Sleeping Beauty

There's a dark wizard and a red-headed girl here.

Outside, the sky is plastered with stars and a full moon on a dark canvas. There is a quite a commotion going on at the Winston mansion.

“What a pity,” a hooded man wearing a long black cloak is saying humorously, as if he is reciting a joke at a reunion party, “Such a beautiful girl, going to waste.” He takes his cigarette and drops it, crushing it with his heel.

“Please,” a red-haired woman begs, dangling in mid-air, her fingers fighting to seize the rails of the balcony. She is slipping slowly, her grasp on the rails loosening. The man chuckles softly, and saunters over to the rail. He crouches down, and takes a hold of her hands. The woman looks up at the direction where his eyes should be, silently pleading. A few moments pass and it seems the man has changed his mind. He hasn’t.

“Good-bye,” the faceless man whispers, before letting go of her limp fingers.

The woman does not scream. She does not whimper. She does not even shed a tear. But her eyes do not bother to hide the look of hatred and betrayal.

A second passes. Only two, three, more seconds pass, but time creeps along like dripping molasses. The woman hits the concrete with a sickening thud, and what sounds like fragile branches breaking in half is heard. A malicious laugh erupts from the man standing on the balcony. He examines his work, leaning on the rails.

She is still alive.

Twitching, the girl spits out a trickle of blood, and her fingers unwrap slowly. Blood stains the ground and a tremendous amount spills from her body. Pain floods as she takes a sharp, quick, intake of breath. She exhales, her heart pounding viciously. Shocks of agony seize her limbs as she painfully crawls onto her hands, before failing and losing the fight with gravity. The shock of hitting the cold, bloody pond on the concrete floor sends her through worldly torture.

Her limbs shake, and her rib cage rattles. Short, quick gaps of breath involuntarily escape her lips, once again causing aches. She curls up into a position were her arms were slightly wrapped around her legs and her mouth fills up with the metallic, distinct, taste of blood. She weakly opens her mouth, and it floods over, sending streams down her cheeks.

Her chest heaves up and down, her blood-red lips part slowly and softly, exhaling away her life. Her once rosy cheeks and fair complexion is now pale and stained with blood, dripping from her eyes like red tears. Her eyes flutter every now and then, and the heart pounding against her rib cage, wanting to be free of this tortured body, starts to beat slower.

The girl can see her life evaporating into the air around her... her soul leaving her body as she closes her eyes. Her breathing slows so that she only takes a weak intake of air every few seconds. Finally, with her last exhale, her limbs go, and her head flops to her side. Her red hair, concealing with the pool of blood around her, sticks to her sweat layered forehead.

Gradually, gradually, the last trickle of blood escapes from the corner of her mouth. Her skin is starting to show the bruises, the patches of once untouched skin losing it’s perfection. Her green, vibrant eyes grow dull underneath her eyelids, and her skin is as pale as ever.

She was the real life sleeping beauty, and will now be the never awoken beauty.

Author's Note

I wrote this two years ago based off some other story I read... I don't even know why I wrote it in the first place...

Reviews

[The Fortieth]

I like the details and the whole idea of "never awoken beauty" meaning "dead". It's a great story.

[Mother_Yolk]

Thanks, Micah! That's great to hear.