A stranger sat at her table, claiming to be her soulmate.

There was something rather odd though, more than his bizarre, almost offensive statement. His voice felt alarmingly familiar.

She locked her eyes on the wooden surface in front of her in denial of his presence. The strong taste of whiskey in her mouth mixed with the sense of the warm blood on her hands made her stomach retch. She tried to swallow her remorse when his voice shook her again. He spoked gently, almost whispering. The remembrance flood her mind like the blood from his guts on her night gown a couple of hours ago. She raised her head steadily, almost robotically and faced him. It was him, the stranger she was forced to married the day before. The stranger she murdered on their wedding bed before he even managed to take his pants off. He was there. In front of her. Smiling while sitting calmly on a fucking creaking chair.

And he was alive. Alive as the god damn day!

“You might as well ask me” he said. She was now convinced that this was nothing more but a nightmare or there was something more in that whisky rather than barley.

A bell nearby started ringing cheerfully.

The tears in her eyes gathered instantly, like flies over a corpse.

“It is our wedding bell” he yelled then full of excitement and struck his knee. “Come on!”

He hoped over and offered her his hand while smiling widely.

His move provoked a wave of blood from the open wound in his belly but he kept smiling.

She puked the whiskey on his hand and collapsed loudly on the hard table's timber.

Once upon a time life used to be harder though.

As a child, she used to climb a stone wall to sit on the peak and interrogate God. Although afraid of heights, her queries were much more terrifying. Undoubtedly.

Her first acquaintance with faith contained a quite large amount of terror rather than anything divine. She used to stand there, on top of her tiny world, knees all bruised and teary eyes, flirting with the sulfur or a good fall.

Neither of them ever happened.

Only late at night, when all the lights were gone and her room was dark, she used to feel an unending fall within. Her room felt crowded with entities so alive that she knew that there was something unworldly in that room. And its name was fear.

Her mother, always asleep, used to wig wag outside her door, murmuring prayers and checking the door's locks all night. She wouldn't even dare to ask her what's all this compulsion was about, scared what might the answer be. And when her exhaustion reached its peak, she used to pray to God, the same one that primed her father's hand against her earlier that day, and the day before, for peace.

And, oddly, she received it.

Every single time.

Waking up felt like pulling her violently from nonexistence. And nonexistence felt so idyllic right now. The light had gone and the tavern was almost empty. A couple of customers, old like trees, were mumbling something that sounded like a made up song. Or a war song.

Her head was ringing and felt like twice its size. Her tongue was tasting metallic and she spit blood mixed with broken tooth. But she refused to turn and look. She stayed there, cheek flat for a time that felt like a century. Mind numb. Until fear felt milder than madness so between her matted hair she asked:

"Are you still there?"

Morgue. Even the bewildering song had died.

She cried then.

Like never before and never after.

Something undefined woke her up.

The room was empty and dark. She could feel the sweet, moist air on her bare feet. The pale moonlight gave them a stiff marble like look. She was sweating profusely and her hand automatically reached for the glass of water she always kept by her bedside. She accidentally pushed it from the edge of the nightstand. The sound of the glass breaking on the floor echoed in the dark corridors of the enormous building. The memories of her first night in this house, almost ten years ago, immersed like a pack of wild wolves in her sleepy unconcerned brain.

There is something tender in remembrance. Even the most savage one she thought and smiled unintentionally. She was wide awake now. Alert and alone. She left the bed and kneeled on her knees trying to avoid the sharp pieces of glass around her. She looked at them with strictness and picked one up. She rolled it in her fingers while observing it. She pressed the sharp end onto the top of her middle finger till a tiny drop of blood started to form. She smiled and dropped the glass on the floor. You could hear the male crickets desperately performing their mating call. Their chirps used to lull her to sleep as a child. Now though they had something irritating.

She bow her torso and spread her arms under the heavy bed, snooping with her hands in search of something. “It is pitch black in there” she thought, “black and dusty”. Her instinct whispered to pull her hands back and runaway, but her need won over it. And then she touched it. She froze for a second and then she started dragging it with all her strength. “Damn it!” she cursed between her teeth and dragged harder till the carved wooden chest appeared like some kind of satellite out of the void.

Her chest was pounding now and she could hear her heartbeat clear and desperate in her ears.

“So heavy” she thought, “unbelievable”.

She tilted on it in an attempt to catch her breath and started rolling her fingers on its textured surface. It was made magnificently, a hard delicate piece of art full of extraordinary details. “It surely tοok years to be made” she thought. The search of proper wood, the cutting, the measurements, the carving and polishing of such. It surely required a serious amount of effort and craft to create something like that.

She couldn't wait any longer.

She raised and pulled up the brass latch that opened unpredictably easily. Then she flung it open.

We humans, can detect thousands of different odors. Every day of our lives we are exposed to smells that become so familiar we barely notice them anymore. And still, time can not erase the memory of a scent. No matter how old, no matter how brief. Time is a ruthless companion. And memory its a lifetime tick that digs into the past to feed. And there's no better start than a smell.

He was here.

The skin on her face reddened and her eyes overrun with tears but it wasn't from remorse this time. Remorse can fade away with time.

Unfulfilled desire won’t.

Elina

@Redwine

Pursued

Redwine