We Can Try - 29

He looked into her clear blue eyes that reminded him of the sky every time he gazed upon her delicate face. The laughter wrinkles that creased the edges of her eyes were as endearing as her unkempt hair when he first met her in her art studio, paint dotting her hair tied in a bun. He had grabbed her for himself like he was snatching the greatest gift that life could possibly give him and married her within the year. When they moved into their first and final house, they noticed the doormat faced outward but they were too elated to fix it as he carried her into the house, always leaving it for "later".

The clouds reflected in her irises grew dark and heavy as they knew that death was knocking upon the door. Three times the slow, soft thud permeated the house. The great windows in her new studio splayed a strange pattern of light over the floorboards.

She gave him a quivering smile as she asked, "do you want to get it or should I?"

He stroked her cheek and kissed her on the forehead as he stood up. They held hands and approached the great oak double doors. In the fogged windows that framed the beautiful wood they could see a great shadow and the gleam off his sickle. Behind him, the blue sky mocked his presence even as it acknowledged him by covering itself humbly in clouds. They grasped each others' hands like lifelines and hesitated.

"Do you think we could... We could leave wi... With stre-"

"We can try," he cut her off, gently releasing her hand. He reached forward and thrust the doors open, embracing his old friend.

They were swept off their feet and the only thing left behind was a doormat facing the wrong direction. "Welcome home."

Sins - 28

I remember the night that hell was born for me. I heard the whistle of a bullet for the first time. It was always a whistle, but as it zipped past my ear into my wife's head, it sounded more like a shriek. And shortly after, hers mirrored its nightmarish sound. I remember yelling in horror as her blood spilled onto my neck and spurted onto my clothes. The thieving bastard bent low to my face and his yellowed teeth smelled exactly as I had imagined. The cavities that dotted his pearly not-so-whites looked like mines on a battlefield. I sealed my mouth and began to sob. He grabbed me by the hair and grinned malevolently. I knew then that the boss was done for me. He began dragging me toward the room where I had given up my sweet little daughter to the mad experiments of the devil-spawn. I blinked away my desperate tears as I felt my wife's body slump away from mine, lifeless. He pulled me toward the room and I looked up into the mirror. I couldn't look at her. All I saw was the yellow biohazard triangle stamped onto the pipeline feeding poisons into the room. He set me down and suited up, pulling a gun from its holster. He swung the door open and thrust me into the room, slamming it shut behind me with enough force to crack the frame. I looked up at my child's face as blood dripped from her cracked lips, thick with saliva. Her eyes were pitch black, hollow. Even the whites of her eyes had been burnt black by the toxins. She staggered toward me, her tattered clothes barely covering the huge gaping holes in her flesh where she had eaten herself. Her nose picked up the scent of blood on me and I saw her cock her head like a beast. Her eyes widened, her nostrils flared, and she dived at me. As her teeth sank into my neck, my vision darkened and I saw the monstrosity of the darkest realms of hell standing over her, hand tightly clasping her shoulder as blood flowed freely from his pure-white eyes.

Monument - 27

She stared up at its spiraling peak with gleaming eyes. The sheen of the brilliant sky reflected off her eyes and her sweet mouth curved into an innocent smile. She grasped her mother's hand as the tour guide opened the door and showed them into the monument. Inside, the floor was cast with marble and she saw other children with their mothers and fathers. Her smile flickered like an old tape and her mother kissed her tenderly on her forehead, an apology. She bounced into the magnificent lobby and her pigtails shook with the movement, swaying like soft curtains. The tour guide gathered them together and they stepped into the elevator as a group.

Slowly they rose to the peak of the tower in the glass cage. She could see the view for miles but all the beauty of nature was suppressed into roaring civilization. From her perch she could see all that was wrong with the world. In an alleyway, an innocent man lay gasping for breath as he watched his assailant break into a stumbling run, carrying his wallet away into the dark underground of Utopia. They reached the top and stepped onto the windy height, swaying as a group before the majestic carved angel that rested at its tip. As the guide began to explain its significance and how it came to rest just so, she grew bored and began once more to examine the streets below. At the base of the building, she saw a fight break out.

As the two men pummeled at each other, a crowd began to gather, obviously excited by the violence. They watched with eyes that glowed with a dark fervor, screaming vulgarities as the men pummeled at each other, driving fists home in each others frames. Her eyes began to blur as she watched the terrible scene. She clenched the railing so tightly that the edges of the nails driven into the metal began to dig into her young fists. Her jaw began to grind almost imperceptibly as a blinding headache crept into her mind. She edged slowly closer to the edge until her feet rested half on the building, watching in horror as she realized the men were brothers. She wiped the tears from her eyes and turned away to face the angel once more.

As her eyes swung around and met the angels', she lost her footing and slipped off the edge. Fear froze her body and the ice-cold fingers of death gripped at her insides, holding her scream inside her. Her small body landed right next to the growing circle of people watching the fight with a sickening crunch.

As blood began to blur her eyes once and for all, she saw the onlookers scream and their demonic faces turned to horror. The brothers themselves stopped fighting to stare in mortification at her mangled frame. Men and women clutched at each other, suddenly bound together in grief where earlier there was nothing but a fevered lust for the violence before them.