CHAFE
Jennifer Mitchell (Vihrea on Arygos)
Disclaimer: I am in no way intending on copyight infringment.
It chafes at the elbows where sweat gathered and cooled. The leather, stiff and rotting on my body, was not cured correctly I was sure. The man, demon, vile thing whatever he may be that sold it to me had leered, and I was aware I was probably being taken in at the time, but anything was better than the frayed cloth that once adorned me in hues of violet and red. That was a long time ago; those colors no longer shine so brilliantly trapped as they are between the stinking leather and my ever stinking flesh, or rather, what remains of my flesh.
Gaping holes adorn my cheeks, which in another life were full and supple. In another life, another time, what is beginning to feel like a dream, darkening waters dripping and slipping through my gnarled grasp. My frail hands, my once suppine hands are calloused and blackened and withered and disgust me. The leather, blackened as well, is a reminder of what life can become when someone has an exploit for you. I was once a great beauty, now my disfigured forms only purpose is revenge.
I will have it, my revenge, and my peace, even if it means I die in the process. What a laugh; if I die? I wish I were dead, rather than this crumbling thing, this vile abomination.
Kaolin nips at my heels drawing my ever wasting mind back to reality. She isn't in much better shape than me, my once beautiful companion, matted with blood and what looks like shards of bone. This life is so different from the once idle existence I knew before. It was a life of lazing about in fields of sweet grass and clover, a life where the sun kissed my skin with its warm lips and I thanked the Gods for all the beauty around me. All I see is darkness and death now, and even that is starting to fade as the sight goes out of my left eye. A terrible reminder of my fate, not thirty years of age, I am blinded, bleeding, and broken.
She's run off now, my feline protector; I cannot follow I am too busy retching into the dirt. Cramps grab at my stomach with greedy fingers as claws of heat travel through my blood: another wound that probably won't heal correctly. Acid clings to my throat, or what is left of it, and my eyes water. My grayed flesh is warmed for the first time in months by this venom and the world spins hot and retched before me as I sway, disoriented and heady with the need for revenge. Oh, how I do hate poisons!
Raw bits of flesh cling to my face and slop onto the not so new leather. I am not proud of my diet. I am thoroughly humiliated and disgusted by the brains that ooze from the skull and into my waiting lips. It should not taste so delicious, this evil thing I do. My dirty blackened fingers grasp at his neck as I slurp what was left from behind his eyes. This should be enough to send me to the pits of hell, but alas it merely strengthens my sinful form and I go on to another victim, all thought of poison erased by the ambrosia of flesh.
I shiver as my teeth gnash against bone. I truly hate my existence, but laugh despite my rotting throat and morbid thoughts as my not so little kitty cat joins me in this feast. Gnomes really are the most sweet of meats.