Chyrsalis

 

The grass and earth is cool beneath her, a shadow passed over her closed eyelids. This mound in the meadow was a favorite spring spot for Lucy to lay and escape the boredom of her small town existence. In the grass she explored the ruins of the Scottish moors, or pondered the life of a Roman soldier in Britain. Mr. Mink her high school history teacher filled her mind with ancient curiosities. The clear sky had developed some puffy clouds and their passing had caused Lucy to open her eyes. Just at this very moment a monarch of the most vivid orange alights on the tip of her nose. She dare not blink, staring cross eyed at the creature who seemed to be staring at her. The butterfly just flapped its wings but did not move even when she finally had to blink. From her peripheral vision Lucy sees two more monarchs hovering, one on either side. She finds this somehow odd and disturbing so she lets loose a puff of air from her lips. The monarch arises from her nose but only hoovers a foot above still flanked by two others.

Lucy loved butterflies and this was one reason she choose this mound to dream, the wild flowers. Still the three monarch hover in formation above her. Each flap of their wings, each beat of her heart in perfect synchronicity, her eyes open and close in unison. Flap, flap, flap…….

Lucy awakens to darkness, realizing that she must have fallen asleep she sits up and rubs her eyes. “The stars look different somehow” she thinks as she cast her gaze to the woods below the mound. A strange noise startles her from the wood, a sound she has never heard before.  Paralyzed she remains still like a deer caught in the headlights of Uncle Bubs truck. “Where is Uncle Bub and his shotgun when you need him” she said silently, still immobile and alert. A pair of eyes stare out from the darkness, and then another, and another. Suddenly a flap of wings is heard over heard and before she can look she is airborne, soaring toward the moon and dark forest. The wind is chill on her cheeks as she manages to look up she sees a flash of orange and remembers the monarchs, yet she is being held by hands. The hands release her and she is falling, falling toward the darkness. “I am dead! That’s it dead, not dreaming.” She falls and falls and lands gently with a bounce in tall yellow stocks of filaments, covered in a yellow powder she sneezes violently. “What is this?” she wonders, looking up through the filaments of a gigantic bloom. Whoosh, she feels air disturbed from the tremendous wings as they maneuver above her and perch on the edge of this dream, nightmare, experience, flower??? Sitting there black skin and green eyes an enormous being with monarch butterfly wings staring down at her. Lucy in her faded blue, floral print dress, and sneakers, her long dirty blond hair matted with grass from the meadow. This creature is looking at her quizzically, tilting its head from one side to the other, its arms wrapped around each other at the wrist its long dark fingers entwined. The eerie sound she heard on the mound repeats and the creature looks towards its origin, and quickly back to her, staring. The strange skies moon is bright but not round it is pear shaped, with a reddish hue. Now the noise becomes like a deafening hum coming from all directions. The creature jumps into the nest grabbing her face her shoves some strange berry into her mouth, she protest but it hold her mouth closed, so that she has no choice but to swallow it. She feels herself overcome and right before she goes completely unconscious, she sees the space above her full of creatures like this one. The moonlight is obscured with butterfly wings.

Death is beautiful, it is dark, it is quiet, it feels as if floating on a pond on a summer night. Death is so peaceful. Lucy thought to herself, “Why was I ever afraid to die? This is wonderful!” A brilliant light interrupts her reverie, so bright and so unwanted as she becomes conscious she cannot breathe, surrounded in a mucous fluid, she cannot move, and the light is like a slash in the black void. The slit and the brightness getting larger, and larger. Lucy is now able to move her arms and reaches toward the slash ripping in effort to excavate herself from suffocation. Long strange finger assist the process from outside and Lucy pushes through the opening and in the brightness of her meadow she see a spectral image from her past, Jack. “Well hello Miss Lucille. I told you I would see you around.”

 

Sindy Sue Simms

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Happy Halloween Word Press friends. I love you. The above was my short story for my Annual Spooky Writing Challenge. I am planning another non spooky challenge, so any of you writers out there love to have you participate. Be safe and happy. Get a reading or retain my favorite witch Sammi Cox for a candle burning.

See you soon.

Blessed Be~

Sindy