cool damp night. Sweet release from the tepid heat of the day, sweltering and dehydrating even as the humidity clung so voraciously. The soft blonde crystals clung greedily to her toes and arches; and the back of her ankles where the cadence of her walk flicked it. Even then, lost within herself, overwhelmed by the thousands of thoughts all cluttering to the fore and chattering for attention; she walked like a predator. Alone in the darkness where females were particularly cautioned against such wayward acts. Still she meandered. Solitary.

Yet this was no act of defiance. At least not conscionable. It was merely an escape. An interlude from all the burdens cloying her attention. The night was always sweeter. The sounds richer, the colors more vibrant in their subdued shades. She concentrated on the stretching and tension in the muscles. The flex of her toes to maintain balance, the subtle tremors in her abdomen and spine in response to her gait. The soft crushing sounds the earthen road made beneath her, the chittering insects and calling night birds. Drinking in the world the way she did her vodka. Deeply, as if reading the memories of each note.

Some Summer Winds

Some summer winds
Have whispered saccharine promises
Sweetly ladened with their buried treasures
Alone the loon echoes weeping willows
Beneath strained sunsets
The sky stretched onward
Surging to envelop
The tender loves it cherished
Glittering brightly
In that fluid intensity
How they quiver
Graciously overwhelmed
By this display of intent

Bitter Hibernation

Twilight was silent. Seeming fit to burst with some token, some mote of wisdom to provide what little comfort was available. It, however, was crushed beneath the cacophonous silence.

Wearily she lay, staring through the verdant forest. The ferns, trees, the soil, the marching insects. The mind is alive with a thousand thoughts - but not now. Not this time. There is only the nothingness. The hollow ache. As if the body was a vein stripped of all it's glittering pieces. There was the endless expanse of time stretched out before her. How long had she been here. How long had twilight been hovering. Were there others? The hard packed earth was rich and soft beneath her, long since ingraining itself into her hair, bits of it clung furtively. Dust to dust, and it was intent upon pulling her back in. Her muscles had long since given up the fight to pull her out of the huddled mass she lay in. Had the fingers against her lips or the ones crushed beneath her belly gone numb first?

Piercing her to the forest floor, the agonizing lance burned its way into her spine. She was sure the scream ricocheting through her cranium had been physically uttered, yet the forest wielded no echo. The blinding white light split her skull apart, subsiding to the muscles being rent apart in her calf.

And suddenly the pain was pinging from one cell to the next. It was then the acid carved it's way down her face. Of it's own free will, she stared from her back into the canopy. Shuddering from the effort and wracking sobs. It was the rain, violently cold and furiously falling. Heaven crying to pushstart the body without the will to do so.

Every muscle was alive and hungry now. Awakened from it's bitter hibernation most hastily. Clutching and clinging to itself it cried. And in her mind there was only the acrid wasteland. Only wind and cracked, dead land for miles. Yet she wasn't alone. There was that one. Hovering over her. Unrelenting, however, undemanding. Seeming content to just be there. Voicing no queries, no motive, no comfort. Nothing.

The forest moved. And suddenly she was staring out again. It was then she noticed the curled claw of a hand clutching the wet earth. Sliding over it as the legs behind her pushed. Content to watch the dragging, she huddled into herself observing until she was lost to unconsciousness.

Asmodel

He was looking at her. That was it. No emotion in the gaze, mere observation.
The bile rose thick in the back of her throat following the cold sensation creeping up her spine, setting fire to the nerves in its wake. It spread slowly, seeping into her bones. She kept herself tightly wound, breathing deep slow breaths subtly to subdue the rage. This had happened before, suppression was an automatic symptom now. And it might have worked like the cherry it was, if he had stopped staring.

It was the sharp trembling of her feet along the outer edges. Like someone who had pushed themselves to far during a workout or in marathon runs. At least that's how it had always been in the beginning when they had been trying to induce the storm that erupted from within, those furious frenzies where the devil hisownself took a sick day to avoid.
She remembered gasping.

Lunging across the table she had time to analyze several possibilities of action he might take. He was slight, so physically no match for her unless he could fully pin her in a vulnerable position and then use the full strength of his upper body as well as every ounce of weight on his skeleton. The guards coming in the door were more of a challenge, being specifically bulked up to be dogs of war. Well bred and well trained. Arching herself mid-leap her right hand shot down to his weapon, her left catching his shoulder and using it as a gymnast might use a bar to turn.

Shoving him into the table and landing herself in a crouch behind him in the fractions of a second it had taken the two guards to enter, and in another she had angled his frame against her to the guards. They could not see her from beneath and behind the furniture and body, yet she could see their feet and shadows. Calculating their moves and the time she had left, she slid the gun beneath his right ear. And pulled the trigger.

Cowering from the shot, even though he had turned to avoid the blowout thus saving him his hearing, he had provided the opportunity to be used as a weapon. And she took it. Hurling him at the first guard and taking out the second as they collided. Landing to his right she fired on the first guard while yanking him up and across her body.
"Time for you to be useful again, Asmodel."

The terror ripping her from what ever subconscious state she had been was almost as painful as the blinding lance radiating from her side. Sweat broke out and she huddled fetal to ease the shock waves into something manageable until her body responded appropriately. Sighing hesitantly she counted the breaks. Whatever had happened, her ribs and shoulders had taken the brunt of the beating. Numerous rib fractures and breaks, as well as a shoulder out and collarbone floating. Hell, her whole right arm was out. Which was such a shame, she had always favored that hand for shooting and at heart she was still a gun-bunny greaser.

Pulling herself upward she took in her surroundings. That shame stopped dead in the tracks of a frozen heart. He was here in this place with her.