The Scorpion And The Bird

The woman

The woman was just about to lay down, to rest, when a strange feeling within her arose. Something that  pushed her to walk some more. It was a strange feeling and the woman found it to be familiar, yet, she couldn´t quite place it.

It was the house that provoked that odd feeling in the woman.

Once again it had managed to invaded the woman´s mind. With intentions to guide her back on to the path that would inevitably send her to the dire house.

The scorpion a keen soul knew. And so did the bird. As they were one. Both were trying in vain to get the woman’s attention. To keep her away from that maledict house.

For they knew, once the house would let you go, twice it would turn you, and the third time it would keep you.

It was like an addiction. Once you have started it you cannot withstand your urges. It seemed to be life threatening not to go and so all their tries were for nothing. The woman would walk.

The blond was stubborn. Blinded by her hunger for vengeance. And guided by the house, which had put its spell on the blond woman anew. For it had longed for her. For her soul. Because when it had let her go the house felt as if part of it was missing. And knowing that the woman had to kill a few, it waited. Patiently and ready to fullfil it´s evil plan. Until it could lure her back in. Slowly earning her trust. Till the third time would come, and the house would keep her forever. She would become just another lost soul trapped within the brickwork.

And so the woman walked. Following the magnetic pull, she had just left behind a week prior. The pull that would lead her back into belly of the beast.

The house had changed.

They wandered for hours on end, and the house felt the womans comrades ill will. Could sense them trying to keep it´s prey from it. Hence the house made them fall behind.

No matter how fast they ran the distance, between the woman and her fellows, grew bigger and bigger. The blond did not realize it. She walked and walked straight ahead with her gaze fixed on the nothiness infront of her. Only, coming to an halt when she had reached the portal doors. There she stood now, taking in the houses daunting fassade for a moment.

Yet, it wasn´t as daunting as it had been. In fact the woman found the house to be lighter then it had been when she had left it. More amiable even. And that threw her off. Leaving the woman trapped in a back and forth. Last time the voices had given her one explicit rule. Don´t go near the garden. Each time she accidently or not ended up close to it. They had gotten so loud the woman had feared for her eardrums to burst. 

But being back now, the voices had vanished and the house itself had become calmer. Too calm.

And the gardden so wonderful. Filled with fruits and vegetables, colorful flowers and birds, that she could hardly resist. It was of the utmost beauty, so absurd in fact that it was a mystery how something like that was able to thrive in this wasteland. Though, there it was, right infront of her.

Should she walk through the labyrinth and break the only rule the voices had given her. Or should she rest and wait for an epiphany.

Eventually the woman settled for the latter. She ought wait for an idea to get her second plan going.

But the house being the house... responsible for the suspicious silence. Had kept them lost souls quiet. It had put them back into the walls and in all the cracks the brick work had gotten through the turn of time. Had put those lost souls back where they belonged. And the scorpion and the bird as well. Now, it could manipulate the woman undisturbed.

The house had changed.

Just like the woman had changed herself.

And just like her the house had gotten a taste of blood.

This time they would strike together. Meanly manipulated by the house that had nested itself into the woman´s mind like a parasite, the blond made a fatal decision.

Without anyone holding her back the woman broke the golden rule she had been given.

Never under any circumstance enter the garden. A particular smoky voice had told her.

Still, the woman went, because in the short time that she´d been at the house before, regardless of all those warnings, the woman had never fathomed as to why she shall not go there.

After all, the garden seemed like a safe haven, with its neatly arranged flower patches and windig paths, the animals that happily thrived there, all those pretty juicy fruits growing everywhere, not to mention the trees, filled to the top with apples and cherries and all sorts of delicacies.

And before she knew her feet had walked through the labyrinth on their own accord, stopping in frtont of the doors that would lead her into the garden. Her slim hand lay down on the handle and when she pressed it her ears were met with the most wonderful melodies of nature. She stepped over the door sill into paradise.

The scorpion

Eventually the scorpion and the bird reached the house´s grounds aswell. Far behind the blond woman, of course, who was already harvesting the garden.

