A/N: No worries, all—ATS is in progress, but this popped up and I needed to write it. Have yourselves some chilling EC.
There are no troubles upon her mind, nothing to claim her thoughts apart from the vast, beautiful peace that surrounds her.
She closes her eyes, breathes salt and ash in. It invades her nostrils, bitterly assaulting her senses, engulfs her with smoke and thick cinder. Threatens to creep up her throat and close up her windpipe, make her vomit out a violent gust.
Long, bony arms slither around her waist, dead skeleton surrounding her living, breathing flesh. A tug, and she feels a hard, rib-caged form against her back, firm and freezing. She moulds herself against his front, lets a long, serene sigh escape rosy lips. The rush of sea roars silently in the background, and if she did not feel the biting wind against her cheek, she would have forgotten that they stood by the cold seaside.
Then the whisper of warm breath against her ear, so different from the deadened man who presses against her skin.
"Look, my angel." She shivers at the sound of the velvet voice, stroking her senses. It is intoxicating, strangely seductive. His timbre of golden honeyed death. "Open your eyes. See what I have done for you."
Instinctively, she obeys, eyelashes fluttering delicately as she blinks, clearing the smoke from her vision.
Fire dances around the remains of a building. It is warm—no, she corrects herself, not warm, but a scorching, burning blaze in the cold night. This is the only light she sees—this light that brightens the home she had spent endless summers in. It is lit, now—lit in a way it has never been before. She marvels at how bright it is, how beautiful and loud it has become. Summers here used to be so quiet, so dreary. The flames are roaring in her ears now.
It doesn't stand as it used to; no, now it is nothing but rubble and dust under flicking orange and red, slowly falling apart before her eyes. This home that had taken her father, that had introduced her to the boy. He hated the boy, so she hated him too.
Fuel licks at her childhood home, and she watches, entranced. And feels the slither of his long, beautiful tongue against her earlobe—tantalising, slow, a promise of more hinting at the action. She shivers with revulsion and desire.
"See how I love you, Christine," he whispers into her ear, and a long, bony finger extends to trace at her jaw, pushing at her chin until she is forced to look up. "Look," he hisses, pointing upwards. "Look what I have done for you."
She looks.
There, hanging from what used to be the roof of the house, is a blackened, burnt man. He must have been tall, but with one leg stumped from being burnt off, she isn't sure anymore. Golden, curling locks frame a soft, beautiful face, now frayed at the ends. An elaborate cravat hangs from his lean, long neck.
Blue eyes stare out blankly into the night, frozen in fear.
Strong arms tighten around her frame, pulling her impossibly closer. "I killed him," he whispers, blunt, proud. She feels his lips curl into a smile against her cheek and she leans into him, settling comfortably into his embrace. "He wanted to be yours, once, but only I can belong to you. And you to me, my darling. So I killed him." A low chuckle against her skin. "Nothing will stand in our way, now."
He sounds so triumphant, basking in the glory of her former fiancé's death. They stand together and she finds herself looking at that once perfect face, molten and melted from the heat, revealing nothing more than rotting skin, a hint of skeleton.
Bones, hidden beneath flawless skin. He is nothing more than a corpse, now.
"Nothing," her love repeats once more, cold, thin lips digging into her cheek.
And, slowly, she begins to smile as well.