No, not gonna’ die tonight
“The monster fell in love with the damsel.”
Paige was hardly a damsel, but it was fitting. She was Nishaa’s saviour at times. Saving her from becoming a slave her feelings, her emotions – she would never bridge to Allurist, she promised herself she would never acquire the feels. Nishaa looked at her wife-to-be and canted her head, lifting her hand to place it against Paige’s cheek, to caress it tenderly before retracting her hand so the woman would not wake. It was strange not sleeping in the Eyrie where she normally slept, with dust, and metal shards in her hair but she had promised the sleeping woman beside her that she would not stray from her side tonight, she did her nightly errands, dropped into the Eyrie for a few – dropping **** off for Micah like she normally did, and headed to West Towers to their apartment – the one they had recently acquired off an elderly man. He had been nice, even with his silver hair and she had given him money – he wanted to skip town, and Nishaa didn’t blame him. It was perhaps the only time she had shown mercy, or even compassion to someone who wasn’t Andras, or Tytonidae. There was a first for everything.
Paige had told her earlier that night that she could walk through another’s dream, Nishaa had thought it odd. Nishaa had also told Paige she never dreamed, or that she didn’t remember it but that was also a lie. Nishaa remembered night after night she would have the same set of dreams, it was on loop – it would constantly remind herself of the monster she truly was, to take the life of an innocent boy – to spend her childhood in a padded cell, or amongst other crazy children she had believed herself to be crazy too she had even uttered the words. ”I belong here.” to feel the shame of her parents, how they would never touch her – how she had become a thief, pick pocketing to survive. Her parents abandoned her the night she had killed Danny.
Nishaa pushed herself down further in the bed, the matress soft against her skin as she turned over, closed her eyes and began to slumber. The darkness taking her in, summoning her to the land of dreams.
We’re gonna’ stand and fight
Nishaa called into the night, her dark hues looked up at the moon high in the sky, but it seemed large. Much larger than it had been before. She didn’t compare. Nishaa a girl of mere six was a night owl, with a morbid curiosity for all things that go bump in the night, but there was one thing that really made her wonder was the devil, the concept of heaven and hell. She had read books, lent books from her local library even asked her mother to buy her books. Every time she had asked her mother would give her a strange look and demand an answer as to why she was so obsessed.
“Niagra.”
Nishaa would look to her mother, the formality in her tone of voice made her cringe, and shrivel up from fear.
“You need to stop obsessing, it isn’t healthy.”
“But, I like it, momma.”
A slap came hard and fast against Nishaa’s cheek which now burned red under the kitchen light. A sob caught in Nishaa’s throat, a moan and then her own hand came to rub at the flesh, her mother’s cold stare towards her daughter was evil.
“Wash your mouth out with soap; you will not talk about the devil any longer.”
Her mother was stern, and Nishaa the girl with the morbid obsession meekly nodded her head. Never to tell her mother of her interest again, but it didn’t stop there. Something inside the little girl was dark, hollow – empty. She felt no love. Her mother beat her occasionally – well, slapped her until her skin turned purple. Beating the impure thoughts out of her, she’d often say during her discipline when her mother caught her reading occult books.
Who’d have thought that Nishaa’s family were holy people – they went to church every weekend, dragging their young children with them. Nishaa didn’t care about church, it was a boring two hour service to her to probably preach about something that may potentially not even be real, but the one thing that did spike up her attention was Judas, one of Jesus’s disciples that betrayed him – thus, making a sin. She even enjoyed the story about the snake in the Garden of Eden; it was the darker side of things that seemed to grab Nishaa’s attention. Thus her morbid curiosity ensued. She had learnt about the devil, god, Lucifer – the many different things and had convinced her childish minds that he was real; much like god was to those who had faith.
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“Daaaanny”
“Niaaaaagraaaaa.”
Their game was much like Marco, and Polo they called each other’s names it was fun. Her brother Danny was five, Nishaa was only a year older. She didn’t even remember how the kitchen knife had gotten into her grasp, she didn’t question it either. It just happened, but Nishaa had already known what she was going to do, she had already dreamt of it – it was a premonition, almost. A sense of de ja vu. She found her little brother moments later, he was hiding near the Cliffside. Their house was close to the cliffs, and below the cliffs was a large drop and the ocean below them – they were on the coast, nothing too spectacular, Nishaa liked to fall asleep to the sound of the ocean, it was soothing sometimes drifting off into a deep slumber the scent of the ocean in the air around her filling her nostrils.
“Niagra, you found me.”
He giggled opening his arms to her for the girl to embrace him but she didn’t. She had seen what happened next in her dream; she had heard the voices urging her to kill. So she did, she acted on the voices in her head, the voices that told her to take his life, offer it to the devil – so the occult books had said, as so she did her knife slipped into the boys chest like a knife cutting butter, she looked into the whites of his eyes, she could see fear within them. She could smell it even. It was all over him as the boy collapsed to the ground, he shook on the floor, and his body spasmed on the ground as Nishaa turned herself from the boy looking at the blood coated dagger. She lifted it to her mouth and licked at the blood, ingested it – until she coughed.
This was Nishaa’s first taste of death; nothing was the same after that. Everything was a blur, the blood tasted metallic in her mouth her chapped, lips were coated in the blood of her brother but Nishaa wasn’t sorry she killed Danny, instead she was glad, she had a craving. She wanted to kill more; perhaps her mother would do as a second choice. The child of a mere six years old smiled. Revenge would be hers.