But once on the houses acursed property it granted her the human body of a Butler that has had a rather unfortunate fate. Unlike her he was lost. Zulema however, had the privilege of being of unknown origin. She wasn´t quite a ghost nor a soul, she was merely an idea. And thus she could fool the  house from time to time. still, the house was not reckless, and a human body has mortal weaknesses, hence the scorpion had to be cautious. This was surely one of the houses tricks.

She had not yet left the porch in the front, that the Butler perceived a faint melody. It was her lullaby that her lover was whistling just then. The woman, it dawned on the apalled Butler, must be behind the house in the forbidden garden. She had broken the golden rule. Don´t set foot in that condemned garden, ever.

But for all that, the Butler wasn´t furious with her lover. She was aware that it had been the house´s doing and not the womans free will that had brought her into the garden.

Nevertheless she had to protect her before the house had her in it´s grip, not  willing to let her go ever again.

The garden

The garden was a through and through malacious place. A place so vicious, thinking alone made the Butler shiver. For where the woman saw the beautiful winding paths the Butler saw the horrifying truth. A truth that was made of scruffy flesh and blood.

The garden was no colorful paradidse at all it was a putrid bone yard. The trees were no trees but corpses held up by other mortal remains.  And where she walked there was no path but grey mush. The remanents of the decaying people who the house had held captive. And when the woman streched to reach for an apple she picked no fruit but rotten limbs. The scorpion must help her or she wouuld lose herself completely.

With her outstretched arms she ran into the portal doors pushing the them open with such force that the wooden door frame bursted under the intensity of the Butlers determation. Not stopping for another second, she made her way through the labyrinth of the houses passageways, following the melody of the womans whistles. She left the emperior stairways behind and found herself in the galery then moved on through the following door which lead to a wintergarden filled with hundreds of flowers rather resembling a jungle than a wintergarden.

She hated that place dearly with its gloomy atmosphere where you´d find yourself stuck in a live night terror. Whereforth she kept on going, fighting her way through the dense leafage, getting it out of her way with her hands. Finally she reached the door to the libary. Before opening the door she took a deep breath as she knew what horrors she was about to witness.

Not entirely into the liberary the Butler could already see the womans physique behind the milky glass of the windows. Her mind haunted by the bloodcurling images of what was going on behind those blind windows.

In the meantime the bird flew in circles high above them at the canopy keeping a watchful eye on them. Far away from this place of terror. A place that shouldn´t exist under any circumstance. A place so dark that it outlasts all.

Determined the Butler strode through the door. Before her the girl, basket in one hand filled with decaying body parts inhabited by vermin. Crawling and juicy, absurd loudly eating their way through the decomposing flesh. Her stomping feet makeing an awfully wet noice on the mushy path below her, as she turned to face the intruder. All the while chewing on an alleged apple.

She looked so thoroughly happy being cushioned against reality by the house. Completetly innocent enjoying an alleged juicy green apple. When in reality her teeth bore into the gray mass of decaying arm. Its rotting sweet juices dripping down over her chin, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. Disfigureing her face with the decomposing fluids of the limb she had just eaten so pleasurably.

When the woman peered the stranger she smiled at her with an abominable teethy smile. Vermin curling itself inbetween the womans teeth, some escapeing the hole while others got crushed by the womans strong jaw. Then she bend down to touch the moss, telling the stranger how beautiful the garden was. And how to her it seemed to be the most delicious fruit she had ever eaten and the softes moss she had ever walked on. Her hand glided over the moss. Unbeknownst to her her fingers collected all the human sludge and it´s inhabitants. Always with an smile plastered on her face.

Horrified the butler watched. Feling sick to the stomach as she watched her woman enjoying her snacks. Wallowing in the moss, like a child giggleing, although it was no moss at all. When she stood up again, the blond was covered from head to too in the feculent sludge.

She even offered the stranger some apples from her basket with that eerily smile on her face. Although the Butler tried to make clear that she didn´t want any the woman insisted. And so the Butler took over the basket, assuring the woman she would eat some apples later but for now she would collect some more.

Content with that answer, the woman happily handed over her basket. But took one especially pretty one out of it. One voice had returned but the butler being occupied, from keeping her from eating rotten limbs, couldn´t control what it would be telling the woman. Who left the Butler behind with the basket walking back into the house to relax for some time. Closely listening to the voice which shared its secret plan with her.

