The flesh popped and ripped in strings as it fell apart, the metal grasp tearing it off the shattered bits of powdery bone, cream white and textured like wood. I stared as they ripped her apart, as the scalp slipped from the bloody texture of the white skull as she screamed, wailed at me, but I sat still. "Don't you think you could do in a cleaner way?" I asked, "Just pummel her if you really want all that pain, but a clean cut is good enough to kill her." My voice felt foreign, but I could hear it came from my lips.
"You're next, my Queen." They sneered, snickering as their metal hands ripped off a chunk of her torso, it came off like a chunk of bread. She cried and reached out to grip back at the world even as her head fell back, neck limp as her jaw ripped itself under it's own weight, the mouth tearing at the seams, the pink tongue limp. One man reached forward and slit open her chest, cracking her ribcage in two down the back to rip out the heart. The bone cracked and popped even as he held up the blood drenched, still beating organ, it's purple veins and still half attached tubes stringing out as he stepped forward, causing the body to fall limply off it's chain, slumping on the floor like a putrid pile of waste.
"No, I'de rather stay hungry than eat that. Even I've got standards. You'll rip me to shreds, and smile as I scream, because even the strongest are reduced to gasping lashes in the face of death. But while I still can, I'll remind you that you're not the one's making me cry, that's death's job alone. I've not shed tears since I watched millions die in the war, I'll not cry again until death comes for me, or my own blood. Have fun boys, you're getting the experience millions have craved for millennium." I replied as they approached. They were like a limping metal army, but they vengeance.
I felt the cold metal hand around my neck, still wet with my daughter's blood. My jaw fell open in a shriek.
* * *
"Mine, Mine, Mine," The words rolling off her tongue felt like candy to a child. I let my eyes slip open, blinking at the dim light of the candle beside the bed. She knew not to turn on the lights, she remembered where I kept the candles, even how to wake me up, her warm hands around mine softly.
"I'm awake." I grumbled, but made no effort to get up. This was a day when the air was much to heavy for that. I wasn't going to get up today, even if it made me feel like nothing had happened between the night before it all turned upside-down and this moment.
"I'll get you a hot cloth, you alright with that." She asked?
"Let me see, the ex who cheated on me and has a child to prove it is tended to me while I'm sick, yeah, I'm totally desperate for you to stay right here." I said sarcastically, but when she pulled away without a laugh, I almost latched onto her warm hands before they faded from me. It seemed like an hour before she was back with the cloth, letting it's white fabric rest on my forehead, the warm engulfing my sore head. "Why does everyone treat me like I'm a crazy old woman?" I asked, "Actually, never mind. I must be insane, I just asked you that." At this, she did laugh, gripping my hands tightly now. I hated how much she knew me.
"They don't think that Mine."
"Yeah, and I'm actually only ten years old, haven't you noticed?" I said sarcastically. "They think I"m crazy, and so do you. Here you sit at the edge of my bed nursing me back to health like a sick woman, and the things you expect I'll believe, ridiculous. You should of seen how they looked at me yesterday Rosetta. Was it yesterday?"
"It was yesterday, but this is already three in the morning. I've taken care of you like this for decades Mine, I'd do it if you were crazy, but because I'm doing it, doesn't mean you are. Now which dream was this? From the suddenness I'de guess mommy murders, the ripping one or the racing army."
"Ripping." My words sounded lethargic. "I don't remember telling you about mommy murders."
"I've read poems, dear." She replied. "Although I was a little hurt you never told me how your parents went."
"parents?" I asked, "parent Rosetta, my father drunk himself dead before I was even one. I'm happy about that though, because I didn't have to see him murdered."
"See, you didn't even tell me that." She said.
"Well I assumed I'de have more time than I did." I said, felling the sadness hang off my words like grapes do a tree. "Think, I was thirteen. It's not a topic I spread around. Father dead at one, Mother murdered at thirteen, married at fifteen, leader of a revolution at sixteen, and with a child at seventeen, and a dead husband at twenty-two, and that's vampire years, we mature slower than even your kind does. I have no intention to turn my reputation into a pity party."
"I was your betrothed, not your audience."
"To hell with it Rosetta, you know I've no energy for this." I pushed her hand away, slipping mine under the covers, even if it didn't warm them any.
"No energy for visitors?" She asked.
"God, if you tell me you even set one foot outside this room I'll..." But my words fell off. I've never once done anything I've threatened. She knew that better than anyone.
"I didn't do anything this time. My daughter knocked your door to dust and splinters before I even knew she was outside. I convinced her to wait in the hall, but I'm sure she heard your screaming. She'll not wait forever." That door was molded of a wood layer, a concrete layer, a metal layer and another wood one. No one could have broken that door, not even me, not even close. I gulped up air like an alcoholic does whiskey, but it didn't help anything as I struggled up onto my elbows, still in the same dress as yesterday. "Don't Mine, she knows already, just give it up."
"She'll be dead in a month tops anyway." I grumbled, letting myself fall back down into the bed. Rosetta lifted me softly, placing an extra pillow beneath my back. It had been bad before, but never had my chest felt like this. I felt ill with heaviness. I heard the footsteps approach before I opened my eyes, staring at the girl before me like she was a hinderance to my sight of the wall behind her.
