Leave It All Behind
Time for me to do my bimonthly actual post of a @flashfictionfridayofficial drabble, instead of writing 75% and never finishing! Decided to let Melandra go feral today because why not.
Content Warning for Stabbing and Arson, just in case (all below the cut bc it kind of starts with talking about stabbing)
I was beginning to get used to the feeling of blood on my hands.
The first time, it was weird, almost terrifying; it didn’t seem feasible that I could damage someone in that way. Before the cults, before my father did whatever he did, I had to get my hands dirty.
It had been here, all that time ago. In the tavern.
Staring around at the mess of tables and chairs, I could almost see myself then, it had to have been seven or eight years at this point. New at the whole business. Unaware of the damage that I could actually cause.
The movement had been automatic. Some drunkard, I couldn’t remember the face. It didn’t even matter the face. The face had been yelling about, reaching out at the patrons and the girls and the tables, looking for something to break, something to destroy. I had confronted the face. Push. Twist. Pull. Despite the long trainings from Lilith, I never thought I would do it as simple as that.
There might have been screaming as the blood dripped down my hand for the first time. I couldn’t remember whose.
But there wasn’t a drunkard now. There was no face, there was no young, new, naive girl that didn’t understand the power that she had within her. I knew the power that I held. To the cult. To my father. To the knife that always fit so perfectly in my hand.
I reached into my bag to grab the fire starter.
Lilith had warned me of something like this coming, of a day where I could no longer stay in Zarothe. I never thought it would be like this, but I never believed that I could’ve stayed forever. Even when my father begged me to. Even when Janette claimed I couldn’t survive if I ran to even the opposite side of the city from her. After all their worrying, this was what was right. To run.
A groan escaped the body of the man on the floor as I stepped on his arm, purposely applying as much pressure as possible to check if he was still awake. He could survive, that wasn’t the point. He just wouldn’t be allowed to know that I did.
“What a shame,” I said to the tables and the chairs and the body on the floor as I let the fire starter drop from my hands and next to the body. “I was just finally thinking of settling down, too.” I reached into my bag again, this time for the match that would light this place up.
Obviously, I would have to move faster then. Couldn’t get caught in the fire myself if I wanted this plan to work.
“You must--” The man began to protest as if I would care, but I cut him off with a finger, kneeling down so I could lower my voice.
“I don’t have to do anything, okay?” I let myself smile, though that smile just seemed to make the man more nervous. “There is no ‘must’. Only what I will do.” I picked the fire starter back up, and almost wished I didn’t have to, feeling the man begin to relax. “Have a delightful day, sir.” I patted his cheek, letting the blood from my fingers smear against his skin. I didn’t know what the man was thinking, and I didn’t care.
People were beginning to gather outside.
I picked myself back up, my mind calculating the best way to prove my death. The back, obviously. The back was old, would likely collapse with a fire. A shame that those memories would have to go up in flames, but with what the cult had done to the business, to Lilith and the girls and the patrons, maybe they already had.
I let the fire starter fall from my fingers again as I entered the back, this time onto a table. This time for real, not just for fear. I checked the door to the alley only once, hearing nothing but the occasional noise from a cat or some other creature. All the attention was towards the front, towards what was happening on the docks, as it should be.
The temperature in the room was already rising when I walked back to the table with the fire starter, feeling the weight of the match in my hand. It was easy to strike, it had been designed that way, imbued with something that lit it when struck against any surface, hard or soft, rough or smooth. For just a moment, I held it in the air, letting the light of the flame calm me, soothe me, like the candles that I had held so dear to me for so long. Maybe I would find new candles to hold dear, far away from this place.
I dropped the match.
And I ran.
