The wind has painted the leaves from a beautiful emerald to a surreal auburn with news of the rapidly approaching winter. Summer’s legacy of dreamlike flowers have wilted as a flood of frost covers the land. The foliage starts to fall, and tsunamis of cold zephyrs are created from their impact onto the never ending ground signaling the birds of the upcoming twilight. The animals that choose to stay in this everlasting frost land prepare for an eternity of sleep. Allowing themselves to sin as they fall into gluttony and gorge on the feast autumn has provided them with.
Unfazed by the crimson leaves, the hoarfrost concealed land and opaque skies stands a little house. So small, and insignificant that if you gave it only a single glance it would remain unfound. Misplaced in this wasteland surrounded by trees, detached from society with no life hiding inside its walls and far away from anybody else. At least that’s what it wanted you to believe.
The fairytales would say it was meant to be lost and no even the greatest adventurer would spend the time looking for it. Sadly this is not a fairytale and someone did find this house with tragedy, not through adventure. The mortal who did discover it now cowers under its roof, hoping the walls don’t give in.
It is in this miniature and irrelevant house that their thoughts come to contemplate the outside world and all of its demons. For them it is where the ghosts of their past can’t come through the house’s scarlet door. Their demons bang at the entrance, scream and claw at the houses exterior. The pale yellow outer walls are the only thing sheltering them from their darkest secrets, the ones they have tried over and over again to forget.
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It is already mid-winter, the ground was dusted in a radiant white as a light snow passes over the land ever so slightly. The heavens darken, as the light slowly loses the battle to darkness and daytime gives into the night. The sun starts to set and shadows are cascaded over the ground.
The larks and songbirds have already flown south some time ago. The branches that their nests once settled on, even the mightiest of oaks have collapsed under the weight the twilight snow. Most of the other animals are still lost in their eternal slumber. Those whom are not wander aimlessly in the frost covered forest. The snow foxes and deer frolic in the woods, enjoying the cool gusts and weight-less snow that waterfalls on their fur.
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Footsteps in the snow tells the frozen forest the blue-grey eyed girl has left the little red-doored house. She leaves cracks in the frost that covers the lake as she makes her way to the opposite side. She walks slowly, the sound of the ice breaking be nether her makes a million hostile thoughts run through her mind. Snow silently falls ornamenting her hair and eyelashes with snowflakes. Waves of crimson dance upon her cheeks every time the wind blows against her. The sky is getting darker, and she holds her dark brown savage M83 closer to her chest.
The deer frisk freely unaware about the destruction heading their way. She moves a dirty, dusty blonde lock of hair out of her eyes and tucks it behind her ear. The blue-grey color of her eyes turned a ferocious dark, and murky color as if it parroted the atmosphere before a hurricane. She grips the rifle firmly, holding it tightly underneath her collar bone. She steadies herself, and takes a deep breath in. When she lets it out she can see it, her hands staring to tingle due to the cold. She brings her face down to the magnifier, adjusting her location until she sees what she has been searching for. The deer centered in the cross-hair. Another deep breath in and an even larger one out. She closes one eye, cocks the gun and slowly pulls on the trigger.
The snow was stained a dark crimson. Two bullets were shot, one in the stomach, it screamed in pain and tried to run away and one in the head to end its misery. It only took one for the other deer to run away abandoning the injured one. It lied lifelessly on the ground as the snow continued to fall, and the others continued to frolic as if nothing happened.
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Her breathing was labored when she finally arrived back at the little house, dragging the dead deer behind her. Frost collected in her hair, her eyes not dark instead they were pale as was her skin. The tip of her nose, and ears were red. Her lips cracked and mouth open as she breathed, each breath more ragged and uneven than the last. Her whole body ached, her muscles sore.
She was close to the house. You would never hear her say it was her home, it was just a house. It had a bed and a wood burning stove, a few chairs and a book but it was not a home, not her home at least. She would brew tea every once in a while and sit down with the book she has read a thousand times before but that was all. As far as she had ever gotten at making her life more than a few enjoyable moments more than just surviving. Sadly she didn’t deserve to do more than survive, she is lucky to be alive, or at least that is what the demons in her head keep telling her.
