90. Lace up my fingers, your little bow and pretty ribbons.

The world is cold, flecks of snow drifting from the above. The whole city was white, a pure white,a promise of only happiness and fun. But in this world that we are born into, there is no such thing called fun. It is only a simple word and a wonderful meaning, an impossible dream to posses. We may touch it a little, to feel the beauty of it in our eyes and on our palms, but in a second, it disperses and disappears, abandoning us at our peak, a spark gone within a blink of an eye.

In a cold of this starry night, an old lady beckons, her hair white as snow, her eyes a pretty blue. She smiles sincerely, and I can feel her stare shiver me in the bones. It was as if the sounds had hushed to a cool silence, and no one was around. The streets seemed empty, like it were only the lady and I, and the world didn’t want to exist.

Her spindly fingers summon me to her. She was thin and frail, so young looking, yet so old. She wore glamour to hide her age, but the beauty she once possessed was long gone. There in her rags, she calls out to me, a high musical voice, a deep growling in her throat. Am I scared? I don’t really know for sure. All I knew was my body's will to follow her, and my mind numb to the core.

The lady was dark, strange and eerie, yet forbidding and beautiful at the same time. She’s calling me into a strange street, one that I have never seemed to perceive. It smelled foul and fetid, but the lady didn’t seem to notice. She kept whispering, hushing my silent footsteps. The words were hard to make out with the bristling of my footsteps, and the raspy whispers that she murmured.

“Never stop, my love.

Only the Gods will weep at your feet,

and your cries to no one will meet.

Not I, not I.

Not ever.

There is no silence,

To screams there is no patience.

We will walk this march of death forever and ever and ever.

No one can look away,

no one can try.

I am too beautiful,

she screams and cries.

Too beautiful to blink my eyes,

and lose a second of gazing at this pretty pretty face,

till the end she says

no more whispers and goodbyes,”

She chants coolly, her lips twisting into a sickening smile of no true meaning. The words almost like a song, her beautiful singing enticing me, making me forget the meaning of the words, or how to make sense of them. She made me stop thinking of what to do next, stop me from anything except putting one foot after the other.

Moss lingered over the cracked tiles, the frosted glass cold to the touch. I am still walking, following the beautiful old lady. She doesn’t stumble or falter, each touch perfect and flawless. Her footsteps were embedded into the land, a shiver of ice surrounding the ground on her shoeless feet. She was walking backwards, every step seemed to have a rhythm, every word a riddle.

There was a symbol on her forehead, a strange tattoo-like figure. It was dark, but it wasn’t black or gray or brown. It wasn’t a color at all, it almost seemed like it didn’t exist. Her eyes were pale and lucid, her nose looked numb with cold. Her hair tumbled over her crinkled face in streaks of gold, like strips of flame ablaze against her skin.

Her immense beauty intrigued me, the happiness in her very steps, and that odd smile she has on her wrinkled face. But she was ugly, like her face was torn and blood ran down her eyes. Her image flickers and changes every few seconds. Beautiful and flawless, then morbid and dark. She was twenty and a hundred and twenty at the same time, a little girl and a grown woman in one.

Slowly, the ice started to melt, and grass grew between the crannies of the tiles. We kept up with this silent walking, and the scenery unfolded within a few more steps of the way. There was no more snow, no more Christmas feel in the air. It felt like it was summer again, and the winds were in my hair. My knitted hat slipped from my head, but as much as I was attached to it, I didn’t pick it up, nor even tried to. There was a strange desire swelling in me, pleading and begging me never to stop this dreary, beautiful walk.

The tiles were now covered in grass, and hills of greenery spread out beneath my ever-going feet. Flowers bloomed their perfect yellows and blues, the pretty purples and reds. Their soft, luscious petals unfolded, like they were waking up after a long time, eager to face a day basking in the glory of the golden sun. Trees sprouted from the ground, their barks strong and elegant, their leaves rustling in their greens and yellows.

The beautiful sound of birds filled the quiet air, a rush of wind against my stiff, cold cheeks. I wanted to look, to absorb the beauty and feed the greed of my eyes. But I couldn’t look away from that old lady and her gentle hushes,not now. Not ever.

For a split moment, she turned into a monster. Pas oozed out from her skin, and there were shards of glass sliced in her cheeks, and she was a gory mess. Her eyes were engulfed in a whole black, her teeth smeared with crimson and thick yellow substances. Her mouth was ripped at the sides, gaping wounds and fleshes. Her fingers were broken and twisted at the wrong angles. There was a silent screaming from her ripped throat, and what looked like a smile on her lips.

"Never stop, my love. Only the Gods will weep at your feet, and your cries to no one will meet," she whispered, her voie forced and raspy it sounded like ripping metal.

"Not I, not I. Not ever. There is no silence, to screams there is no patience. We will walk this march of death forever and ever and ever and ever and ever," she screamed and screeched, her voice ringing in my ears. Ghost materialized from everywhere to beyond the eyes can see. Millions drowned out her cries with their moans of pain and sadness, so full of regret it made me cry along with them.

They turned to me and started to feed on what life I had on me. They didnt eat my flesh, they didn't eat my soul, they ate my prescence. They ate what made me real and human. Then, I began to fade and turned gray, my fwhole self becoming see through and dark. My fingers could penetrate through the wisps of smoke that became my body. I could be cut, but I couldn't feel anything. Not even pain.

A swallowing sadness bursted in my chest, except that I couldn't cry, or weep anymore. My voice was gone, and replaced by a force or burst of a cry. My words of regret were merely the echo of the cries of pain from the rest who materialized beside me, making no more sense then we understand. I have joined the dead, the undead, the dead who came alive again.

Suddenly, a whole streak of flame started from the skin of the lady's skull, growing till it reached as long as the rest. Whenever the wind blows her way, her head with hair full of flames swayed from side to side, and the millions of cries from the ghosts next to me turned into words of anger. But it didnt make sense, because all of us were chanting with this person, this monster that we were all following. Once the wind stopped and her hair stopped swaying, our cries turned back into it's forced sighs of death.

So begin the march, my march of the death, a lady leading the procession of the dead, departed and deceased from the dawn of time to whenever she chose to end the walk. No one ever stops, no one ever looks away. Not to the ever changing trees and flowers, not to the sounds of children's laughter and the birds cooing. The world changes, the scenery changes, the winds and sounds and laughter changes. But no one can escape the lovely lady, and her gentle hushes and silent screams.

No one can escape Hadessia.

Nicole (: