Disclaimer: Don't own.
This is a little experiment I tried. I've never done second person before, or this tense, so tell me what you think!
THE STORM'S REQUIEM
The words are sharp, stark against the creamy parchment. You can picture his face; that disinterested sneer, as he wrote this down. You can picture him giving it to an elf to post, and him going off to meet his dirty whore.
You can see it all.
But it still hurts.
It still makes you feel like shit.
Like you're worthless.
Like you're nothing.
My darling Pansy, it says. So condescending, even in print. The wedding is off. After thought, I have come to the realisation that we are not meant to be. I appreciate your time, but please don't make this difficult. I don't want to see you again. Good bye, DM.
PS, please return your engagement ring with this owl.
The waves are crashing again; you can hear the storm gathering strength. You know that it will only be minutes before it begins to pour. The sky is already a forbidding grey, clouds swirling in a menacing pattern - a promise of the looming tempest.
You sigh and lean back against the hillock on the cliff-face, crumpling the note in your palm. You close your once-bright blue eyes and press your dark head into the thin grass. You think about the article that was on page three of this morning's paper. You laugh at the fact that the entire wizarding universe found out about your failed engagement before you did.
The Parkinson-Malfoy wedding is off, reliable sources claim. Mr Draco Malfoy was photographed last Thursday evening leaving a bar with a beautiful woman on his arm. Laughing and smiling, Mr Malfoy flooed her back to his home in Wiltshire. No news as of yet as to how his fiancée, Miss Pansy Parkinson is taking this latest infidelity.
It is all rubbish.
The air is beginning to get cold and you shiver. Your flimsy black satin dress did little for your body temperature. You inhale, relishing being cold. Of feeling anything at all.
Your engagement had been called off. You were once again alone. You sigh, a single tear dribbling from your closed eyelid. You frown at its presence. It is followed by a second and a third. Eventually, you are sobbing pitifully. You haven't cried since you were seventeen and your parents were killed by the Death Eaters just before the fall of the Dark Lord. Now twenty-five, it feels like a lifetime ago.
You are nothing.
You are worthless.
You are disposable.
You are alone. You hate to be alone.
A saddening sigh escapes your lips, tears dripping into your now open mouth. You need a stiff drink. Possibly more than one. But you can't bring yourself to sit up. You feel peaceful here, in this calm before the storm. The wind has picked up, tossing your short strands of ebony hair about your pale face. Your slightly turned-up nose twitches in anticipation of the rain.
"It's just a dream," you whisper into the approaching darkness. The storm seems to come quicker.
Suddenly, a large teardrop of water lands on your cheek. And then another. Suddenly the skies drop their weight, the rain falling down upon you, saturating your clothes, drenching your short hair. It mixes with your dark eye makeup, making it dribble and pool around your eyelids. You sob louder, throwing yourself forward and allowing the raw power of this thunderstorm to hear your cries.
And it's like the heavens are crying with you. They are sobbing with your failure, trembling with your sadness and roaring with your anger.
But it is just a storm.
Even if it does reflect how you are feeling right now.
It is just a storm.
You stand up, wobbling slightly, and move to the edge of the cliff. Growling incomprehensibly, you kick off your ridiculous heels, you rip the pretty silk bow from your hair. You tear off your gold necklace, a gift from Draco on your four year anniversary.
Standing on the precipice of the sheer wall of rock, you scream your fury at the lightening-lit sky. You scream and scream until your voice cracks and no more sounds emerge from your wind-chapped lips. You yank at the beautiful ring on your finger. It slips easily from the narrow digit and you stare at it.
The enormous diamond is surrounded by pristine emeralds, all set in gold. Perfect. The ring was perfect. But it didn't mean a thing to you anymore. It was just a ring. The promise that was delivered with had been forfeited. You reach your hand out, dangling the tiny piece of jewellery, the tiny meaningless promise between your thumb and forefinger, considering the distance it would have to fall before hitting the angry ocean if you were to drop it.
You close your eyes and release your fingers. The ring falls from your grasp and you imagine it falling through the bitterly cold air, you feel it hit the surface of the murky water, and sink beneath its skin.
You breathe, feeling suddenly relieved.
It is like a great weight has been taken from your chest, like the vice-tight grip has been removed from your barely-beating heart.
You lift your face to the sky, allowing the rain a better vantage point. You want to feel the violently cold stabs of water as they pelt your soft skin. You want to feel immune. Like you can't be hurt anymore. You want to feel like you're powerful, like you are invincible. Like you are indestructible from the likes of Draco Malfoy.
Your open eyes fill with tears and raindrops and fall down your snowy cheeks. The bright blue in your irises seems to dull, you can feel your will to survive slip a little.
Breathe, you tell yourself. Just breathe.
It will be better in the morning. Storms always wipe away the slate, they cleanse you. Storms are forgiveness, storms are peace.
Peace. Such a simple concept, but so hard to achieve. So difficult to accumulate. You couldn't save it, put it away for a rainy day. You either had peace or you didn't. You could never have it both ways.
You wish that you find it soon. You turn your head, looking up at your mansion. Your empty, lonely and depressing mansion. You only use three rooms of the four storey, two-winged estate. The kitchen, the bathroom and the guestroom. The rest, you have locked off. No one can go in there.