Once the girl had left. The Butler started noticeing the decomposing gases of the corpses closeing in on him. She acted fast since the gasses now fogging up, were deadly for the human hull the scorpion inhabited. Henceforth she hurried over to the barn where the gasmasks were stored.

There she took one and and began her work. Holding the basket in her left hand she shuffled through the field of corpses to her feet. Simultaneously scattering the rotting pieces of one gone life on top of another.

Letting the already existing piles grow. Walking through the dense fog of deadly gases the old man felt the fog becomeing a malicious trap. Deadly to every existing organism but the woman.

And soon enough the Butler´s silhouette befogged as she slowly made her last steps forward into the field of definite death. Lost in the mist. Yet, certain that she´d kept the girl safe. But in such a grim place there was no certainty only the law of the house. And that had already played it´s cards. The Butler had lost this time.

Consequently the Butler disappeared through the thick drapery of fog forever. And so the house would keep her in it´s belly for while, just long enough for the woman to reach her next victim and strike with such deadness, that Macarena would eventually sell her soul to it. Her next victim was not so far away.

The house had changed places. And dismissed the blond right in front of the hotel she had left a few days ago.

El Oasis

The blond had returned to the Hotel, whistling a jolly tune. Eager to slay.

When the man had entered the hotel he had encountered the utmost gruesom scene he had ever seen. In his friends bed lay a decomposing corpse, elideing such a dreadful stench that he emptied his stomach contents all over the floor.

Distraughed the man left the room. Sat down outside, on the same terasse where his friend had fallen for the baneful beauty. There he attempted to process what he had just witnessed.

How could that have happened. What had happened? Questions over questions formed themselves inside the mans disturbed mind. Until he heard a wonderful tune. Sung by an even more beautiful godess.

Like his friend before him, the man reckoned a woman of such raven beauty, must be his salvation. When in reality she ought be his downfall. Disguised in the utmost wonderful creature he had ever lain his eyes upon. Just wandering this spoiled earth. It must have been their destiny to meet, the man thought.

And again, her honey tongue, her sweet nothings, lured the man into her claws. She told him a made up story of what had happened that she had been watching those horrors unfolding from afar. But that before she would tell him she would prepare some food for him. Because in order to revenge his brother he needed proper strength.

Thus, it was that the woman disppeared into the kitchen and prepared a feasts for the man, spiked with warfarin. Some rat poison that the house had revealed to her.

It had taken the blond around an hour to prepare the deadly dish. So long in fact, that in the meantime the scorpion and the bird had catched up with the woman. However, the house was close enough to keep them at a great distance. Near enough to see the horrors unfold, yet far enough not to intervene.

And so she set the food in front of him. A huge plate of duck and potatos. And another one filled with vegetables and fruits. On top of the second plate, lay one especially bright colored apple. The applle of two faced Eden. One could eat it one could not.

To him it seemed like a normal dish and for the woman too, although she knew that it was deadly delicious. But the bird had witnessed the horror from above. Everything the woman had touched had turned bad. And everything the man would shove into his mouth was flea-bitten. He was poisoning himself one piece at a time. And the woman... was observing him. Mouth agape, spreading her sweet honey words with a finger over her red lips, talking the man into exorbitant overeating.

Just like the house had manipulated her the woman manipulated the man now. Thus the man ate and ate until he no longer could. And then when he couldn´t take anymore he went over to the pool and lay down on a sunlounger.

For a while he didn´t realize his fate. Being fast asleep. The woman began to grown impatient, but the voice kept her from forstalling the poison. It reassured her that her patiance would be worth it.

Bloodthirst

The man man was woken by devasting pain in his stomach. Almost instantly he started coughing miserably, and up came blood. The woman acted worried but knew very well what it was, that caused him such agony just then.

She was responsible and was happy that his destiny now was to die an undiscribeable painful death.

With a sick grin, she let him lay there. Watching him suffer from above, while he patheticly prayed for help. Help that wouldn´t be granted to him any time soon. His fate was written in stone. He would die.

