Grief’s tomb

I woke with a start at the clap of thunder Booming in the distance. I heard a howling as well, high pitched and quite a screech. There it is again! It was long and pained, coming closer to the house, becoming louder and louder. Then it just stopped. I was relieved at first, but soon after the thunder stopped leaving a thick silence behind.

"What do you suppose that was?" I said to the doll my mother had made me a long time ago.

"I don't know Alice." the doll told me, " Maybe it's the storm, or a wolf...."

"Oh, ok."

I picked up the doll and stared in to her face. Her dark marble eyes stared back at me. No light glinted in them tonight. Her smile seamed cruel and malevolent, while curling around her face. I dropped her to the floor and heard the muffled thump of fallen clothing before moving quickly to the door.

The air in my room became unbearable. It stuck in my throat instead of flowing down into my chest. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I reached my hand slowly to the latch. It shook as I thought about the noises I had heard out side in the night. Finally I lifted the latch and slipped out into the pitch night.

"The storm has past. It's alright, Alice," my father said. He was sitting on the stone steps that lead to our victorian mansion with something, black and furry he was stroking in his lap. I rushed over to see what it was.

It was a small Black kitten soaked so that you could see his bones through his fur and it looked starved of any kind of nourishment.

"Can I keep Him?' I asked as innocently as I could possibly muster, with my hands shaking uncontrollably behind my back.

"He's yours to keep," He said, handing me the kitten. I held him tight as I stepped inside.

He mewed pathetically. The sound clawed at my insides. I could tell that food was a foreign object to him that he did not really know what to really do with. His mother Must have died sometime before this, without teaching him how to survive out in the woods. I knew that he was going to live though. I wasn't going to let this little ball of fur die any time soon.

A few years have passed since that time, and during those years he had grown large and strong. I had grown quite fond of him. I had named him Cheshire on a childish whim, but it ended up suiting him. The bond between us, he as my pet and I as is master, could never be broken, until one night.

I awoke the next morning to a depressing day ahead of me. It was cloudy and cold. the wind was so bitter, it stung and left tiny red bumps all over my arms even though the were covered with a jacket over my white silk dress. The dress went down to my ankles but it did little to keep me warm. It was Frilly but at the same time plain. my little black shoes clicked on the cobble stone road as i walked next to my sister, a tall beauty. She had all the young men asking her for her hand, but father wouldn't accept any of them. They couldn't meet his expectations is what I thought.

Father stood next to her. He was rough, dark, and secretive. My father was scared from the many battles he fought internally and externally. Many people feared even his name, and would cringe when they would hear it, but he was actually gentle and kind. He kept many things about his past tucked a way in a wooden box. I remember vaguely of him telling stories to my brothers of his child hood in boarding schools where they trained young boys from age twelve to 20 to be soldiers for the British army. He would tell them how good they have it to be born into my mother's noble family. They wouldn't have the risk of being shipped off to war like my father did.

We walked past the woods just past the houses on the Thames and that was when I saw it. Mauled flesh sitting at the edge of the woods. The smell filled my nostrils with such thick smog that my nose felt like it would shrivel up and die on my face right at that moment. Flies and huge, white, slimy Maggots coated the shredded hunk of meat. Black fur covered the flesh and the ground around it. My knees Trembled and i fell to the blood soaked ground after seeing the unmistakable tail of a black cat protruding from the back end of the shredded corps.

I lost my self that day, entirely. I don't think I ever spoke again to anyone. I was becoming my mother before she died when I was six: depressed and lonely. There were Days when my father would grab me by my shoulders and shake me in hopes that I would snap out of my dark days, But it was no use my eyes had already become black vortexes of sorrow. At first I would lay, Limply hin my bed for every waking moment even if I had to relieve Myself. I ate Absolutely nothing.

Then I began to wander, looking for the long lost friend that i could never replace, and that I could never have again. Almost every day I would wish I was dead. I would wander into the woods every now and again and again just to see if he was there, that maybe he had been hiding that day when the wolves attacked, and instead of him that was a different black cat, but he never came.

One day while I was out wandering the woods I misjudged my surroundings and fell down into a ravine. Luckily for me the sides of it were not that steep so I didn't hurt myself. Even if I did, I couldn't care less, maybe, just maybe, that would have taken some of the pain away.

Whe I stood up at the bottom of the ravine I noticed that everything there was dead; every plant, and every animal. There were even bones that looked the same size as my own Limbs half buried in the black dirt. Then I noticed that my hands were Bleeding, and the dirt wasn't dirt but rather Broken Shards of black glass. The pieces reminded me of my soul.

A small black object streaked across my line of sight. I looked to where I thought it would stop, but then i saw it again. When i finally caught the thing up in my arms I screamed in horror and Dropped the black cat to the ground. It hissed at me and started to bolt, but I snatched him up in my arms and wept into his fur. There was no mistaking it this cat was Cheshire!

I squeezed him tighter and then I felt cold claws dig in to the skin of my arms. I howled in pain as his claws tore through my flesh and left my arms bleeding and bare. I let him go and he hit the ground with a thud turning and screeching at me angrily before running away in a blur of black of fur.

I woke up the next day in my bed with my sister next to me holding my hand. I turned my head and saw my Father behind a curtain talking to a doctor about me, though that's all that I could catch of the conversation. I tried to sit up but my sister pushed me down. Then I tried again this time succeeding in pushing her out of the way and pulled back the curtain.

"Cheshire is alive!" I yelled while tears of pure joy began to crop up in my eyes.

"He's dead Alice. Your brother has been dead for the past ten years." she said calmly to me.

"Brother? He's not my brother! He's my Cat. my Black cat!"

"He's your brother Alice he died when you were 8 he was attacked by Mr. fintch's dog. You were there remember?"

a blur of color flashed before my eyes. Green grass and purple wild flowers danced lazily in the breeze. A young Boy Ran through the flowers and into the woods behind the lavish mansion. Suddenly the grass turned red and a wild vicious barking came from the woulds as a little boy cried out. His cry stained the pure blue sky. My head swam as an image of a black cat appeared. A black cat with ice blue eyes that soon turned cold and dead as the image shifted to a devoured bloody corpse mauled by a wolf.

"He's not dead..." I murmured before swaying and sitting hard down on the ground, "He's not dead..."

"Yes he is." my father said

"NO HE'S NOT!" I yelled jumping to my feet, "NO HE'S NOT!"

I ran to the door and yelled, He's not I'll show you! Just follow me! I'll take you to him!" I yelled.

This time my sister Grabbed me by both arms and ripped them behind my back. I screamed in pain as she continued to pull on my arms, but this didn't stop her from holding back. She squeezed my wrists harder and kicked my legs out from under neath me. She then wrapped her own legs around mine in a perfect hold. I squirmed and yelled but there was nothing I could do to break her iron grip.

"I ten Years you would think this sickness would go away..." my father murmured shaking his head.

"We could try this again if you want." the doctor said

"It won't work. It never will. Alice is gone, Father. Just send her back. Please before she hurts some one or worse herself." My sister blurted out.

"Where? Send me Back where?" I cried.

"To the asylum." they said in unison.