Lips as Red as Blood

by GalaxyofCastaborous

Skin as pale as Snow, Hair as black as night, Lips as red as Blood. A vampire Snow White in a richly imagined fantasy world, where we go deeper than is probably wise into why a good king would marry an evil witch, why on earth was the evil queen so obsessed with her own appearance, and why is no-one who knows the girl willing to help her? This is a tragedy, it is not a nice story.

14. Running

Snow focused on running faster. The woods began to rush by more quickly and the wind grew louder. The crashing did not come any closer. Snow pushed herself faster still. The trees turned to blurs of green, and the ground seemed to pass by in great leaps and bounds. The crashing receded. After several minutes, Snow couldn't hear it at all. She glanced behind her, and promptly tripped. Crashing to the ground and sliding along it for several meters, plowing up dirt, grass, sticks and one large thorn bush snow finally came to a stop.

She lay looking up at the canopy, mentally cataloging where it hurt and gathering the will to get up and keep walking. When would this ridiculous forest end? She pulled herself to her feet, brushed herself off, and started walking.

She kept walking, and the trees continued to thin. All of a sudden, a path appeared. It was small and faint, and ran along the river for some time on the opposite side. Snow looked for a place where the now quickly rushing river was slower and shallower, and crossed. Then she walked back upstream to the path.

She had been walking along it for about fifteen minutes when it suddenly split. She paused. The path to the left was wider and more often traveled. The path to the right was slimmer, less used. She suddenly wondered what, exactly she was hoping to find. Who would take her in? Certainly most wouldn't, and she couldn't really blame them.

She stood and thought. Would some hermit be more likely to take her in? Would she have better luck in a town with many people? There would certainly be more for her to drink there. In the end, that decided it. She turned onto the wider path and continued walking.

The sky began to dim, and life became abundant. Insects hummed, birds chirped, and bushes dripping with berries began to fill the surroundings. The woods she had spent the last few days in suddenly seemed desolate.

Finally, she rounded yet another corner, and was presented with a cottage. There were no other buildings in sight, and the path she had been walking on led right to the front door. The more-traveled path had led her to a dead end.