The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Guardian Angel   
by Kendra Smart  

The sun had shone brightly that day. The temperature had been so nice. The perfect transition in degrees as the sun waned and the moon rose. A day to remember in the worse off weather days. 

A festival had been opened to celebrate the change in season from spring to summer. To let the resident’s of the working colony shake off the cold and have some fun. This year had been filled with long nights and even longer days. The work had been hard on both, those going to work and the ones left to mourn their absence. 

Mary Faireborn had watched not only her Grandfather but her Mother make the daily journey off to the shuttle that would take the chemist and scientist to their respective places. Her mind had not been sparked by the sciences but by the humanities, so she found herself capped and donned in the medical services provided to the colony. She stood in this field alongside deeply dedicated colleagues and friends who felt the same as she did dedication wise. 

Her favorite times though were when they got to focus on the children. Once a month they spent a day with the children, doing their check ups and updating vitals to ensure all was well and the children were not dealing with any ramifications of being near the plant. It also ensured a day of smiles and activities. 

Given the festival in the town square, it was not a hard path to follow to figure out how Mary found herself with angel makeup taking the vitals of a four year old girl in the guise of a unicorn. The smells of deep fried delights, both sweet and savory, had already been brought on the wind to tempt her. 

After an hour, she gave in. Funnel cake became her weakness and her joy. 

Mary paused as the warm, sugary treat melted in her mouth. Her people watching took over the storm of a prioritized mind. It was nice to just exist for a moment. Couples and families, both old and young, made their way across the fairground. The music that was playing through the speakers was joyful and uplifting, true instrumental carnival music. The lights were buzzing as they began to come on, but it wasn’t yet the true time to enjoy their brilliance. 

Too much daylight left to admire. 

Such a silly thing to complain about really. 

Mary watched as the “free-to-go” young ones raced around crying in wild abandonment as now, responsibility was over, along with obligation. Now happiness could be embraced. It also meant her part to play was almost done too. 

She fixed her stiff,cotton cap as she went to the sanitary fountain to wash her hands. The obscenely bright yellow foundations had been installed years ago to mimic those used by the scientists and other plant workers. It did the job of sparking the children’s minds in the light of science. 

A vibration from her pocket caught her focus as she pulled it from her phone from her scrub pocket. Mom.

Accepting the call, she wasn’t even given the time to suck in the breath it would have taken to say hello. 

“Operation Vermillion, Mary.Start Operation Vermillion!”

The call broke before Mary could even form thought let alone words. But that mattered little. The time was for action. 

Mary immediately knelt by the fountain as she and the others had been trained. She began to pry at the metal door with her hands desperately trying to get it open. Nothing mattered more than sounding the signal. She felt the metal ripping at her knuckles, her hands, her nail beds. Anything she put in the way of open and close was an offering. 

The ground under her feet moved. A ripple more than a quake but the extra momentum helped jar the door hinge fly free. Mary felt her weight and world shift and tried to adjust but her ankle went too far left and a solid pop let her know she was in for a painful time. 

A brief moment allowed for the pain to scream free from her lungs and then it was back to business. The door was open now and the red phone inside lifted easily. A crackle in the air as the music ceased and the silence save for Mary’s haggard breathe on the air waves.

“This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. Code Vermillion. I repeat. Code Vermillion. Please hurry.”

She repeated the message five times, before her own pain and getting herself to safety became a priority. But she had time, the time to take in the moment around her before subjecting herself to mind numbing agony. The people in the square had immediately initiated their protocols. Their precision was almost scary. The plans executed with such care to the details that Mary felt warmth in her chest. 

As she watched, the lighting changed, the sun seemed to go down so quickly as night filled the air allowing the various rides to shine their lights in true brilliance. The true perfect time. Their glowing lights, that felt in the millions in her eyes, highlighted perfectly the ash falling from the sky like snowfall. 

Hopefully her Mother and Grandfather’s actions helped, hopefully she was quick enough to save lives. More ripples pulsed through and there was a shudder as the earth seemed to crack near her. In a moment it was as though she weighed nothing, her body was flying in circular spinning motion. She could still hear the faint strains of the violins and organ music of the carnival playing. The vision she saw from up here was like that of a fever dream of a child. 

***

From the ground, a young girl who had been ushered onto a bus, watched as her whole world shifted in but a few moments. As the bus shifted finally forward and they began the rush away from the colony, the unicorn saw her Angel fly. Flying with wings of electricity. An angel she knew. 

Hers.

.

Fiction © Copyright Kendra Smart
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from author Kendra Smart:

Just Emotions:
A Gothic Bite Magazine Anthology

A collection of poetry.

‘Just Emotions‘ is exactly as it states, a group of writers who had feelings they wanted to express in poem form. Inside, there are a range of emotions to explore. Each writer has given a bit of themselves to you, each in their own way.

We hope that you enjoy these writings and that among the poems you may find some thing you can identify with or relate to. Thank you for giving us this chance to open the catacombs and share with you.

Available on Amazon!