what a pity, little kitty...

Jan M. Friedrich

     The door to the dark room opens with a crack. A silent voice from the pitch black dark, whispering phrases. The shine of light from behind you breaks the silence of the eyes. Before the whispering shadow lies a small silhouette. Slowly your eyes come in touch with the darkness and your ears are relieved from the crack of the door, which seemed like a loud tree falling breaking the silent whispers of voices in a dark wood.

     The silhouette becomes clearer but its form seems like something is wrong with it. A bittersweet smell rushes to your nose, it smells like death, a small rotting corpse laying there a while, but not long enough for the flies to come yet.

     "Close the door, my dear.. " the half soft half abend minded voice spoke from the darkness, clearly but not too loud. You did so and the last dim light reveals a beheaded kitten in front of the silhouette.

     "My.... la.. shh, don’t speak," the voice interrupts you. "It was quite pitiful if you did. I treat them like they treat me, and I know you want me to listen sometime." The voice dropped away in a hiss.

     You fell silent. "Thank you, my dear. ....come closer please." You stay within the dark room, still leaning with your back against the door. "Don't be afraid. I do you as you do me. I will not hurt you, unless you hurt thee."

     You slowly take a few steps through the now endless seeming room, the footsteps falling on the wooden floor. "Stop now, we don’t want to step on the kitty don’t we?" The voice had a strangely soft but endangering touch to it. You stopped. The now strong sweet odour of the cat came to you nose, you must have been standing about an inch or two away.

     "What a pity, isn’t it?"

     It felt as if something touched your foot as, then as your eyes caught up with the darkness you saw the silhouette with the voice had just picked up the dead kitty’s corpse, hugging it and then starting to pet it softly.

     "Yes a pity indeed, little kitty....... what a pity, oh my pretty little kitty went and bit me, so the kitty that had bit me went to drift me taking with me, and bit the kitty as it did to me, bit the neck and bit the paws bit the eyes and bit the claws bit the neck the neck again, and then the cries that oh my lovely quiet broke stopped suddenly with a hinch, an inch, and through. What a pity, little kitty, why it bit my fingertip... so now come, closer, sit down with me and pet the kitty, it surely likes thee."

     The silhouette took the kitty’s little remains and put them on your arm, giving you a soft kiss on your lips, warm blood, still over them the taste of the cat with it then came. She softly released the kitty from her hand and sat back in a sigh.

     "Soon, well it’s time for tea, not normal tea you know, since my butler left it’s been, it’s been so long, so long and lonesome. I am glad you come, my dear," she sighed.

     The feeling of the soft fur in your hands, the so soft and light without the head, the poor cat, just for biting her, now lay beheaded on your arm. In silent tears you pet the dead body, to please the lady that now held your life in her very hands.

     "You got my letter, didn't you? My letter to come, and see your great aunt, out here in my little home."

     "Ye.."

     "Shh, don't speak my dear, I know what you are saying, for after all you're about here, after all, to dawn to the night, on the outskirts of the city with the towers and the witches post

     Yes, you are here, you followed me, oh what I so please."

     Your voice went away, fully, and it became hard to breathe. You couldn’t have screamed as she fell over you in the darkness, She held you tight, softly with her arms around you but the nails in your back, the dead kitty’s body between that all and the taste of her tongue in your mouth before you passed out.

     Dreams could have been relieving, but nightmares haunted you in the dark room you now laid in, In fright you opened your eyes in a rush.

     A few candles were lit in a bright room, in the middle of the night, in and the walls in warm tones. Alone in a house big enough to lose a thousand souls but small enough to be overseen by the outside world, locked behind a door with a golden key. The image in the mirror broke your thoughts.

     Cold, white, pale your skin, no blood on the face, but the smell of the cat still remained in your skin, tightly washed in. A beautiful dress hung on a partially open door on the closet next to you, waiting to be taken, to be seduced and drenched in bloody thoughts. You blinked at the image in the mirror, threw the glass of water, taken on a small counter standing next to your bed.

     Your image fell into a thousand shards, as your soul and body had.

     Your breath was too thick to cry out, too indescribable the terror, not wanting to think, not wanting to know what happened in the darkness. The marks of the claws burnt on your back and the bittersweet smell of death that lay over all of you spoke more than a thousand words. Pictures of the darkness, the feeling of the body, and the body dying in between.

     The candles went out slowly, and with the darkness came the sleep after a while.... to expect another night, for you knew, would never again see the light of day. Darkness fell over the mansion, and with a knock on the door you awakened.

     "Come out, my lady. The madam has been waiting for you."

     The voice of a man in the tone of a butler... but didn't he leave the mansion? Did someone ever leave not in a coffin, not on a bar, not at the glimpse of pure insanity. I should have believed what happened. I should have heard her warnings, her warning. It all seemed so unreal.

     The phrases of the letter didn't want to come to you, the darkness and the kiss came instead. Your hands flew to your eyes, the lids wide shut, fingernails about to tear the eyeballs out for what they didn't see.

     Another knock awoke you from your dreams and memories.

     "It is time."

