You think I’ll cry?
I won’t cry.
My heart will break before I’ll cry.
I will go mad…
The street was damp and dirty, the cobblestones still slick with the recent rain and the woman cowered to maintain body heat amongst the chill in the air. Only spring and still to the pale redhead the breeze felt similar to the beacon of winter’s first frost. Her teeth chattered as she scrubbed at her shivering limbs and stared bleakly at the tiny fissures of moonlight that dared to sever the shadows of the alley. She sought the solace of the shadows as if the dark itself could ease away the bleak nature of her spirit. The redhead believed once that there had been such a glorious smoldering of brightness to her spirit but now she was but a candle before being snuffed out. Dying Light.
The emerald of her eyes went wild in their rampant search for some sort of salvation from the shadows but none would come, no savior surfaced from the darkness despite her whispered chant. The words she whispered incoherent as the chill to her bones left the words stumbling from her lips.
Finally she stood with shoulders slumped as she looked back the way she came. They would come for her, after all they had made certain she would leave a path. Her eyes trailed down one pale arm where the blood dripped its rivulets and the woman managed a bittersweet smile as the words she spoke then became more coherent.
“Aye, better then breadcrumbs any bloody day.”
What had been, what had happened was beyond her recollection. Her name, her past nothing but shades and shadows. Still she knew the familiarity of the cuts on her arms like a lover’s kiss. The razor sharp slices that had left her to bleed for them… and when she had bleed far too much the poor mess of attempts to stitch her up.
She felt nothing more than a doll, a patchwork creation. Through all the stitched and razor blade destruction of her skin she still felt as if someone was pulling her strings. No better than a puppet. No… a Poppet.
“Poppet.”
The redhead tested the name on her tongue. It felt strange and foreign and yet it would suit her. It would do for now. She took off running into the night trailing another dream as tangible to her as ribbons of green and ebon in the moonlight.
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