Smooth. Sapphire. Silent. Silver jewelry hung from various piercings in her ears. They reflected metallic light and laughed as if to mock the familar myths of silver bullets and vampires. I walked alone that night. Breathing in slowley the fatal fumes of my dying cigarette. Fatal. I remember when that word once held meaning to me. Wisps of smoke escaped my lips as i tried in vain to catch the scent of the perfumed night air. Nothing. Just smoke. She smiles at me and time stops. Perfect pearls, her teeth. A contrast to Ebon’s eyes. Statue carved of Obsidian stone. Gingerly i touch my lips where the smoke has left its mark. I feel as though i had stolen a kiss. A sacred kiss, and I long for more. “Just a memory” a burning voice whispers into my ear. Memory, so real. Power. The word dances just out of reach. She was power, the Countess. I had stolen no kisses. I could steal nothing from her. Her smile fades as she bows her head. Eyes disapearing into darker shadow. It is only now i see that we are not alone. All around her lie famished bodies , hollowed eyes. Still they see her in such beauty. Some dance, entranced. Their withered bodies. Empty eyes. In that room i could feel my heart. It seemed to dance within my chest. So vunerable, thrashing against alabaster bone. Tearing itself free, destroying itself. I felt my soul draining, i felt nothing. I wanted. I wanted nothing more than to devote myself to her, this unseen goddess. The Countess of my dreams. I feel into unconciousness, the last line of reality dissapearing into the myths of my dreams. My nightmares. Bodies, puppets hung on strings. Dismembered limbs bathed in rivers of crimson. I watched in horror as my soul became entangled in strings, ropes. Suspended. Where was my goddess?! Surely she would come, my savior, to rescue the kisses that i had stolen. My cigarette drops now. Tastes of blood, of her. Bound in rope i hung, and watched. Countess of my dreams. She appeared, but her teeth like pearls became fangs. Nails of ivory, daggers. Eyes of coal like burning minions. She flew, a messanger, a carrier, the captain of the boat, of the river Styx. Countess. I awoke, within her temple. among the bodies of her blind acolytes. Drowning beneath withering limbs. I awoke and ran. Fled the river, the temple, her home. She never tried to stop me, but i felt her touch upon my shoulders as i ran. Her kiss upon my burning lips. Now I walk through the night. I breath the numbing smoke to sear her touch from my lips, but it was burnt in with a force more powerful than fire, hotter than any coal. She lays there, in her temple, my Countess. She lays there in my dreams. I silently walk by. Inside my chest, my heart beats, rotted and torn, impaled by force and ivory. I have escaped. But i ask myself now, for what? I have escaped her to walk alone these nights, to dream of her. To live, barely. I have escaped to burn myself with her visions. To dream of one kiss.
~Falyn