Safia let her head drop with a frustrated sob and banged her fist against the cold ground, inches away from the first stair. Pinkish tears mingled with the dust in front of her face. She felt Syed kneel next to her, and he gently held her shoulder to pull her back up, so that they were face to face. She shook his hand off. He took it back and let his arm rest on his folded leg.
“You need to stop torturing yourself like this, Safiyya,” Syed told her. “I am not doing this for my pleasure. You know that they would be afraid of you if they saw you with your legs fully intact after a mere few weeks.”
These are so fun! I wanted to play around with this Picrew, so I made Safia before and after feeding. For logic's sake, let's say... Her lipstick stayed behind smudged on her prey's throat.
I'm tagging people! I'm doing it!
Make your favorite protagonist of the story you're currently working on✨
Thanks a bunch for tagging me @pheita, it feels good to be back in the tag game after a long drought of inspiration! Here's some lines I wrote during the last hour:
“We don’t know if they’re really safe.”
Olive’s eyes widened. “Do you think they’re actually in danger?”
“We have no way of knowing for sure! Safia told me about these people, they’re insane, they’re murderers!” Road paced back and forth, convulsively tugging at his hair. “They’ll probably follow. If not the Hunters that came to our house, there are others. Safia said they’re everywhere. They latched onto us, they’re not going to let go now.”
“No,” said Olive. “No, that can’t be all there is to this. We can still get out of this, right?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” said Road, feeling more and more frantic, like he was spiralling. “This is my fault. It’s my fault. They won’t let us escape. They’re gonna kill you, they’re gonna hurt you and they’re gonna kill you, and it’s my–”
A solid slap sent his head flying. Cat grabbed him by the shoulders, and she squeezed so hard that it felt like a bruise.
Written for the @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt :
(Content warnings: very very brief mention of pedophilia, religious themes but not the central point.)
* * *
“What’s got you so down, demon?”
Noël looked up. The vampire had appeared nearby without a sound. Its tall dark shadow was standing a little off to the side, as if weary to keep a distance between them, but its red eyes glinted in the dark like two merry jewels. It sounded utterly remorseless. Noël would have been tempted to call it the devil, had she not known any better.
“There was no need to do what you did.”
“You might want to be more precise.”
“Father Gabriele was a good man,” Noël heavily said.
The night’s events had ceased stampeding through her, but her insides remained crushed, and she could feel the lingering dread pulling her down in the depths of a great fatigue. Thought she felt a lust for ripping those red glinting eyes and that single-dimpled grin out of that pretty face, it was only a dim echo of a rage dampened by grief, and she did not have the strength to attack the vampire again.
The vampire laughed. “Oh, come now. That priest was as good as his cute little choir boys were untouched.”
“You dare…”
“Yes, I do. Look at yourself! He wouldn’t have been half as kind if you’d looked a few years older. Did you cut your own hair? Did you choose your own clothes? I never would’ve known you were a girl if he hadn’t called you one.”
“He was a good man.”
“He was a human. A weak, snivelling, pathetic human, just like the others. They’re all the same.”
“They are not. Have some faith,” Noël spat at the vampire.
“How amusing that you, a demon, should say this. Did your human friend use to tell you that? They’re big on faith, those priests.”
The vampire’s smug smirk was unbearable. Noël pressed her lips together tightly and turned away. In her head rang the words Father Gabriele had spoken when they’d met face-to-face for the first time.
A demon, you say? Truly? You are the one I’ve been hearing all these nights, the one responsible for the shuffling, the creaking, the misplaced candles and rosaries?
She remembered her own voice, how it had trembled with uncertainty beneath the weight of years and years of painful loneliness when she’d answered: Yes, father.
She remembered how Father Gabriele’s handsome face had clouded over in thought. He hadn’t backed away in fright. He hadn’t narrowed his eyes in anger. Noël had felt that this man was different, and so she had begged him. It had been a desperate cry for help, one that she hadn’t fully expected him to hear and much less to understand. From within that small alcove she’d trapped herself in to repent and pay for her sins, amidst the crosses which burned her skin and the glowing candles which hurt her eyes, Noël had pleaded: Please help me.
The silence that followed lasted only for a heartbeat. A gentle smile had graced Father Gabriele’s lips.
What is your name, child?
Noël.
He’d reached across the space between them to hold her hand in his. Noël’s skin ran hot, but she could tell that his hand had been warmed by the candles of the church.
Though a demon, you have not once harmed me, and you have crossed my path seeking help. I will help you, Noël. Have faith; such is God’s will.
The wind was blowing in the other direction and yet Noël could still smell the blood on the vampire’s hands. The scent mingled with the cold air and the vampire's long wavy hair like ribbons of iron. One of them belonged to her priest. Father Gabriele had died because Noël hadn’t been there to protect him. He’d been a vampire’s meal. The thought that he’d met such a vulgar end was painful to bear.
“You are a monster,” Noël mouthed in the crook of her crossed arms. Her voice filtered through. The sound of it came out neither loud nor quiet, just broken.
The vampire scoffed. “And what are you, then? I saw the look on your face when we slaughtered all those stupid animals. You enjoyed it. Did you feed on it, as well? A demon would enjoy all that chaos, wouldn’t she?”
“Those brutes were a different matter. Father Gabriele did not deserve such a fate. He helped me.”
“He betrayed you. Don’t tell me you’re genuinely sad that I ate him after what he did.”
“I warned you not to.”
“You were gone, and that’s what I was waiting for. Don’t blame me for hunting easy prey. Do you know what’s most amusing in all of this? He wasn’t even that good.”
“What a vile creature you are,” murmured Noël.
The vampire’s tone became sharper. “Hey, demon, I didn’t choose this.”
Noël gazed at the smattering of tiny pinpoints of light across the inky skies. “And yet you choose to indulge in your base instincts.”
“Yes, because that’s the reasonable thing to do for creatures like us.”
“It doesn’t mean that we should.”
“Ugh, a preachy demon. Disgusting. It’s not my problem that you like to suffer, and I’m not about to let you make it one. You can have faith in that.”
Noël frowned, claws digging in her own skin where her hands tightened around her arms.
“Just how devoid of regret can you be?”
There was no answer. Noël looked to her side after a while of silence. The space where the vampire had been standing was empty.
She thought of her wife sitting on quaint stone steps at dusk, of her pale delicate hands balancing a wide notebook on her lap, of the dark grass that whispered with the wild flowers all around them. Safia lightly shook her head. She could think about Noël later, once she'd cleaned up this mess.
(I don't really think that Noël and Safia have a typically reciprocated typical romantic love, but I do know that Safia has it bad for Noël, whatever the nature of that affection may be)
