The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The In-Between
by Melissa R. Mendelson

They say that when you are born, you’re already dying.  Every breath could be your last, so savor it.  But most of us don’t, and we curse the wasted days, the endless years, where we denied ourselves life.  When we do live, for a brief moment, we turn cold because death is behind us, and death looks just like us except for its skull face.  We turn away from the mirror and promise ourselves to live, and some of us do.  Some of us don’t because we keep falling victim to monsters, but they are not monsters.  They are human, scarred and twisted, leaving their marks not only on our skin but deep into our past, and when we look toward the future, we flinch because their wounds still bleed.  And when we turn around to see death one step behind, the monsters stand there too because no matter how much time passes, they will remain.  Still, you try to run, push forward even when you can’t see ahead, and death will whisper, “Haven’t you had enough?”  Some of us do, some don’t.  Death can chase me for a few more years because I am not ready to give up, no matter how many scars I carry or how many monsters have ripped me apart.  I may not be married to life or have the pleasures that others enjoy, but I’m not ready to separate from it either.  So, here I will remain to drift and exist in the in-between.

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Fiction © Copyright Melissa R. Mendelson
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

About Author Melissa R. Mendelson:

Melissa R. Mendelson is a horror, science-fiction and dystopian author and poet.  She has two publications with Wild Ink Publishing.  One is a prose poetry collection, This Will Remain With Us, and the other is a short story collection, Stories Written On Covid Walls.  She also self-published a sci-fi novella, Waken and a small short story collection, Name’s Keeper.

If you’d like to learn more about Melissa, you can visit her accounts here: www.MelissaMendelson.com