An Arm & A Leg

[Carl]

Darkness, echoes wailing from the innars of the all engulfing night, when suddenly...Childlike voices and laughter pierced his ears. Thank the Lord, he was dreaming and about to be woken up by his children's cheerful, chirpy, giggles as they teased him and his loving wife awake on the brink of day. Even while dreaming of being stuck in some sort of limbo devoid of all light and hope, the sound of his children made him feel at ease and evoked courage from deep within him.


Nothing could hurt him.


But as he smirked, drifting and floating in the vast ocean of nothingness, waiting to be abruptly awakened by his better half and loved little snotnosey'd brat....How long had it been by now? Why hasn't he shot awake by now? ...W-why did the laughing stop?


"Sanne? .... Maya?!...Stop teasing, where are you?!" No answer.


"SANNE?! It's not safe here, grab Maya now and follow my voice, come to pappy!" No sound.


"Please, please be safe!" Nothing.


He could feel the icy droplets of sweat evaporating on his heated body as he ran through the shrouded surroundings in an attempt to find his children and some source of light to reveal this omnious place he was in. It was a tiny speck of sand, almost drowned completely by the dark sea it was in, but still it was there. A speck of light in the distance, causing Dmitri to run and run towards it, until he collapsed out of breath and out of hope. He was about to break down and curse the Lord for not coming to him in his hour of need, when he heard another voice, not childlike nor joyous....


"Call out to him? Curse him? ... Don't be pitiful. You are no mere reader, flipping through the pages of The Book without control of what is described in it, you are The Writer; And it is time for you to start dotting down your legacy!"


The voice came from very near, almost impossibly close to his ear, as he laid down in defeat. When he finally regained his composure, he looked up, and the tiny dot of light was hovering right before him. Floating harmlessly and serenely in place, when Dmitri reached out to it, he was about to touch it with the tips of his fingers when he remembered the voice echo'ing through his ears. He was the writer of his own destiny, for some reason he hesitated when he remembered that. And instead of lightly touching the ball of luminosity, he took hold of it with his entire hand. Cupping it in the palm of his hand and closing it, encaging it between his fingers until it finally popped and in a soundless blast, he found himself breathing erraticly in bed, staring at the ceiling..


"Christ, what the hell did I eat last night?!" After washing his face and getting ready for breakfast with this lovely family, he shifted his shoulders back and forth, trying to get that odd tension out of him. Eventually satisfied with pushing the dream to the back and putting on a carefree smile, he jolted down the stairs and pushed open the kitchen door, but what he met there was not his loving family eating breakfast in a commercial-like fashion...Not even close.

 

[Nine]

Her eyelids opened slowly, as if she was savoring some perfect, lingering taste. Alleria was seated on the island in his kitchen, arched backwards and propped up by her arms. Her head hung back and she gazed at the ceiling as her lips curled into a self-satisfied smirk. She could hear him now, stirring from sleep. She let out a sigh and glanced about her, satisfied with her handiwork. The formerly pristine white tile of the floor was a canvas painted with painstaking attention to detail. At the door to the den, blood had pooled along the threshold. Spray patterns ran this way and that in every direction, leaving dripping Rorschach tests plastered across cabinets and appliances. A deep, wide smear hinted that bodies had been dragged from the center of the kitchen and led out the back door. Following the trail would lead to a surreal sight - the blood ran down the length of the driveway, turned, and followed the sidewalk for blocks before it finally ceased, leading one to suspect that the victims had been dragged, bleeding, for over a mile without notice.


Alleria stretched and looked down at her own blood-soaked flesh. Trails ran down her neck and chest, contrasting her cold, blue-gray skin and dripping from her sides and legs to fall to the floor with a sickeningly rhythmic drip... drip... drip... The silence was broken by a creak in the ceiling. He's awake. Alleria's subtle smirk stretched into a questionably malicious grin and she sat up to finish preparing.


Nothing more than a blink was required to bathe her in illusion. One instant, she was fearsome to behold, a voluptuous beauty wrapped in shadow and adorned with horns. The next, she was an innocent girl. Alleria looked herself over and gave a subtle nod of approval to one in particular. She was now a young and lithe girl appearing no more than 21 years old. Her hair was an intense red, saturated in color - a frightfully accurate parallel to the lifeblood lain in strokes across the walls and floor. Her body was marked here and there by tattoos - they traced up her delicate arms and disappeared beneath the sleeves of her too-small, cropped white t-shirt. Ink on her sides and collarbone hinted that more may be found beneath her clothing. The large and numerous holes in her skinny jeans gave glimpses of still further tattoos on her legs. Her face was glamorous, at once intimidating, fierce, innocent, and inviting. Piercing golden eyes shone from behind dark and extensive eye makeup. The stud sparkling from above the left side of her mouth did nothing to distract from the luscious and delicate lips beneath it. A septum ring hung from her sharp, upturned nose and her ears bore similar hardware. Happy with her result, Alleria resumed her position on the counter, laying back to prop herself up on her elbows and bending her knee, allowing the other leg to dangle freely from the countertop. Such a beautiful picture - an angel, pristine and unmarred, surrounded by the smell and color of death, she thought. The sound of heavy steps rushing down the stairs invited her gaze to the door and she waited, feigning innocence and knowing that such a confusing image would have a debilitating effect.


