It was a bitter, cold, ruthless night. The cold stung my very bones and numbed the anguishing bullet hole beneath my heart. It was a full moon’s night, and the barren battlefield in which I rest was lit with dazzling moonlight. Drops of dew caught the moon rays perfectly, and the light danced about the grass like silver fairies. On any other day I would enjoy it. But the pain my wound was causing me destroyed the perfect image.
I knew it was my last night on Earth. What a terrible ending, I would lay here for hours in my anguish before I could die. I wish the bullet had pierced straight into my heart, I wish it would kill me instantly. Moreover, I wished for my family, my loving, caring family. They had wanted me to serve my state Virginia, to support our noble Cause. But it was just my first battle, and I had given it all. more…
High up in the snowy mountains of the Swiss Alps, there was nothing but frost covered pastures, the now-and-then shrub, and a tiny log cabin with a single resident. Her skin was as white as the icicles that hung from the roof of her humble abode, as clear and colorless as crystal. Her eyes were as cold and blue as the frigid sky, like lackluster sapphires. Her lips were almost as colorless as her face, only streaked with brownish-red from the dried blood which leaked from cracks in her incessantly dry and frozen lips. She was known to all as the Ice Maiden—her birth name had melted away like snow in the winter. more…
The forest was black as coal, black like death. Dark moonlight spread like a creeping shadow, enveloping all in its mirthless path. The trees shivered off any light as the new moon emerged in the starless night. The navy depth of the midnight sky was pierced by an ominous abysmal hole that encircled the invisible new moon. The silence was deafening, penetrating, riveting. Not a leaf rustled, not a twig cracked. It was winter but no snow was heard softly crunching. The cold was bitter and dark like the moon. The frigid air burned any skin carelessly exposed, but no one would venture into the portentous forest that night. The new moon brought no werewolves, no screeching howl of an owl. Instead it brought a terrible nothingness, and left the forest a dank void, a swallowed chasm.
The regal snow leopardess lay defeated but proud upon the cold bare rock of the Himalayan Mountains. Her broad face was laden with an emotion close to arrogance, never once did her whiskers twitch in a waver of confidence or insecurity, if she was vulnerable, she did not show it. Her snowy coat was showered with clumped black rosettes, her scrawny, unfed body rising and falling with quick, uneasy jerks. The pearl white of her belly fur was stained a terrible crimson, matting her carefully groomed fur into an unfixable tangled wad. It was a mortal wound, she knew. But she must survive. Her cub was a yearling—young and inexperienced. He had not yet learnt to hunt. But he too would succumb to the evils of nature or the terrors of mankind, if he had no mother to mentor him. The snow leopardess must live on.
The path of moonlight formed a stream of molten silver upon the forest floor, trickles of moonlight furrowing the twig covered undergrowth with streaks of bright and valleys of dark shadows. An owl hooted ominously upon a petrified beech tree, which stood tall and leafless, with a single branch and a looming hollow in which the great grey slept. It smelt musky and moist, from the dank soil and the stealthy creatures of the night. The air was sinister and mirthless, like the navy depths of the portentous night. No sane animal of prey strayed from their snug burrows that night, for evil was imminent, the spirits of darkness at unrest.
A gentle warm breeze swayed the clover field like soft ripples on an algae crusted bog. The worn yellow-green blades of sweet smelling grass were ignited by drops of liquid gold, which poured from the dazzling beacon that lit the periwinkle sky. A scent of light but enticing lavender wisped and flitted from one nose to another, while the drowsing fumes of poppy flowers dominated at the forefront. A baby rabbit pranced between its mother and a scrambling beetle, and a blue-jay twittered contentedly from its merry post on the tall oak tree. There was not a cloud in the sapphire sky, and the warmth was wafted briefly away by the tender zephyr. more…
