The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Far away, on the forgotten borders in my mind, there is a secret land separate from my life. I smile with my face as I go about my day, a cheerful good morning to my neighbours, a kindly ruffle of the doorman’s child. To everyone outside I am the friendly girl next door. The sun may be shining, the summer’s breeze warm, but my innermost place is dark to the very core.
Fractured, fragmented, there is a hidden isle in my thoughts. Uprooted and torn, detached from the rolling green meadows is a rickety old house of shadows and night. I remember quite clearly, as though it were today, when that part of my mind began to branch out. Slow but steady tremors rumbled for years, and then with one moment it broke free. I fought on the border, to remain with the light but the dark red covering my hands forced me into that house.
Into that house, house of nightmare and horror. Into that house where my true desires flourished. What once was a rock breaking away from the land, now hovers growing each day as I succumb to its lures. Each ruby drop I spill, each light I snuff out adds vigour to the heartbeat of my place of solace.
Fiction © Copyright Ela Lourenco
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More from Ela Lourenco:
Essence
Katra is a Fae Hunter in a world once ravaged by a terrible war. Having lost all memory of her childhood and rightful identity, her duty is now to protect the tentative peace brokered by the varying races of the supernatural world. When an evil darkness begins to spread, draining young witches of their power, Katra must find a way back to her true past in order to save the future.
Enduring many trials as ever-increasing powers awaken within her, Katra must also struggle with the mixed emotions her new partner, Blade – a Black Dragon – is rousing within her. Together they must battle the shadows that plan to devour the world they know and prevent its decent into another thousand-year war.
Can Katra hold onto her strength as the truth of her very being begins to unravel? Can she bear the weight that ancient prophecy has placed on her young shoulders? Or is her destiny to regain her true self, only to lose the world she is sworn to protect?
Chilling.
Such brutality in such beautiful words!