Meeting Mirra

Part One

The slender dagger found its mark and speared her ribs. It tore through her right lung and pierced her panic stuck heart. The dagger returned to its owner stained with blood. She had not felt it enter or exit her body. He backed away from her. She saw the proof of the deed in his shaky hand. He dropped the bloody blade to the ground before he ran away. Her vigorous heart pumped faster. Blood gushed from the small fatal wound. She applied direct pressure with her slender hand, but it was pointless. Her lungs were filling with the thick warm liquid. She clutched at her throat and gasped for air. The world around her blurred and she fell down to the cold hard ground. The look on his face, in his eyes, was forever burned into her memory.

Thundering black velvet clouds barreled in. Lightning flashed and illuminated the wicked transformation. It gave her something else to focus on. It is going to be a long night, she thought to herself while lying there, gazing at the gathering storm. Is this all there is to life? We live for a certain amount of time and simply die afterwards. This was never apart of my dreams! Am I going to die in this dark alleyway? All alone and afraid! There has to be something more! This can not be all there is! My precious life is gone in an instant. I was stupid to trust that boy! Lillie's last breath struggled to escape her pale lips. Red foam appeared instead and she descended into the eternal darkness. 

* * * * *

Lying on her back she could not hear anything. She could not see anything either, but she knew she was there. She knew she was real. But how can that be?  She wondered. I was stabbed, left to drown in my blood. Lillie placed her hand on the spot the dagger had ripped through her. She thought about the tragic event and what it all meant. She had been betrayed. 

Third rib up she counted. She fingered the place the dagger had entered, where there should have been a gaping hole. She found smooth perfect skin instead. It did not matter whether she could feel a wound there or not. It seared on the inside where the thin blade had been.

"If you are done examining yourself there are a few things I would like to go over with you," came an unexpected voice from the darkness surrounding her. It startled Lillie and her thoughts began to race again. I am not dead... but then what am I? Dreaming? Hallucinating?

Lillie opened her eyes. She was afraid of what she would find. A dark room with disembodied neon green eyes greeted her. She could not look away from the eerie eyes. They stared right back at her the whole time. They were located in the same direction that the voice came from. Lillie's eyes adjusted after a few moments.

The glowing eyes belonged to a black cat. Its fur was sleek and smooth. It was sitting still, not moving a muscle. The cat looked like a statue, if statues had glowing green eyes. Lillie noticed the it was becoming agitated. Its silky black tail twitched and it started to pace the short width of the small dark space. Lillie  sat up and glanced around the room, but it was too dark to see anything. She positioned herself in front of the impatient feline. Lillie had a feeling that the cat was a lot more than an ordinary cat and it was not because of its eyes. 

Studying her surroundings Lillie noticed how odd the little room was. The walls, the ceiling, the floor; they were dark and cold. They sucked up all the light and heat in the little room. The darkness looked alive, swirling seductively, like it was conscious. She gathered her last couple of thoughts. She prepared herself to deal with the fact that the cat was where the voice had come from.

"Where are we?" Lillie asked the slinky black cat hoping she had not lost her mind.

The cat stopped pacing and sat on its haunches. It stared at her, maybe it glared. Lillie could not decide which it might be. For the longest time the cat sat there and twitched its tail, "It is not fun to be gawked at, is it Lillie?"

"Oh thank God," Lillie released the breath she was holding, "I was starting to think I imagined it all. How do you know my name?"

"I know your name because I am a guardian," the cat stared at Lillie again for a moment. "My name is Mirra," she said, "and this is the Shadow Realm. I am here to help you find your way."

"Find my way? To where? I have never heard of a Shadow Realm before. Why am I here?" Lillie inquired to the cat, but it would do nothing but stare at her. She was getting aggravated with the mysterious black cat and she was almost on her feet to leave when the cat spoke again.

"Did you ever wonder where the shadows go once the light comes to chase them away?" Mirra asked Lillie instead of giving her any answers. The black cat was like a riddle box and continued in her mystical manner, "There is a place where all darkness goes, to merge and condense into solid masses. A place where the things of the night go to sleep away the luminous day light. This place is deep within the Earth; through large cavernous caves, down long twisted tunnels, and across vast bottomless lakes. A place where sunlight has never touched. It has been left to the cold and damp to rot and decay. Things are born in this dark place. Things that depend on that darkness. Sometimes these things escape. They spread havoc in the other realms. It is my job to keep them in check." 

Reviews

[David Jae]

There have been improvements, to be sure. There is less exposition, although some still remains. The strength of your characters comes through more now. If there is one thing you could still improve, it is your dialogue. It seems a little unnatural, in places. Try reading it out to yourself and seeing how it sounds.

Ganbare

[K.N. Thorn]

Thank you, I agree it still needs some work, I will keep at it :) Maybe one day I will get it right.... I love the trick with reading out loud. I do it a lot, but didn't think about trying it out last night, I got a little delirious and figured I would only start doing more damage than good. Thanks for the review, I am glad you saw improvement. I started off with poetry and the transition into short stories is surprisingly difficult, but I have all these great things in my head. At first I only did flash fiction and in reality in kind of crippled me writing wise, but I have been learning from others and experimenting on my own. Something good may come out of it, at least I hope so ;)

[David Jae]

'journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.' And that step is often the hardest to take. At some point, you need to move on. Anything you write can always be better, so you need to think 'okay, that's good enough', take the lessons and move on.
You're a good writer, better than the majority that I see by far, and I enjoy reading your work.

Ganbare

[K.N. Thorn]

Thank you very much David, you have no idea how encouraging your words are to me. I needed that reminder as well, I probably would have ended picking it apart in the end and that would be a shame.

[David Jae]

No worries.

Ganbare