Username: Marut
Category: Gothic
Word Count:640
Title: Time of Efila
Writing/Link to Writing: See Below
Would you be comfortable with people discussing your writing in the discussion thread?: Y
Most stories seem to start with time. Once upon, a year ago, in the future. But his watch cracked three hours ago. The hourglass went two minutes after, when the last rubies dropped. He walks down a path, one he’s been traveling on for a month, three days, nine hours, forty two seconds, and ten moments. He cannot see this path, nor where it ends or begins. But it is finally approaching a set of wrought glass gates. Fractures cross the fragile roses forming thorns across the petals, and rusted, blackened stains cover any beauty that once existed. Still, their former haughtiness remains, as the gates intimidatingly creak open to reveal a smiling, finely dressed young man. He doesn’t notice, but keeps walking, past the too-wide smile, through the trees with fruit singing oddly tinny nursery rhymes. Several jump off the trees, splattering onto the ground in lurid patterns of juice and intestines. One of the few survivors, singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, darts in front of him and holds out a stubby pair of arms. What it wants is clear. He steps on it, slowly grinding it into the ground in a stain of sickly green. A strange mist creeps in, tinting the world sepia blood. The young man smiles, walking behind him, stepping in the juices of the fruits calmly, ensuring no survival. He advances towards the end of the path. A timer starts to buzz;buzz;buzz in his coat pocket. He slowly pulls it out, but as he keeps walking, the phone crumbles to reddened dust, and blows back into the fruit grove, to fertilize the infant souls.
As he keeps walking, on a path he can never see, the path comes to a bridge. No glass here, simple wood, stone and steel created this. Underneath flows a dark river, it’s exact color undeterminable. He steps onto the bridge, crossing with the same measured, mechanical pace as always, except perhaps a bit faster now. Without railings, he walks down the very center, even when he can no longer see either shore. The miasma grows thicker, and gains a slight chill. Absentmindedly, he draws a match from the coat, and lights it on something only he can see. A moment’s warmth, but it burns down to his fingers just as swiftly. Muttering, he tosses it behind him. A smile gleaming through the miasma watches as the match falls and the bridge ignites. He doesn’t notice, but rather trudges on, as the fog thickens and he shoves his hands in his pockets for warmth. The other side is in sight. Quietly, a pocketwatch he never knew he had ticks its last, silently winding down. Its gears freeze quickly.
He soldiers on, as the dusk closes in. Shadows slowly approach from the gathering darkness. As he nears, the statues come slowly into view. Beautifully carved, but some are overgrown, others are weatherstained, and only a few still shine in full glory. Yet, beautiful is perhaps not the proper word. To his right stands a stone tree, with hangman’s knots blooming. Behind it hides a martyr with still burning flesh. Lovingly carved torture instruments dot the landscape, and directly to his left, a copper set of telephone wires, complete with electrocuted bones, hang silently from their posts. Even with all manner of deaths around him, he continues on. He never looks up from his path, and continually mutters. The young man, grin somehow widening, follows a bit faster. He, if he could see it, has finally reached where the manor lies-or where it should lie. Instead, through the murk and shadows, he can not see the chasm lit from below where a mansion should be. Suddenly, as though it just occurred to him, he reaches into the depths of his coat one final time. All he pulls out are bloodied fingers and glass shards, the final hourglass. Though he cannot see, his path begins to slope down. He keeps walking. It began long ago. It ends now.
