LET
ME
IN?
Crimson specks dotted her suit, its formerly commanding presence now grown oppressive, clawing at Ruby's heart. Her face shone as if it never had before, wearing a gaze that froze her nerves and comforted the parts of her mind she would never admit to having. Oh how her hair glowed in the moonlight, pristine-
tap tap
And her hands. Cloaked in red. The mesmerizing mixture of skin and blood. Two fingers gripped the note, the once innocent message surrounded by the fingerprints of her handiwork.
Three unassuming words, along with a heart. Penciled in red, perfectly shaped, untouched by the human paint around it. Ruby could have sworn it was her own, that her soul was held up by this angel of death that stood outside her window.
The irises of the angel pulled. And Ruby could do nothing but obey, lost in the unsaid promises of a maiden that returned her stare tenfold. Shuffling forward, she felt her entire body caught between freezing to the spot and being sucked towards the angel clad in white and red.
She knows the windows are locked. She knows they're bulletproofed for a reason.
She doesn't care.
So despite her limbs trembling, despite the screaming of every rational thought, she threw open the window.
Now she was on the ground. Walls doubled. The ceiling spun. But in that moment, the glistening of a freshly painted face, the almost loving face was the only thing that kept its beautiful shape. It was the only thing that mattered. It grew closer and closer, it filled her eyes and ears and nose and oh gosh it's so pretty-
.
.
.
?
One eye. One silver, traitorous eye dared to peek from its curtain. And was snatched up by that pair, frostbitten and abandoned. They pulled apart the other curtain and then she could see.
Behind the blizzard, behind the blue and grey clouds. The Northern Lights. The faint spectrums of life, away from the graves, away from the cold, away from the loss. The light without a sun.
She understood. Lost in the control, the power over the winds that the other had never felt before, she understood.