As the door swung quickly open, Alleria set her eyes upon him, that same curl in her lip suggesting some hidden knowledge. She playfully swung her leg, taking in every second of his reaction as a litany of emotions played across his face and waited for his gaze to meet her own coy expression. She practically purred, her voice young and energetic, raspy as if she'd spent the night before screaming at the top of her lungs, "Hello there."

 

[Carl]

The myriad of flushing emotions and thoughts that ran unbrittled through and over him from the moment his eyes set their gaze on the scene before him were...Undescribable, wordless gestures were all he could muster, worthless attempts at trying to express himself, all of which fumbled. The bloodmarks and patterns all around his otherwise already messy kitchen were too much to bear for anyone standing, let alone a man who had it all, only to lose it all on one of God's whims. "Again you put the blame on the wrong person, he had nothing to do with this." The voice that shouted in his mind didn't seem to belong to himself, but this was not the time nor place to be worrying about that. The voice was right, the voice guided himself to the real culprit, the one who snatched everything away from him and sat there smirking at him playfully as if this was all one big game to her...The redhead.


Pushing himself of from the ground in the same motion as he kicked himself off from it to rush the girl lounging in the midst of his family's remaining lifeblood, he howled and cursed the world in the same breath as he snatched a meatknife from the counter, only a few steps away from the girl now. All sorts of visions came before his mind's eye while he felt his shoulder and arm move on their own accord, swinging and aiming for the girl's exposed throat. The visions ranged from happyhappyjoyjoy memories of his childhood and adulthood, to vague life lesson-remarks from his old man to what could happen to him if he actually went through with this and slashed the girl's throat before asking any questions. All that flashed before his eyes were as meaningless as the sentence that would await him if the police found him as sole survivor with an unknown dead girl in the room even. He was going to slaughter her!


Just fractions of moments before the knife would be lodged in her throat, he suddenly pictured himself back on the first day of the job. Fancy tuxedo, smart briefcase and looking as sharp as ever with his hair neatly combed and a trimmed beard as an added accessory to his outfit, covering the scar he got as a kid on his sunkiss-tinted, and blade-kissed, chin. Looking sharp as ever, even with countless hours of preparation for the job under his belt. His boss had given him the time of day for less than a second before scanning his dossier and mentioning, between the soup and the fries as they said in his home country... "Façade only gets you so far, focus too much on it and your foundation can be cracked by the first signs of bad weather."


Why did he think that, at this time? This had nothing to do with keeping up appearances, this has jack shit to do with anything but just vengeance, served with bloodshot eyes and an overloaded mind.

 

[Nine]

Alleria remained still and serene as he lunged, clearly intending to attack her in a blind rage. The play of anger and pain across his face amused her and she couldn't help but let a devilish grin escape her composed visage. She had waited some time for the chance to meet face to face, after years of watching and learning and she was enjoying it immensely. Alleria could see his mind reeling, likely beset by a tidal wave of emotions and memories as pieces of his psyche strained to the point of breaking. She couldn't have planned it better if she'd had a century.


In the same breath that he screamed, Alleria simply sighed meekly. Her relaxed posture did much to disguise her absolute presence of mind. Her very spirit was poised, prepared for what she might do next. None of this needed to happen this way - it was her choice. The poor man wasn't to be blamed for his ill fate in being partnered with true sadist. As his hand approached her throat, knife gripped tightly beneath white knuckles, Alleria deftly stopped it, only for a long enough moment to drive home her intentionality. In that second, her hand pivoted around his wrist and pulled, guiding it home and plunging the knife into her. It sank to the hilt into her neck, just above the collar bone with sickening sound as the fresh, metallic scent of blood filled the kitchen for a second time.


Alleria lifted her hands to the puncture, sputtered, and fell back on the island. Her head hung limply backwards in the sink as blood poured from the open wound and ran into the drain with a volume that began to fill up the sink as the plumbing couldn't keep up. Her back arched severely as her lungs struggled for oxygen, filling instead with blood. She gasped and froze, draped over the counter, her skin going somewhat pale, and she was still once again, the very picture of tragedy - a beautiful, pure young girl cut down in violence. Her eyes were motionless, fixed on some void between her face and the white ceiling. Silence fell in the kitchen.