The Parkinson Estate was too painful for you to confront. Too many memories. Your mother, father and two younger brothers died in this house eight years ago. You remember the green light shining from the windows of the second floor. You were in the garden, sitting behind your mother's favourite rose bush. You didn't hear screaming, but it was echoing around your head. You didn't rush upstairs to see if they were alright; you already knew the answer. You stared at the sky, waiting for it to appear, that silver symbol of death and destruction.
The Dark Mark.
You did scream once it appeared. You heard the cracks as the Death Eaters disapparated. The silvery skull floating in the air above your childhood home had been enough to make you run into the house, pound up the grand staircase and into the drawing room. You shrieked in horror and pain, finding your family's bodies strewn through the room. They had looked as if they were asleep. You knew better.
All because your parents had decided to switch their allegiance to neutrality, just before the final battle. The Dark Lord did not take kindly to that. They left you everything: the house, their possessions, their money. And their reputation. You were the pureblood heir to the Parkinson dynasty. You had to marry a rich pureblood. You had to act the demure trophy wife.
Suffice to say you never had. You had always preferred to cause trouble, to think, to act in any way you pleased. That's what Draco had liked about you, he had always said. That was why he fell in love with you.
You shake your head, banishing the memories. You turn back from the haunting silhouette of your childhood home, back to the ocean.
The waves are furious now, taking their revenge on the innocent beach. The wind howls its approval as the sea crashes into the rocks, battering the sand and stone. Thunder claps and you jump; it surprised you. Moments later, it is followed by a flash of all-consuming bright light. A flare of distress.
You sigh, your despicable tears coming to an end. You don't think you have enough liquid left in your body to sustain such sadness. You want this moment to last forever. Here, in this storm. You never want it to end. You never want to wake up in reality again. You want to throw myself off this cliff of indecision and stay there forever and ever and ever. For always.
You want to drown yourself in sadness, gluggy and thick.
You want to burn yourself in anger.
You want to cut your delicate skin with self-hate.
You want the misery to just take you, here and now, and never give you back.
You want your soul to leap from your body and never return. Maybe it could take your heart with it... It would probably solve a few future problems.
You know you are being ridiculous, you're aware that you are just depressed. But the thought doesn't make you feel better.
You feel worse, in fact. You hate that someone has the power to break you. You hate that someone has the ability to kill you in all but body.
You hate it.
You hate it.
But you still love him. You still love Draco. You always have and, to your own shame and disappointment, you know you always will. You know that you will never recover from this, the final of emotional blows. You know that when you go to sleep, you will picture his angel's face. You know you will dream about the wedding you could have had, the children and the entire life that was meant to be yours. You know that you will see his filthy whore in your mind. You know you're jealous. You know that you are beyond disgusted, beyond ashamed.
Beyond.
You are beyond anything now.
Yet you still love him, quite without revoke. You can't cancel love. You can't delete it or ignore it. The only thing that washes it entirely away is time and willingness to let go.
But you weren't willing and you didn't have time. Time was an enemy.
You take another step forward, and then another. You take a deep breath and peer over the edge of the precipice. You are entranced by the scene below you.
The beautiful and cruel dance between wave and immovable rock. The waves crash onto the stone, onto the wall of the cliff, only to fall back into the ocean, to try again. You are impressed by the rock's strength and the waves' determination to wear it down. Attrition. They were each trying to break the other. You wish that you had the wave's force and the rock's might.
You take another hesitant step forward. Your toes are just off the edge of the cliff. You feel freer than you have in years. You feel like if you stepped off that you would fly. You feel that peace that you want to touch. You stretch your arms out.
Love. It tears you. It rips you.
It breaks you.
You take a breath and step off the edge, not scream nor a cry leaving your lips. You simply fall.
As you tumble towards the ocean, the sharp rocks, you listen to the abating sounds of the dying storm. The faint whine of the whipping wind, the brief clash of thunder, the spark of lightning. You listen, and in the storm you find peace.
And then you hit the water.
It wasn't worth it.
You don't feel a thing. Not better or worse. The storm's lament leaves your ears as you sink beneath the waves. You can only listen to your own fear now. You can only feel the thick pounding of your heart. You can only see darkness.
It wasn't worth it.
You fade, your body sinking, your mind drifting.
You are gone.
Dead.
But your soul remains in the storm, dancing between thunder and lightning. Your heart becomes the rock that the waves push against. Your spirit is the sea, it is the wind and the waves, it is the swirling clouds and roaring thunder, it is the falling rain and the groaning monsoon, it is the hurricane, the tornado, it is the howling tempest, it is the flashing lightning.
You are the storm now.
AN: Yes. I can safely say that I am addicted to angsty one-shots now... oh well. I like 'em.
So what did you think of poor Pansy in this one? Not the cliché skank of Hogwarts now, is she? Luckily, fictional people aren't real, so I don't feel guilt about torturing them, haha. But, secretly, I think I do a little bit... just a little...
Tell me what you think? Would you like some more angsty one-shots? I have a few I want to do... I just need some inspiration.
Quick question on my experiment: how did you like the second person? What about the tense? Did it flow okay? Was it confusing?
Please review! xxx luv ya guys!