She dropped the deer at the door step and looked back a trail of crimson. It made a path leading the monsters straight to the house. With breath still shaking and hands unable to stop trembling she took out her knife. She licked her lips; they felt instantly colder than they did before. Her eyes darkening once more when she heard the leather like tear in the skin of her victim. The ruby red tainted steel blade of her 58tmak glimmered under the full moon, drops of scarlet fell down the knife’s edge and onto her hand staining her skin with memories. The wind blew harder than before, gossiping with the trees of what she had just done.
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She went inside leaving the scarlet door wide open for all the demons to infiltrate her home if they pleased. She light a fire, having taken multiple tries until she got a spark. She took her shotgun and hung it on the crooked hook near the door. With hands an imbrued crimson she took off her large jacket and shook off the snow that had vailed her throughout the night. She changed her pants, the others soaked through with snow were draped over a chair to dry. With her boots still on shielding her feet from frostbite she went outside once more. Dipping her hands in the icy snow she washed the crimson stains off.
She gazed out into the woods expressionlessly, then into space thinking of nothing as she watched the stars dance alongside the moon. Her hands started to tingle due to the cold. She looked down red still lingered on the tips of her fingers. Her eyes quickly darted toward the blood tainted slush. She wanted to feel something, anything but she didn’t, she couldn’t. She was used to the cold, she was used to this routine, she was used to this feeling. She had felt blood on her hands before, and she knows she will feel it again.
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She took off her boots placing them next the door which was still wide open. She looked through her almost empty cupboards until she found what she was searching for. Standing by the edge of the door, but still inside her house she bent down and grabbed a handful of snow. This time closing the door as she walked next to the stove placing the captured snow into the kettle.
Her arm reached under her single pillow and grabbed the book that hid under it. She spent a few moments admiring its cover, she has read it over a hundred times and can recite over half the chapters in her sleep. She read it before this house, before the past felt a need to haunt her.
She opened to the first page in Lexa’s rickety handwriting it says the world isn’t cruel, its people who are. We all live in personal dark paradises drowning in our own lies. We allow the madness of the past to haunt us and then we blame the world for what we have done.
She laughs a little at this, even though she has read what Lexa wrote a million times she still lets her demons rule over her, she still blames the world knowing she shouldn’t. Knowing Lexa always told her not to…
She doesn’t think too much of it though. The low whistle of the kettle puts her thoughts at rest for a few seconds. She pours the scalding water in a mug and watches intensely when she puts the tea-bag in. Memorized as it turns from a clear light blue to a bittersweet auburn.
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The tea that was once scorching and burned the roof of her mouth is now lukewarm and almost finished. The moon is still shining and the snow began to fall once more. It powders the ground filling the footsteps the girl made earlier. Covering the crimson trail that once gave the monsters a way to find her.
She lies on her bed a furry pelt sheltering her from the cold. One hand holding her mug the other holding her book. She’ll be finished by morning but for right now she is only just about halfway done.
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When the sun rose the next day the girl was fast asleep frowning faintly, with her mouth open slightly and drooling. Quivering faintly under the covers her knuckles white from gripping the pelts so hard. Worry lines indenting themselves on her forehead. Even during sleep the demons of her past haunt her.
Her empty mug is on the table next to her bed and the book is on the floor. She must have fallen asleep while reading and dropped it once she entered the world of dreams. It lays wide open letting anything bathe in the knowledge it harbors under its closed cover. On the page it allows the world to see tells not part of the story though. Instead it answers the trees and the frost fairies’ questions of who seeks shelter in the little misplaced house. The tiny house with a red door that was built in the middle of a frost covered wasteland. Written by an unstable hand it says a simple something that could be interpreted a million different ways when read by a million different people.
To a stranger it means nothing.
To her friends it means anything
But to her it means everything.
Not may, but until we meet again.
I’ll be back soon Clarke,
I promise…
Love Lexa.