After half an hour of miserable coughing up blood. His organs began to fail. With every strained cough his intestines contracted, raptureing his organs surfaces with minimal cracks, that caused slow internal bleeding. Not enough to make him die in a matter of minutes but enough for excruciating pain.

The man beneath her moaned in agony. And slowly but surely there came blood out of his nose and ears, slowly dripping down over his face. And eventually onto his torso, drenching his clothes, ironicly white. And when his clothes were soaked, the fabric unable to absorb more blood, the crimson drops dropped down onto the sunlounger he lay on. Creating a puddle remining her of the one she had stood in, mourning her lover.

His hurtful moans and screams becaming so horrendous no human would have thought twice about leaving.But the woman watched. Triggered by those memories, with even more brutality.

And so she stood there. Calmy  watching. Towering over him. And when he started to finally become short of breath, the woman wanted to be the one doing the the honors. Inevitably, she was about to loose the last human part within her. With ever ill move she had taken to reach this moment, she had lost part of herself to the house. Which consumed her greedily. Leaving her numb. And it would take the last. Crestfallen the bird circled above the woman. It was one thing to kill with a gun, but something completely different to kill with your your own hands.

Moreover when it were not his pleads that drove her to this decision but simply her hunger for blood.

She had gotten a taste for it and wasn´t able to stop now. So her hands reached out. Hands so small she needed both of them to get around the mans meaty blood covered neck.

It was so slippy she pressed for a bit but the slick blood let her fingers slip away. Trapping the man amids an sick game of breath play. He woud be denied air for a few seconds until her hands would slip anew.

At one point she got tired of it and grabbed a towel. Dried his neck, in vain as the bleeding wouldn´t stop. But it was enough for her not to slip again.

In the next six minutes she towered over the immobilized man. Her hands tightly wrapped around his neck squeezing.

The woman started from the beginning. At first she let just enough air through for him to defend himself as she listed his offenses.

What he had turned her into and what he had done to her lover albeit not realizing that no one but she herself was responsible for what she had become. That her weak character had allowed the house to take her over. And certainly, the man would have told her because he had no remorse at all. But he was simply to feeble to do so.

And being bored by his incapeability to do something she squeezed his airways shut completely.

He spasmed a bit under the lack of air, in an vain attempt to gain the upper hand. To run from his definite death, but the blood loss and lack of oxygen as well as the poisoning was enough that his attempts were of rather light nature.

Her hands tightened an impossible amount around his neck. Almost crushing it. His eyes, bloodshot emerged from their eyesockets, as the pressure in his head rose. Spitting, blood on her face with ever vainly gulpfor air. He started to make the weirdest noises. Almost like an squeaky scared piggy or guinea pig, and the woman...

She watched unperturbed. Gawping at the man fighting for his life. Gloating over his struggle. Again mouth agape, her honey words continuesly telling him sweet nothings. He deserved it at least in her eyes he did.

Hell-bend not to let go of him, or let him die from the poisoning, she squeezed even tighter. Falling in love with the gurgleing sounds that were able to escape him, how his eyes slowly lost their shine, the mushroom of bloody foam started to form around his mouth and how eventually he stopped twitching when his eyes turned dull.

The mans body relaxed under her her,

his grunts fell silent,

his fight with death came to an end after 6 infinite minutes,

and finally the woman let him go.

With a thud he landed back on the sunlounger, the lack of tension, though, made him flop down onto the ground.

The woman let her head fall back and looked up into the sky. Stretching her sore limbs. Killing with your own strength was a hard chore. Surely the woman would need a break.

From above the bird looked down at her. Seeing her lover ruthless like that made her doleful. This was not her Rubia. This was a ruthless killer searching for justice where there was non in the first place, but the bird found comfort in the fact that there was only one person left to avenge.

A single silvery teardrop landed on Macas forehead, it was part of Zulemas soul. There was, after all, some good left of her. More than she knew. She gave it up with the strong believe that if she would give it to her, piece by piece, in the end, maybe, just maybe, there would be enough humanity left in her lover to guide her into paradise. 

Yet, unimproved the blond wiped the blood on her face away with it. Then grabbed the lifeless body of the man by his throat. And dragged him into the room where his friend was resting. She threw them on a pile and went outside back to the sunloungers.

The house had told her to wait.