“Make a wish!”
She gripped the rock in her fist and considered for a moment. There were lots of things for her to wish for. Fame and fortune were popular picks, but she didn’t want those. Love, but of course she already had that. Something else then, something new maybe? Something exciting and grand, like an adventure perhaps. A break from the slight monotony of life that she’d found herself falling into. New choices then, opportunity, freedom. She knew now, vaguely, what she wanted, and so she silently mumbled her wish into her fingers, then drew her hand back and threw the rock with all her might. It collided squarely with one of the old windows and shattered the pane, the sound echoing across the abandoned building.
“What did you wish for?”
“I can’t tell you, it won’t come true if I do.”
He bumped her with his elbow and grinned down at her. “Aw come on, you can tell me. You already know my wish.”
“Nope!” She popped the ending of the word and stuck her tongue out at him. “It’s bad luck to say a wish out loud.”
He shrugged before blowing on his own curled fist, rubbing the rock like a pitcher before the throw, and then he hurled it after hers. The crack of glass echoed amongst the bricks again, another wish in another abandoned building. He slung his arm around her shoulders, his now empty hand tugging at her hair. “Well I think mine is gonna come true,” he said, leaning down to kiss her sideways on the cheek.
She giggled. “Jerk,” she said, pushing him off her and taking off down the street. With a laugh, he ran after her, their shadows dancing among the street lamps, chasing and twining about each other as they disappeared back towards the lights of downtown, leaving the old building alone under the moonlight.
The Guardian of Abandoned Things, Wish Keeper and Promise Holder, stooped to pick up two stones from the dusty cement floor. They each lay in a puddle of glinting starlight and he carefully avoided the sharply angled edges. Two drops of blackened blood stained them anyways and he juggled them like dice in his hand.
Such foolish things, to throw away wishes so carelessly. Didn’t they understand the strength in dreams? No matter, they were his now, given freely with intent. He walked across the room of windows, littered with broken glass and crushed underfoot. He tumbled one of the stones into his other hand and lifted it to his lips. With a soft sigh he breathed upon his closed fist, shutting his eyes and reaching out into the darkness.
Lust and Want. A desperate need for touch and taste. The air was hot and thick and filled with quick panting and quiet gasps of air through heaving lungs. Hands were fumbling and sheets were falling, skin was warm and soft and clutched under trembling fingertips. Voices were climbing in pitch, shouted praises to a god neither of them believed in, a building crescendo of pressure and pleasure before a wave of ecstasy and completeness brought them back down to earth. They lay there after, shattered and spent and held each other. A wish fulfilled.
He smiled out into the darkness through an empty window frame and dropped the rock into his pocket, already filled with other spent wishes and broken glass. The second rock he held in his palm, fingers splayed out to hold it up to his eyes. It was heavier in his hand than the first and he weighed it against some standard in his mind. He kissed the rough stone and reached out again.
Fear and Anger. There was screaming now and sticky liquid iron against naked skin. Wrenched from sleep and eyes wide open, there was only one heaving chest now. The other was still and silent and cold except for the hot lifeblood spilled across the broad expanse, rent and split open from neck to navel. A name fell from parted lips, then a plea, then a curse to whatever god was out there listening. No one heard except for a shadow in the window, a dark reflection upon the dripping glass. There was salt in her eyes and in her mouth and mixed with the red on her hands. A baptism of blood and water and a rebirth, and with it a newfound freedom that she never knew she ever wanted. A dark and terrible wish from the deepest part of the heart fulfilled.
He dropped the second stone into his pocket and it clattered amongst the others. She should have spoken her wish out loud for something else to hear and to take. She should have never thrown it away, never left it abandoned for him to pick up. For he was the Guardian of Abandoned Things, Wish Keeper and Promise Holder, and no matter what, for better or worse, he would come.
Another clash of glass and laughter bounced off of the brick and cement. Another abandoned set of stones and wishes. He grinned, teeth sliver in the moonlight and walked across the bright expanse of space and time towards the rock in its puddle of broken stars. His pocket echoed with each step, hungry and waiting, and he reached out once more into the darkness.
The first installment of my October Scary Story Challenge! One down, four to go!
:) Kathryn
Comments