A Black Day, This

Author's Note:

This is the first short story I have written in, say, six months. I cranked it out in one sitting on a rough idea I've had for quite some time and I'm sorry that I didn't think that this story -- due to it being a rough idea and my first step back into this style of writing -- was really needed editing because it's the first time I'm coming back into it. My idea for writing this were the following: to see if I can write a short story again, get back into writing on a computer (For those that don't know, I only write with hand then transcribe my writing to my computer), and to write stories that I love for others. So, this was a rough writing assignment I forced myself into doing once again the stories I love to write. I promise that after this, I will put more thought and effort into them.

Without further boring notices, my first short story published online, "A Black Day, This"

-T.A. Skirmont

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The Sun began to peek through the pulled curtains. Long rays pushed through the room right up to Ed’s eyes. A bright light just to wake him up, the only thing that sounded to wake up.

                Ed sat up gently. Ed tried his best not to rustle the bed. The small body next to him wouldn’t want to wake up just yet. The day was going to be too long for her. For him. For all of them.

                He moved quietly out to the seat in the front room. His body was traced by the vines that traced milky white up and down his entire body. The Sun began to give colours to the vines: pink, red, blue. Light’s refractions through the window struck the room with hues of beauty.

                The chair made a screeching sound as Ed twisted it to look out of the window. He opened the curtains to show the streets. Ed sat down and just looked over the city. Immaculately clean streets; for years the streets had no trash, no clutter, no garbage littering the sidewalks. Tall peaks had been forsaken for the personal, low topped rises which created the personal relation built with one another again.

                Cities became the impersonal jungle of everyone. This was the first time that any group of people chose to leave that behind. Ed thought back, Leslie and he had left. They were sick of these relationships, being part of the faceless horde which haunted the pavement which inched its way across the green.

                A small cough broke Ed’s thoughts.

                Leslie was there. Her black body was like his pale skin, lined with the sacrifices they made. Ivy of the tales of freedom which crafted their pleasure for living covered their bodies, just like everyone else here.

                “Is it today?” Her milky voice floated between them both. The only clothing which covered each other.  She walked over and sat on his lap, curling up tightly.

                “Did we get anything?” Leslie’s voice was muffled by forcing its way through the legs.

                Ed shook his head. Thank God, I couldn’t do it again. Not to you. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

                Leslie reached up and touched his cheek. She smiled. “It’ll all be okay, we only have to do this one day a year.”

                The time came. Everyone came, the large naked group stood in the middle of the street with one another. Brushing up against one another, greetings and questions into the current status of lives were asked between people.

                “Goodness, did you see the stories on Leila?”

                “It seems that Jackie had her baby, I’m so happy for her.”

                “Rugby later? I’m free right after this, actually.”

                The words floated throughout the crowd and slowly drifted to Ed’s ears. Sound was off, there were no connects between the words and the meanings. The words became vacuous in the face of why they were here. Everyone was nervous. Eyes darted everywhere, people couldn’t stand still. There was no one that wanted to speak the words which could stop this meeting, a question of why they did this.

                BOOM.

                The first sign was sounded.

                BOOM.

                Doors of the Hall before the crowd opened and four perfect specimens came out. The only four people of this place without the lines of freedom. Ethereal skin, soft and without the signs of sacrifice gave these four people something wrong about their visage. Their long faces came to a pointed end on their chins. The two females and two males were barely different; the bodies were hidden behind the only cloth in town. Small rises on the female’s chest was the only sign of their sex.

                BOOM.

                The box came out.

                The small metal cube with the only opening at the top; a small black hole which held the fate of each member of this city.

                The crowd became quiet as a dead body. The four ethereal faces looked around and smiled, eyes locked with all those around the people. Ed made eye contact with one of the females and couldn’t look away from her eyes, even after she broke the contact. The beauty was disturbing Ed, the beauty of each of the pointed, thin faces scared him. The faces weren’t right, not human.

                Long, skeletal fingers reached into the box.

                The crowd’s breathing stopped, eyes wouldn’t move away from the hidden hand which slowly swirled inside of the box.

                The fingers held a small piece of paper. Slowly the fingers unfolded the paper. The eyes looked at the paper and a wispy voice carried through the silent, breathless crowd.

                “Edward McGovern.”

                Ed breathed out hard. Leslie squeezed his arm and forced a smile. He moved quietly up to the ethereal figures standing in front of the Hall. They moved out of the way, revealing the dark entrance into the Hall. Ed held his breath and moved quickly into the Hall’s entrance and walked through the long foyer to the small wooden door at the other side.

                Ed took slow, long steps towards the door. The white and pink tiled floor echoed in the domed ceiling. The arches which came down to create a semi-corridor which brought Ed to the wooden door, the symbols were etched into the wood. Deeply carved symbols, symbols that Ed had only seen here. The rest of the town was kept up tight; this was the only way into the city from below. No sewer openings, no rain drains throughout the city, no underbelly.

                Except for this.

                Ed opened the door slowly, air rushed out. A stale, wet air that smelt of the stink below.

                Each step was slow into the gathering darkness.

                Lower.

                Lower.

                Lower.

                Ed reached the bottom of the stairs. The damp smell and humid air was heaviest. A light brought Ed to his senses, a bright blue light in the middle of the dark. His slow steps brought him to the light.

                The pale blue light revealed a small, circular room. Bare stone walls had only one ornament. A small white knife barely four inches long. The knife shone bright as a star in the blue light, radiated the sacredness of this event. Ed reached out to it and grabbed the knife, holding the small weight in his left hand.

                Slowly a clanking sound from above became louder as a mass connected to the chain came down. The formless blob became more distinct as the body was brought closer to Ed. The black shadow became legs and arms, a naked shivering torso, a head covered in a black sack. The arms of this woman were pierced through with a meat hook that had been soddered into her skin from the Four’s unseen, but heard lackies. Her pale blue skin was unblemished, Ed felt wrong about touching the body before him as he ran his hands over the unscarred flesh.

                He reached out and removed the bag to reveal the face of a girl that would not even be out of high school, would never be out of high school. Her face was still like a pixie, still round, fleshy and pink. Her eyes, the drugged eyes, were bleary as she looked at him.

                “Clark Kent? What are you-” her sentence died as she fell deeper into her drugged stupor. She slumped, suspended by the hook through her forearms.

                “By the hands of the last born, for the mouth of the Elders, this is the generation to live,” Ed sliced his right palm with the knife and dripped blood into the centre of the circle, “by the sacrifice of the generation mixed.”

                The girl’s soft skin gave no resistance as he pulled the small knife across her throat.

                The ground opened in a gaping mouth. The darkness pushed Ed back to the stairs and he ran through the entrance hall into the street.

                The Four were gone, but the crowd had stayed around him. Ed was breathing hard, the sprint had taken everything out of him, and the Darkness had taken the life of the last one that had looked into it. The eight arms had almost gotten him as he ran.

                As he stood in front of everyone, he caught his breath with everyone else. They all stood in anticipation for what would happen now.

                Minutes seemed like hours as they waited.

                Four figures slowly came out. The ethereal smile on each of their faces hid their teeth.

                “The sacrifice has been completed and accepted. You may now leave.”

                The Four turned and the girl closest to Ed smiled at him.

                The teeth were red.