Dark Spirit, Dizzy Angel

After a disastrous Halloween party and a bit too much to drink, Minori visits her mother’s grave to vent, but she's not alone in the graveyard, and soon, her night takes a dangerous turn.

Minori walked through the graveyard, stumbling and swearing, a beer bottle in one hand, her halo in the other.  When she arrived at her mother’s grave, she glared at the tombstone and immediately launched into a tirade. 

“There you are!  I thought you’d be more available now that you’re dead, but this place is so inconvenient.”  Collapsing onto the gravestone, she rested her chin in her hand and pouted. 

“I know I must look disgraceful,” she said, rubbing the sweaty bangs from her face with the back of her hand, “but you have no room to criticize.  You had terrible taste in men too.” 

Minori stared down at the halo in her hand for a long moment, reflecting.  She had gone to so much trouble, building up the courage to attend a party to pursue her crush, only to find him hooking up with her roommate, and if that wasn’t hurtful enough, as an attempt to console her, they’d asked her to join! 

“What kind of person do they think I am?!” she cried.  “As if I’d be okay, throwing away my virginity to a threesome!” 

Her eyebrows drew together as she contemplated their defensive reaction to her refusal.  She couldn’t go on living with her friend after this.  There were some things even a close friendship between girls could not weather.  Minori’s gaze hardened, and she leapt suddenly to her feet. 

“Ugh!” she shouted.  “This is all so stupid!” 

Minori kicked at the gravestone and cursed when the unforgiving stone stubbed her big toe.  Hopping on one foot, she staggered and pinwheeled her arms to regain her balance.  This embarrassing display lasted only an instant.  Then, with tears stinging her eyes, she glowered at the gravestone and continued her shouting. 

“Where do they come off calling me repressed?!  Just because I don’t want to share, I am not a prude!” 

Minori clenched the halo in a shaking fist, and then, on impulse, she flung it out into the darkness.  The golden ring cut an arc through the air, glinting in the light of the moon before disappearing beyond the next row of tombstones.  She huffed a few times and her breath made clouds in the air.  The season was beginning to show; the nights were getting cooler, but with the flush of alcohol on her skin, Minori could hardly feel it.  The booze hung like a veil of protection around her.  The night was quiet but for the whisper of her breath and the chorus of the crickets around her. 

Minori felt a void opening up in her chest.  She collapsed back onto the gravestone and took another bitter swig of her beer.  Her classmates claimed that the flavor would grow on her, but after wincing at her third bottle, she was beginning to suspect they had lied. 

“This stuff tastes terrible,” she complained.  “Why on earth would people drink this for fun?  My generation is so stupid!” 

A laugh rang out from the darkness beyond her vision. 

Startled, Minori jumped to her feet, dropping her beer in process.  The glass bottle shattered against the gravestone.  Heart hammering, Minori peered out into the darkness of the graveyard she’d assumed to be deserted.  She could see nothing but the glint of moonlight on stone and a halo of mist surrounding her. 

“Is someone there?” she called.  The night seemed quieter than before.  The crickets were still singing, but they seemed much further away. 

When after a minute she had received no answer, Minori attributed the sound to her imagination and looked down to evaluate the damage.  Most of the bottle’s spout had remained intact, but the impact had scattered fragments of the base in the grass around her and her foot felt sticky from the spilt contents.  Minori cursed, shaking her foot in the air as if she could expel the stain from her formerly white slipper.  This only served to send her slipper flying off her foot, which elicited another laugh from the shadows. 

Startled again, Minori scurried around to the other side of the tombstone where her bare foot wouldn’t be threatened by broken glass. 

“Where are you?” she demanded.  “What the hell is so funny?!”  Scorned by this mystery person, who’d apparently been spying on her--the creep--Minori was starting to feel more angry than scared. 

As a shadow separated from the gravestones surrounding her and entered her field of vision, Minori glared at the tall figure. 

“When I set out I did not expect to find a drunken angel desecrating a gravesite,” said a sardonic, rough voice.  “Do you not live by a higher code of ethics, girl?” 

She could see him more clearly now as he approached her.  Long white hair.  Pale skin.  Dark eyes.  His attire was nondescript, but for a large golden pendant hanging from his neck.  The item had a curious design; a triangle with an eye at its center was encircled by a hoop from which spikes hung like the feathers of a dreamcatcher.  Minori appraised him with a frown. 

