Midnight's Dawn

Delphine Martin, 1920s

Paris, France

He’s close...

I sense it as I sense the thin power my hand holds over my terror filled breathing. I clasp it to my own face in shrill horror, willing my eyes to shut, as my brain screams I should not look, and yet my body hollars to peek. I wonder where the dark monster ,who once was all that I ever wanted, casts its shadow. Not as I wish to see the abomination that has slid into the flesh of that once safe and cherished person but to preserve; as my very soul trembles to know that this may be my very end.

My thoughts are as a person doused with water and set out into the day that is fogged with the chilling air of a winter which looks to choke all life from the remainder of a warmer kind- autumn. The thoughts conflict and overall I fight to live and die.

The nightmare that I have lived in this short time seems to be a trauma that could follow me into other lives- other worlds.

A tear slides down my cheek and my body stills as a deafed hiccup of air breaks the silence of the room. There is no reason to withhold my breathing any longer. I have failed to remain hidden and he is here. My body feels it before I see it. I don’t need to see such a presence so dark.

I look out the window...to see the last remnant of Midnight’s Dawn.