"Queen Mortemine, sorry to interrupt your rest." She said, curtsying before me.
"I don't care for you, get me Illy, child, surely you can at least play the position of messenger."
"Illy is not here Madam. She didn't come along today. Someone's got to run your country." She wasn't even stiff as she said it. Was she so stupid that she couldn't see the danger, or was this reality now?
"Well, get on with it, child."
"I have a name. Surely you know it."
"Yes, I know it just as I know most everything else, but why use it. You are not even a pawn in this chess game, child."
"That's an opinion."
"Elly, get on with it." I yelled, "I've got no patience today."
"You've said that everyday we've met. Don't you want a drink? You know no one else does you any good." She pointed at Rosetta with an outstretched hand, her pink lips twitching upward into a smirk. If this was real, I understood completely how this girl had captured Illy.
"Leave or get to it."
"I'm getting to it, though I can't say it matches our topic well, so you'll have to bear my abrupt transition. It's about Illy, about who she is. Who is she Mortemine, you of all people should know?"
"You want to know who you're courting?" I asked, and she nodded. It was a strange question, especially to ask while wearing her blue cloak, but I compiled. "I've no clue child. I was seventeen and halfway through a revolutionary war when I had her, the most time I carved out for that child was a couple bedtime stories. That anirline raised her, she was only supposed to be a safety net, not an heir."
"Don't lie to me Mortemine, if you don't know who she is, at least tell me what she is to you."
"To me?" I asked, sighing. "Still a safety net, almost an equal now. She's sort of like an employee. Why."
"Nothing more? Nothing stranger? If she was just a employee, you'd never spend so much time on her, or confide in her so often, because she would be boring to you. If she was just a safety net, you wouldn't write poems about her, would you? And you certainly wouldn't have her tested." Her voice was knowing as she slipped her hands into her pockets, throwing a bundle of paper tied with twine to Rosetta. I caught glimpse of it in her hand, the front was a copy of a DNA test. I shuttered.
Pulling my hand from the covers, I saw it thin into bone as I turned the flesh to air, shooting out and grabbing her hot little neck in my palm. For a moment, she looked scared, as her neck slipped back, her chin upwards. Rosetta jumped forward as I felt a strange sensation. It stung like fiery needles as it jabbed at my invisible hand, driving me off with a smile. I watched the little blue and white lights swarm like famished ants around the outline of my hand, and as I winced I watched a drop of blood and a slurry of fleshy skin form between them. She stepped back as it fell to the floor in a heap, a ripped piece of bloodied skin on the carpet. Rosetta stepped back aghast.
"What did you?" I asked, my voice fading away as I looked down at the exposed bone of my hand, my veins visible pulsing on the underside as they faded into my arm.
"Unfortunately, I don't honestly know what I did, but I recommend you don't do that again. The lights are very protective of me, and I wouldn't like that to happen again." She looked down at the heap on the carpet like it was an alien object, stepping forward and shooing away the lights that fed on it like vile flies. "You'll get your hand back soon."
"Damn better." I felt the exhilarating jaws of fear as they closed around me. What was I going to do if I couldn't kill her, but was this a her, or a demon in disguise? Rosetta was plenty strong, but she wan't like this.
"Well, now that we've got that done with, don't you want to talk about it now. Who is Illy?" Her voice was resolute and unyielding. I would find a way to kill her, but right now I just wanted her off my back.
"I don't know what she is. To me, she's the one thing I wasn't allow to have, the one thing I couldn't conquer, couldn't obtain, couldn't stand atop of. And from her sprung everything else. It was all I wanted, a daughter, but even though I carried one, in the end she turned out not to be my own. Don't you understand child, she took that from me," I pointed to Rosetta, " and then you stole the hope. And she mocked it's possibility." I was almost screaming now, my words caught in my throat, dry and swollen. Blood clenched no thirst anymore, perhaps it was time to give in, but I couldn't leave the world like this, not with my memory tainted with their delusions.
"What if I told you I knew? There is only one idea that explains a child born to a mother unrelated to her, and that same one describes how a virgin bride could have a child. Don't you see, Mortemine, we're sole bloods. I am a sole blood. Illy is a sole blood."
"How dare you call my child a demon?" I shouted, watching their heads and shocked eyes spin towards me as I screamed it. "That story is a myth. A myth I tell you, and even if it was real, I did not raise a vagrant from hell."
"What?" She asked, her eyes going wide as she stared at me, her brows furrowed in confusion.
"Oh shut your yap, your brainless menace. You've worn me clear through with your stupidity. Now you are done, and done because I say you are, so I'll melt my whole being on that floor trying to strangle you if you don't leave this instant. And if I can have my way, I'll not say a word more the whole of this night." I lifted the seared arm, it's exposed bone held together only by the waxy joints and a couple surviving tendons up to shoo her away. After a moment of hesitation, she glared, bowed to her mother, and turned, leaving the way she came. "Good riddens," I grumbled, turning away from Rosetta to sink into the pillows.
I wasn't tired, but lost in thought so proficiently that if anything was said or done, I assure you I could not have heard it, as I was beyond even the unconscienceness of sleep.