“Who are you to lecture me?  You don’t look like a groundskeeper.  What are you supposed to be?  A ghost?” 

This inspired another raucous laugh from the stranger. 

“How about that?!  I really am a spirit.  This body is actually my disguise.”  He spread his arms theatrically and Minori ducked a little lower behind the gravestone. 

“You’re mocking me,” she accused.  “I don’t believe in spirits.” 

“Don’t you?”  The stranger’s lips spread in a sly grin.  “Then why were you talking to that gravestone there?” 

Minori looked down in confusion.  Visiting her mother’s grave was a kind of catharsis for her, but she would never speak so freely if she thought her mother could actually hear her.  In fact, she found it a bit humiliating that this stranger had listened in.  She had come here expecting privacy. 

“That is none of your business,” Minori snapped.  “You shouldn’t spy on people.  It’s creepy.  You’re creepy, spying on people in a graveyard at night.  Why are you even here?” 

Picking his way around the glass, he circled the tombstone to stand in front of her.  Minori’s instinct was to retreat again to the other side, keeping the stone between them, but the thought of cutting her bare foot on jagged pieces of glass gave her pause. 

“I’m here to have fun,” he said, leaning against the stone beside her. 

Minori scoffed, donning what she hoped was a brave face even as her fingers clung to the cold stone behind her. 

“Graveyards aren’t fun,” she said. 

“I’m afraid I have to disagree.  Graveyards are very fun, especially on Halloween.  I always find some wayward soul to terrorize.” 

“Oh, is that what you’re doing to me?”  Even to her own ears, the blithe tone of her voice rang false.  The stranger’s dark eyes traveled over her, from the layered petticoat kissing her thighs up to the lacey corset-top cinching her waist and pushing out her chest.  For the first time that evening she felt cold. 

“Oh, no,” he said, “I have something else in mind for you.”  The stranger reached towards her and Minori flinched until she saw the halo in his hand.  She froze as he fit the golden ring on her head and grinned, lingering to brush a lock of hair out of her face.  “You should be careful where you discard this,” he said.  “You wouldn’t want to lose your grace.” 

Minori didn’t know how to respond.  In some other context, she might have found this guy attractive, but here, alone in a cemetery at night, she was terrified.  What kind of guy picks up a girl in a graveyard? 

“I’m going home,” she said, breaking the tense silence that had grown between them.  Minori pushed away from the stone, swayed a bit as her balance shifted, and then called over her shoulder as she stumbled away, “Have fun scaring people.” 

She did not get very far before the creep grabbed her shoulder. 

“Not so fast,” he said, pushing her back against the gravestone.  “I’ve already chosen my prey.” 

Eyes wide, Minori stared up at his face, and while her brain was too inundated to process his words, his proximity and the sharpness of his gaze were enough to communicate to her the seriousness of the situation.  This guy was after more than just a passing flirtation. 

As his hand encircled her neck, Minori screamed, pushing at him, and in her flailing, she managed to kick him where it counted.  Breaking away, she stumbled into a blind run through the darkness, clipping gravestones as she turned corner after corner, trying to lose him. 

In the end, she only managed to lose her other shoe, and as her toes grew numb from their trek through the cold, wet grass, and her chest burned from the want of air, she stopped weaving and chose a single direction in which to flee.  But the graveyard only seemed to go on and on and on…  It was like a nightmare with no exit, and she was growing more and more tired by the second. 

Just as the dizziness of exhaustion was about to overtake her, the stranger seized her again, pulling her back by the wings.  Minori screamed and stumbled.  A wing tore loose in his hand as she fell, and sobbing, Minori found herself at the foot of her mother’s grave, exactly where her flight had begun, crawling through shards of glass to escape, her remaining wing flopping against her side, her halo hanging askew. 

“Don’t think you can run from me, Angel,” that chilling voice snarled. 

Minori gasped as the stranger yanked her head back by the hair, and she glimpsed the moon shining high in the sky above her.  Its pale light set the edges of his hair agleam and glinted in his dark eyes. 

For a moment, she was overcome by the image, both beautiful and treacherous--he appeared to be just what he had claimed, an evil spirit out to feed on her terror--but then he bent down close to her ear and Minori trembled as he spoke the three words that would seal her fate. 

“You’re mine now.”