Blue World - 31

He pushed out his breath in white clouds that lasted as long as his dreams as he dug his gloved fingers into the shadowy ice. Despite its blackness in twilight, he could feel the cool breeze sweeping tendrils of snowy chill into every hole in his clothes. His eyes shone in the dark, gleaming as the moon rose behind him, turning the curve of the ice's peak into a glowing wave of silver. He gritted his teeth in excitement as he thrust himself slowly upward. As he neared the shining tip of the wave, the beat of his heart grew unbearable, pounding furiously, fueled by the adrenaline that filled his veins. He set a hand over the tip and hoisted himself up, catching a glimpse of the world in frosted blue before his gasp sent shockwaves of cold straight into his mind. Over the edge of the precipice lay an eternity.

The tips of snow-brushed mountains cast massive ebony shadows over a vast landscape of gurgling rivers and roaring oceans frozen in motion. The flash frost petrified the grass instantaneously, coating them with a misting of ice. Trees were suspended in all strange angles, grudgingly arching their bodies in the face of some terrific wind as the ice grew and coated their ancient figures.

He pulled out a specially modified camera and, standing straight on the ridge of the massive wave he had scaled, snapped a picture of the end of all life. As he looked back on the trail he had left, the only shadowy footsteps that blotted his blue world.

Keep the Faith - 30

She shuddered in her hospital bed, knowing that she wasn't imagining the soft knocking at the front entrance of the hospital, even though she was three floors up. She was terrified of her Death. She had seen a man die before. Fiery eruptions had split the earth and from the crevices that appeared, out sprung a limber young man with smile lines that wrinkled his eyes. His youthful face creased in a smile as he sprung forward and thrust his hand straight through the man's body. Ignoring the organs and blood that spewed from the shrieking mortal, he lightly lifted his hand above his head, easily bearing the man's weight with his arm still thrust through his midriff then the youth jumped straight back into the pit of hell, smiling cheerfully at her, merely a young girl at the time.
So as she heard the light footsteps ascending the stairwell, she could see the boy in her mind, smiling quietly to all he passed as he danced his way to her room. Every other step, she could hear a soft clink. As of metal on tile. The tile of the hallway. Tap, clink, tap, clink. She began to shiver uncontrollably, making the blankets rustle. Finally the steps stopped and she could see a tall silhouette parked outside her door. She threw her sheets over herself and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the pain that would undoubtedly follow. And sure enough, it did. A hand pierced straight through her chest into her heart, popping the fragile organ, then emerging straight from the middle of her shoulder blades. As the hand pulled itself out, she felt a warmth spread through her like a drop of hot chocolate, melting away from the point and she gasped, knowing it must be the blood. Flowing down her gown like a river. Then she felt a firm grasp on her hand pull her upward and she opened her eyes in terror to behold the most ancient man she had ever seen, his other hand tightly wound around a walking stick capped in silver.
His eyes were an ebony black, soulless, but as she followed his pull up out of her bed, she could feel the wings that had sprouted from her wound, downy feathers brushing lightly against reality like a curious child. She sighed and relaxed, following the hollow man through the roof into the impossibly bright sky.