A Feast for Beasts
A knock on her door wakes her up from her half-hearted slumber. She does not move nor opens her eyes for a minute or two, silently listening instead to the heavy breathing - the vibrant signature of her one and only father - on the other side of the door.
The previous night, he and she, father and daughter, Papa and Annie, were under a mystifying, almost beautiful, spell. An incomprehensible trance. They were talking, finally talking, her father, always undamaged, expressionless and oh so cold, pouring all his lifetime dreams into her sixteen year old mind.
She vividly remembers the excited nature of his voice as he explained everything, from the minutest to the grandest of details, from the beginning to the supposed end - the completion of everything he'd worked for, his beautiful dreams.
His eyes sparkled, his cheeks, wrinkled with age, blossomed as if he had transformed back into the young, lively man he once was.
After all these years, she finally understood why he had acted the way he did.
It was not because he didn't love his only daughter.
A strange - and very pleasant - feeling had passed through her that night:
Relief.
"I want you to treat the whole world as your enemy."
.
.
.
.
She slithers into a tall, wide room, following her father like a shadow. She eyes him close, breathing in his scent - tobacco and gin and his lavender perfume. His graying hair, once blonde like his daughter's, is in disarray; swaying softly above his nape like waves on a lake. She banishes her thoughts quickly, whispering to herself that her literary flair is a thing of the past, that the melancholy she had hidden within papers and pen and words are no longer relevant to her present life, for she is to be of use now; no longer unworthy of her father's love. Of love.
He signals her to the lone furniture sitting on the center of the candle-lit room. She follows immediately, plopping into a contented sigh as she registers her body weight onto the bed. She counts to ten before opening her eyes.
Their eyes meet, azure to azure. For a second, she thinks she could not discern the emotion behind those blue orbs, and she feels frightened, but the minute he whips out the syringe from the pocket of his labcoat, his face quickly transforms into the face of the man she had talked to last night.
Once again, she feels her heart palpitate into oblivion. Blood rises to her cheeks, and a smile graces her lips. She's trembling, with fear or excitement she could not say.
The thin, cylindrical blade pierces through the paleness of her thumb, the purple liquid streaming quickly down her veins. A rush tightens into her chest, her lungs, her heart, her mind, and then there is nothing to feel but the dull emptiness of her surroundings.
She can no longer recall her own identity, because there is nothing left inside her mind but the urge to go berserk, to go mad.
A slow, mournful scream escapes her lips. Through her blurry vision, she could see the image of a man. He is laughing, rejoicing. Tears are falling from his eyes, salty orbs of water gravitating toward her open mouth. He tastes so good.
She thirsts.
.
.
.
.
She feels her whole body becoming engulfed by a cloud of red velvet that smelled of blood - a niche of meat. She can feel herself rising from the ground, growing, expanding. And yet the size of her body lingers on, unchanged.
She sees a man beneath her feet; Shrunken, unconscious and covered with blood.
And yet, the thirst hasn't faded away.
.
.
.
.
A beautiful prey in white and red, the literary Annie would describe him if she is present in the scene.
She kissed him death, she would say, as the beast excitedly devours its prey.