Tainted Impressions
Written by Kathryn K Williams.
All ideas, characters and the like are copyright of Kathryn K Williams 2008. Please do not copy this story or any others under her name or anyone else.
Fat droplets of blood rained from the heavens upon my upturned head, cascading down my face, soaking through strains into my light blond hair. Everywhere I go I see blood, but never before has it ever this vivid, this real, so much so that I can actually taste the copper on my lips. Seeing blood is nothing unusual for me. It appears all over the place and in every shape and style imaginable, from the simplest of finely shaped droplets on the sidewalk outside of my apartment to the ghastly splatters and hand prints that cover the halls of my former high school.
No one is sure why I see what I do. Many doctors speculate that it is a result of being the soul survivor of the car accident that took the lives of my parents and kid sister, landing me alone in an orphanage by my seventh birthday. I personally think it is residual imprints left behind by extremely intense emotions, imprints of pain and suffering left upon this world. The reason I suspect this is because sometimes I see more then just blood, I can also see scars and bruises that cover a person’s body even long after they have healed. Wounds that they have suffered at the hands of another, which might explain why I see myself coated in blood from time to time.
The only reason this curse of mine has not driven me completely mad is that I only see these gruesome sights for a brief moment and then they are gone again. The longest ever being the day after the accident, during that time I saw the blood on my face and hands for days on end, and would spend hours trying to remove it from my skin. The doctors having to forcibly tie me to a bed because I would scrub until I was literally bleeding. Over time the visions lessened, but they are still there, always haunting me; in my waking hours and even in my dreams.
The purpose of my telling you all of this is because over the past twelve years I’ve become rather accustom to these unexpected scenes of gore, almost desensitized by it. I say almost because every so often I am confronted with a sight that truly tests my nerves, and my stomach for that matter, this being one of those days.
It isn’t the crimson rain that disturbs me during this particular dream. Oh, I’m sure it is a dream; I’ve learned to distinguish between the two over time, which is why I’m not currently babbling like a fool in an insane asylum. No, the rain is far from the source of my distress at this moment. I admit it is different and I give my mind credit for trying. However the thing that has my heart pumping and my knees trembling uncontrollably, to the point that they want to buckle under me, is the young girl in front of me, a girl in a bright yellow rain slicker and white galoshes.
The sight of such an innocent young child so happily hopping from puddle to puddle, giggling away as she playfully spins her clear plastic umbrella with its rubber ducky prints running around the rim, should have been a delight; adorable even. The type of image you’d expect to find in one of those Black and White calendars filled with photos of children dressed in adult clothing. Yet this scene before me did not make me brake into a smile, not even a twitch formed at the corner of my mouth for the bloody rain continued to fall and streak down the girl’s umbrella, making my stomach turn as it spraying off the umbrella in streams like a gymnastics’ ribbon as she twirled it around. Droplets splashing upon her smiling face as she leapt into the air and came down hard in a blood filled puddle, coating her rain slicker with crimson and small chunks of flush, soaking through once white pantyhose, and tainting her white galoshes pink.
I clenched at my chest as a swelling emerged from within my heart and hot tears brimmed at the corners of my eye. Grasping a handful of my now drenched t-shirt I reach out to the girl with my free hand, closing and opening my fingers as I stagger across the muddy surface of the road before me. I call out to her, a name I do not hear myself, nor do I recall later no matter how hard I try. The heavy rainfall, which steadily increases with every step I make, drowns my words out even to my own ears. My feet slip and slid under me as I desperately try to reach the girl who seems completely oblivious of my presence.
Then I see it, the reason for the growing dread that has filled my heart. Across the road, behind the girl, two glowing yellow orbs appear from out of the haze, materializing like death out of the fog. I scream, but I know my words fall upon deaf ears. The shape of something monstrous begins to form across the small ditch at the shoulder of the road, hunched over as if walking on four legs, or perhaps dragging massive long arms through the grass field from which it emerged. The creature crawls through the small ditch, the small red stream circling around thick dark hair matted legs. Lightening suddenly flashes, blanketing the land in white light and for that instance I get a clear sight of the creature as it abruptly leaps through the air, hovering for a brief moment over the child’s head before plummeting down upon her. I avert my eyes, not wanting to see the image before me, but knowing far too well that I have just witnessed the girl’s last moments in this world and wishing to whatever god would listen to free me of this cursed sight.
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To be Continued . . .
*****
Note: Characters and ideas in this story are a copyright of Kathryn K Williams.
If you wish to view art from this series please visit my deviant arts site at: http://shinigami-shimai.deviantart.com/
For more of my stories visit my deviant hearts site at: http://www.devianthearts.com/viewuser.php?uid=159
Also if you spot any typos or other errors please contact me at katwilliams @ rogers.com
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