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Addict
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: United States
Gender: Female
Posts: 149
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Delusion (Part 1) : A Novel In Process
I posted this piece almost a year ago, but it's undergone a barrage of edits since then. Critique, please!
There is a voice in my head, whispering thickly. It sings softly, so softly, and I can almost feel it like a breath on my cheek – another presence. At night it spins dark lies in my mind, weaving forbidden fantasies until it’s consumed me whole. I can feel something awakening within me; a Wickedness.
I don’t tell Mother. I don’t tell anyone. What would they think of me: little, sweet Louette stirring to the call of a dark angel? I fear the reverend must know; he stares at me during prayers, his heated gaze accusing, demanding me to confess. I can only lower my eyes in shame and bury my head deeper into my prayer book, my face flushing scarlet.
I pray desperately for absolution, for guidance, for pity on my soul, but I am met by a silence most disquieting. Perhaps God has abandoned me. Perhaps I am to be ravaged by my own wickedness. Or perhaps it is this unknowing that will be my undoing – driven to insanity by my own fear.
Dear god, I am at wit’s end.
I feel him. I feel him always, watching, guarding at my back and fleeting around dark corners. I feel him following hard at my heels, his breath whispering across the back of my neck, and following from afar. Sometimes, when I walk into an empty room, it feels as if someone was there only a moment before. But no matter how fast I turn a corner or glance backwards, there is no one – always no one.
In my dreams, he comes. He appears like a wavering image on water, sure to disappear at the slightest touch, but he is there. I see his shape, the dark outline of his form, his glittering teeth. And his voice! It sings, luring me to a dark abyss beyond.
The veil is thin between dream and truth, and I fear that I can no longer discern each apart. My mind spins helplessly as I wonder: Have I gone mad, conjuring delusions out of thin air? Or am I merely haunted by a ghost? I am answerless, for everything – everything – is achingly real. I feel his touch against my skin, burning with all the promise of salvation, and hear the soft timbre of his voice echoing in my ear. When I close my eyes, I see his darkened form against the back of my eyelids, as if his image were forever imprinted in my mind.
I am desperately confused. More than anything I want to tell Winnie, pour into her ear all the secrets weighing heavy in my heart until I am once more free. But how could I tell anyone of this great disgrace? I am sure that if anyone were to know of these shameful stirrings, I would be condemned to hell and back! And even worse, a part of me actually relishes in these new feelings as if it were liberation on my soul.
He came to me last night, swathed in black like a vision of the night, his gleaming teeth barred into something of a cruel smile. His presence was inside me and everywhere at once, filling my mouth and lungs with every breath, overpowering every sense until my knees trembled with the sweet weakness of surrender. My skin prickled like a thousand little needles, but it did not hurt – not a single bit.
Darkness enclosed us both like a thick cloak as his milky voice murmured low in my ear. I could feel a deep pang in my womb, an aching as if a heavy stone sat inside it, and it spread to my legs and down to my feet, curling at my toes. A sudden rush of throbbing warmth swept through my body as if the string of a lute had been held taut and strummed, and I cried out, waking tangled in my sheets.
My heart pounded feverishly beneath my breast, threatening to escape. My nightgown stuck to my sweat-dampened chest in a thin film of cotton, and my skin burned as if a fire was spreading through my veins.
I closed my eyes, listening to my breath slowly even out. From outside I heard the clicking of horses’ feet striking cobblestone, the sound sharp and staccato, followed by the soft roll of a coach. I picked out the steady, monotonous ticking of the mantle clock from across the room. Elise sighed and shifted in her sleep beside me, her small feet grazing my calf.
These sounds, these movements were all as familiar to me as the scar skimming the tip of my eyebrow. Yet there was an inexplicable uneasiness. The air felt stifling, deadening each breath, and darkness encroached upon the walls, chasing even the shadows away.
A sudden chuckle rippled through the air.
I froze. A ribbon of iciness slipped down my spine and my breath caught at the base of my throat. Was I still asleep? Had I truly gone mad? I had heard that laugh before, but only within the deepest folds of sleep.
Shaking, I struggled to pull myself up. My eyes strained to find a flash of teeth or perhaps the swing of a dark cloak, but I found nothing, only a blanket of darkness stretching to the far side of the room.
No, sweet Louette, you are quite sane, he murmured.
I recoiled, his voice suddenly echoing inside my head. My heart thudded so fearfully that I was sure he could hear it beating like a drum.
I have come for you, Louette.
I swallowed hard. Why? I thought.My mouth was as dry as vellum.
A flash of movement caught my eye and I stifled a gasp. In a darkened corner of my room, a black figure slowly emerged until it had melted away from the shadows. And then he was there – no longer a delusion, but a living, breathing creature of flesh and bone – and he smiled, the moonlight catching at his perfectly white teeth.
Because you are mine.
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"They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever."
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