The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Memory
by Kathleen McCluskey

The first thing she remembered was the rain.

   The memory arrived without warning, cutting through the darkness that had surrounded her for longer than she could measure. For a brief moment she remembered how the droplets felt on her skin. She then remembered the salt sea that carried a fierce wind. 

   Beside her a hand tightened around hers, or what was left of one. Not flesh. Not anymore. Only bone and roots intertwined beneath the earth.

   “I remembered something,” she said. The words sounded and felt strange. They rarely spoke now. There was nothing left to say in a place where time had no meaning.

   “What was it?” A man said.

   “Rain.”

   The darkness settled around them once more. Somewhere above their graves, roots threaded through the soil and crimson roses opened beneath the moonlight.

   After a long silence the man spoke. “I remember the sea.”

   The memory surfaced between them like a lantern in deep water. A cliff overlooking black waves. Wind strong enough to tug at clothing and hair. The distant crash of the surf on the rocks below.

   The woman closed her eyes. “We were there together.”

   “Yes.”

   The certainty of it comforted her.

   They had forgotten nearly everything. Their names had vanished long ago. Their faces were gone. Entire decades had been stripped away piece by piece, memory by memory. Yet somehow they always remembered each other.

   Then another memory surfaced. A man’s face. Hard eyes. An expression twisted by anger. The woman instinctively flinched.

   “My father.”

   The image sharpened. She saw herself standing in a doorway while he shouted. She couldn’t hear the words anymore but she remembered the hatred behind them.

   “He didn’t approve of you.”

   “No.”

   For a moment a fragment appeared. A garden wall. A secret meeting after sunset. Fingers brushing together when no one was watching. Then it faded again.

   “Who are we?” He finally asked.

   “I don’t know.”

   They tried to find what was missing in their memory. Silence returned.

   The roots shifted gently around them.

   Then the man stiffened. “I remember a silver flask.”

   Then the memory arrived in both of them at once. Rain. The cliff. The sea. The flask. For the first time in nearly a century the darkness around them began to crack.

   The woman remembered her cracked fingers wrapped around the cold metal. She remembered the taste. Bitter. Sharp. Final. A terrible understanding settled over her. “We drank from it.”

   The man nodded.

   The memory unfolded slowly, revealing itself piece by piece. They sat together on the cliff while rain soaked their clothes. The world behind them offered no future. Whatever had happened before that night no longer mattered. They had already made their choice.

   The woman remembered fear. Not fear of death. Fear of regret. Fear that she would reach the end and wish she had chosen differently.

   Then another memory surfaced. His hand. Warm. Kind. Gentle and trembling in hers.

   “We were scared.”

   “Yes.”

   “But we stayed.”

   His skeletal grip tightened slightly.

   Even now. After all this time. They remained together beneath the earth. The realization brought another memory. Not an image. Not a place.

   Words.

   A promise spoken as the rain fell around them and the poison worked its way through their bodies. The woman heard it first. The man heard it a heartbeat later.

   “Don’t let go.”

Fiction © Copyright Kathleen McCluskey
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com 

More from Kathleen McCluskey:

The Long Fall: Book 1: The Inception of Horror

Lucifer always cunning and intelligent challenges father to a battle of wits. Being the angel of light he casts a judgemental eye upon mankind. He begins a war with his fellow archangels and God. Michael, along with his siblings defend their home and mankind from their deranged brother. Broad swords and hand to hand combat drench heaven in blood. The four apocalyptic steeds are released, each having their own destructive power. Betrayal and lust are at biblical levels. Understand the very creation of evil and the consequenses that transpire in the first of THE LONG FALL series.

Available on Amazon!