Tiny tendrils of white light beckoned dark eyes to open, their luminescent fire burning bright beneath a filmy surface. All life gathered there, a central core of being that was otherwise replaced by monochrome coloring of the flesh. She was a sheath of shadowy lace, perplexing the eye to dismiss her presence, all smoke and mirrors. A heart that desired no comfort thud beneath her breast, each beat causing a painful discourse to inflict soft groans of agony from her throat. They were not audible and yet just barely heard, traces of voice to the open air that sifts through the mind and settles there leaving one uneasy. Yellowed teeth grind against one another in a sickening crunch, tension building in her jowls like a hungry cat, famished and on the hunt. Blackened irises register surroundings, but only halfheartedly so., as if finding nothing of interest. Just as her thoughts come together, they fall apart again, broken fragments of the mind, melding and then breaking again like glass.

A bitter grimace touches dry, cracked lips that do not open. Her gait is uneven, painful in appearance and slow like static noise, grainy and flashing against the screen in the midst of the night. After a moment, she pauses and stills, eyes ahead and unfocused. Against her flesh, ribs are showcased like diamonds and her flanks are gaunt with malnutrition, but not so much as to assume she is starved. No, the hunter will eat, but she waits until the time is right. The idea waters her mouth, saliva brimming the edges like a sick dog and she does nothing to contain the salivation despite the fact that she is aware company will soon be unavoidable.

As dusk approaches, she smiles and while it looks strange upon her face, she welcomes nightfall when she knows she will come alive. Like a demon, she thrives towards the darkness, drawn to the elusive quality of the witching hour. Barren trees gaze down at her and cringe at the creature as if she has stolen the angels from heaven and hidden them away in Lucifer’s dungeon. She taps her heels against his roof and chuckles lightly at the sound, so forlorn in the silence that Threshold has come to adopt. The birds do not sing in her presence and sometimes she misses the sound, as it is the only reminder of a life alternate her own, one she will never inhabit because she is gone.

She does not dream anymore because they will always go unanswered, dreams are not granted to the devil’s children… That’s what her mother had always told her in such an angelic voice, whispered softly into her ear before bed. She bristles at the recollection and her shoulders come together under the loose skin of the wraith. She chooses to banish that familiar face to the hell she has come to embrace and instead pictures heaven for a brief moment, a place she shall never see as her mother had promised; they were destined for damnation.

The muddy ground cakes around her hooves under her weight and she shifts upwards from the sensation, momentarily fooled into thinking that Satan had decided to welcome her early to his humble abode. It is in this moment that she curses lightly beneath her breath, angered by the effect of her mother’s words, which still rung presently in her ear long after the witch’s death. It had been a slow passing, one that the ghostly creature had relished. Such a sickly animal, her mother was, her stomach thinning and turning until she was but a mere shadow of her former brilliance. Those awful eyes had speculated her offspring until death, never closing even after, lacing the mare’s mind with the bitter image of the end. Upon her dying breath, she left her tortured child with the only parting sentiment she knew, “I’ll be back for you.”

Such a twisted existence was led after losing the old hag, one that entailed a deep mourning, a loss of understanding and most of all, a deep hatred for the soul that had left her this way. She recalled the crude touches and foul words, ones of love that extended beyond family… She was but an object to the matron, one that encouraged lustful jealousy over her own daughter. It was a sickly affair they held, tender caresses that were ill-received, ones that would not end until life itself was taken. Love was not a word that the now grown mare knew, because it had been thrust upon her in such a cruel way. She had been robbed of the feeling the moment her own mother declared her to be her heart’s content, a lover that could not return the sentiment. In all fashions, the mare had been ruined, all relationships lost for the one she could never replace.

This was not a life she wanted and the idea sealed her eyes closed, flashes of red dancing across her vision as a painful tearing of her heart began, slowly ripping from top to bottom. She grieved her mother’s death and yet embraced it, eager to be rid of the mental disturbances that caused her so much pain. She was not designed for these emotions and banished them quickly in favor of the stillness that had kept her calm under her mother’s sickly hand, groping in places she could no longer control but still claimed her own. She would remain so scarred until her own death came to pass, ridding her finally of tender relapses of the past that she was trying to hard to escape. It was over now and yet it had just begun…

It speaks to me

and says I'm coming for you