HOME | DD

Chrisanello — Magic Trick
Published: 2006-04-14 08:21:43 +0000 UTC; Views: 118; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 2
Redirect to original
Description I had just moved into my first apartment.  Because I had little money, I could only afford a small, run-down shadow of a room.  It did have electricity, though the fuse had blown out long ago.  It was my third night there, and I had not yet seen a need to buy a new fuse, due to the fact that I usually just had time to eat dinner and go to bed.  For now, a fire gave me all the light I needed.  All of my belongings had been moved to the apartment quite some time before I got there.  They were rather well organized, and I had established myself to a decent extent.  There was a small pile of odd books on the floor next to my armchair.  I had gone through the first few looking for some interesting reading.  I became bored, and had wrapped myself in a blanket.  It seemed cold.  I pulled the armchair closer to the fire, and slowly dozed off.  I knew that I should not have fallen asleep in the chair.  I knew it before I had gone to sleep, but I was too tired to argue.  I knew it now, and I wanted the noise to stop so that I would not have to wake up to the ache in my neck after sleeping in a hunched-over position.  After a short while, it did stop, but it came again, louder this time.  I was now getting annoyed.
“Shut up and leave me alone, will you?”
I heard glass shatter and I jumped in my chair.  I jumped, not so much of fright, but of surprise, due to the fact that it was loud and I was still half asleep.  Forget the fact that someone might be trying to break in.  I opened on eye and slowly peered around the room.  The fire was down past embers, and I could just barely see through the thick darkness.  I turned my head to look at the window, and found that it was unbroken.  The dark storm clouds outside prevented any moonlight from reaching earth.  I opened both eyes, and threw off my blanket to see what had broken.  I instantly remembered that it was the beginning of November when I felt the cold bite my skin.  As my eyes focused in the darkness, I saw a small bit of light glint off of a piece of rocking glass.  A friend of mine had once given me a pair of bird’s feet in a large, ornate jar, and told me that they were good luck.  It had fallen off the windowsill, and shattered on impact.  I was about to go get a broom and dustpan to clean up the whole mess when I heard a light scratching sound.  I strained my eyes through the dark to see what it was.  Though I couldn’t tell what it was exactly, but I could clearly see, as well as hear, something moving.  Very slowly, it moved across the floor until the spot was reached where the floor was very faintly illuminated from the window.
Then I saw them.  The two bird feet were slowly being drug across the floor, as though some perverse puppeteer had tied strings to the small stalks at the ends of the legs.  Slowly, they inched along at random intervals, like some sort of grotesque insect or spider.  They went past me, and eventually reached the door, where after they slowly rose into a standing position.  They wheeled around to face me, and a fine mist began to flow from underneath the door.  The cloud solidified on the legs to form a large white crow.  I felt my skin grow colder than before, and it seemed to glow with an eerie resonance, almost more than that of the odd apparition that had formed itself between me and the entry way of my residence.
It strode across my room, to a small box in the back.  I could feel it inside my mind, telling me to open the box.  I did so, and found a small envelope within.  It had the words “Magic Trick!” written on the front in bold letters.  I opened the piece of parchment within, and found nothing.  Then the odd looking bird spewed forth a black cloud of smoke having a strong sour smell, that of vinegar and burning silicates.  Slowly, bright blue writing began to form on the piece of paper.  It read as follows: “You are lost upon the path of life.  It misleads you.  It is the path of death that you must truly follow.  Repeat these words, and I shall follow you where you go, aiding, supporting, and caring for you.”  I did not bother with the line below it.  Instead, I turned to the bird and said
“Go away and leave me alone, you filthy thing!  Your plight to make more demons such as yourself sickens me.”  It glared at me, and its eyes slowly turned red.  They stared at me, unmoving.  I began to feel something shifting in the pit of my stomach.  It tore through my body like a violent tremor until it filled my entire being.  I continued to look into those hideous, red eyes.  They were darker than blood.  They seemed to ooze with a crimson shade of red that contained the essence of heat itself.  They filled me with fear.  The fear that drives you mad.  I could feel myself wanting to shout, to scream, but I couldn’t.  The fear seemed to turn upon itself and give me courage.  My arms were filled with reckless power.  My mind swam with hate, and ways to kill the creature.  I wanted to strangle it, or to grab a knife and decapitate it.  I could feel that I had gone, and I wanted that cursed thing to do the same.  I raised my hand to destroy the abomination that had defiled my place of living.  I clenched my fist, and just before I moved to smash it to pieces, something miraculous happened.
The bird vanished, and in its place stood a woman.  She had wavy, jet black hair that stretched down, past her waist.  She wore a charcoal colored dress.  It left her bare feet exposed, and the sleeves ended half way between her shoulder and her elbow.  Her skin was paler than any I had ever seen.  It was whiter than snow.  I looked closer and realized that it was like the moon, bright white, with small patches of grey, like decaying flesh.  But it was not.  It was simply dust, which fell to the floor when she moved towards me.  She seemed surrounded by a silver glow.  Her lips were redder than any flower I had ever seen, or than blood.  They were bright red, vibrant, as though they burned with a sort of fire inside them.  Then she slowly leaned forward and burned my own.  She did so twice more, and then embraced me deeply.  I felt that I had to look into her eyes.  They were the color of a grassy field after it had rained, a couple of hours before the sun came up.  Her eyes did not reflect my own face, as the eyes of someone filled with innocence would.  Her eyes showed me as I truly was.  She could tell me the truth about anything, just by looking at me.  Very slowly, she leaned next to me and whispered in my ear.
“Next time, please don’t be so quick to judge.  I implore you to reconsider.  I shall return in thirteen days to receive your answer.”  She kissed me again, smiled, and took a couple of steps backwards.  She seemed like some sort of dark angel.  No, more than that.  She looked like a silver goddess.  In an instant, she was gone.  I felt my knees buckle, and I collapsed in a heap on the floor.  I did not move.  I did not want to.  I’m not quite sure why, but I was happy.
Slowly, I awoke in the morning.  I still had that pain in the back of my neck.  Everything was normal again.  I got ready for work.  I almost wanted to go back to last night, to find out more about what had happened.  The jar was back on my windowsill.  My boxes were all closed.  I opened my front door and stepped out.  Just before it shut, I heard the sound of beating wings, followed by a sharp crash.  I slowly turned around to look at where the sound had come from.  Underneath my window laid a pile of shattered glass and blood.  Two thin trails of red led to the two bird feet dragging across the floor, eager to follow me.
Related content
Comments: 0