     You opened your eyes. Somehow the candles were lit again, dimmer than before but they shined bright enough to show the room as it was. All old fashioned, the mirror stood there as if it was unbroken. A towel and a small washing plate stood there before it. The towel was soft and plush, the water felt good on the tearstained face. The smell on the hands and body persisted. It wouldn’t go away, for the perfume of the white piece of soap with the initials of the house IL delicately carved into it, was slight. You could smell it in addition to the skin’s smell. It wouldn't cover any other scent.

     "What a pity, little kitty.." The word hall in your head, an endless echo.... You were now the madam’s little kitty, she would scratch and bite and kill and tear if not you did just as she pleased. Nevertheless, it was better than your earlier life. Life with the light and the day. Spring summer, winter fall, all of these were now hidden in a dark forest just outside the city, so close and still so far away.

     The door opened just when you finished washing yourself. The candles went out with a gust of cold wind, evil. "Ah, you are awake..." Shivers of the cold air flew into the room as the darkness came again, and with it her.

     Shivers in the dark. "Come my pretty dear, ‘I shall help you dress... , We have a visitor, as you might have heard, an old fried of mine." The voice blew a warm stream of air softly in your ear. "It is him, who I have summoned back. I knew he would return, they all do return one day..." Hands touched your sides, slowly taking off your clothes. Fear came, of what will happen next.

     Again you woke up. The eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. It wasn’t red, there weren’t any warm colors. The room was black and old, lying there rotten, the bedclothes were torn and the walls coming down. Stained and dirty, a pitch black pentegram stood where the mirror was, standing on a top. Bloodstains were about it on the walls and floor beneath. What was it you just dreamt? There was no dress hanging on a closet, just a rotten closet in the corner, moths voicelessly fluttering about. Blood was on your clothes, partly torn. The smell came with your breath, taking more air and life from you than any breath before.

     The scent of death had become a thick sweet cloud of air, leaving you gasp for more and killing you with every breath you had to take. Stains of blood and piles of fur were all over the bed, the dream a heavenly image to the reality that struck you wide awake. Shadows dancing about the room in endless silence, the pretty mansion was rotten, ran down, the outer world a living hell.

     Creaking footsteps came closer. The wood sounded hundreds of years old, crying out with tears of the bloodshed memories of those who had died in the darkness so bitterly. The wind blew round the house a warning howl, a silent cry.

     The only candle that lit the room began to flicker from wind running through the rills of the old wood and open gaps to the outer world, tight enough to imprison anyone but open enough to let in the cold of coming winter and the glimpse of a never-ending forest. Dead leaves fell in the darkness taking more hope away than it gave.

     You leaned up, your wrists pulling against chains with a metal shiver. You shifted you feet, but they didn’t move a bit, pressing against the sharp steel tightly wrapped around them. If only this was the nightmare! Suddenly there was a warm hiss that made your heart freeze. It seemed like a pure romance against what was approaching. You screamed at the top of your voice as loud as you could, not able to move. Tied to the bed of a wicked aunt, hence the warnings, hence all you said. You cried for the help of those who had warned you, those who you wouldn’t believe.

     The door slammed open. Silence came in.Her breath, nothing more. You couldn’t breathe. It was worse now, you were loud. You hadn’t talked, or whispered, you had screamed.

     The silence wasn’t broken, but the breath of a wickedly calm fury that stood there at the entrance to the room. The entrance to hell was enough. Not a move, nothing. You began to breathe again. And as the candle was blown out, hell came.

     Back again. Again the claws, again the crying odour of death, again the taste of blood. Again the taste of fresh dead on her lips, this time feathers, not fur covered everything. The crack of a small beak between her teeth and yours. The taste of flesh, horrid, dying, killing everything inside. The feel of her claws reaching into you in fury. Unstoppable, you couldn’t pass out nor turn away, held in place exactly. Your breath went short, a feather in your mouth.

     "To swallow the swallow or to die!!" she yelled. "Feathers in pillows" she scratched your breast. "Bring silence for the outer" she scratched your very core, drowning you in pain. You wound in the chains, holding against them to release yourself, wishing for a fast death "Feathers in the stomach," she dug further in, "shall silence the soul!!!!" Her nails dug deep into you and scratched a deep wound open from the inside to the very outer.

     You were about to scream again. No sound came... no, nothing more. She would not make it fast then. She would have taken her for a trip to places far worse than hell, and torn out her insides before letting her die if she had screamed again. She bit her tongue deeply, the taste of her own blood mixed with the taste of the dead bird. Smells of arousal and sweat of the evil being she could no longer describe, with the scent of the dead cat and the torment of her core.

     Blood began to flow between her legs, blood was on her breast and back, blood in her face and mouth. She bit her tongue harder to silence herself, not to scream, not to cry, but the tears shed not to make a sound. The whimpers she could not silence, she bit harder when the hands of the demon came to reach her face.

     "You will not" she said, and her thumbs dug into her mouth, holding it open, pressing between the teeth, so she couldn’t bite her tongue. Then the scream went out, hailing through the forest carried by the wind into the night, to the nearby city. The scream drove her bones to shiver and the madam out of control. Those who heard the scream wouldn’t have saved her if they had cared. The thumbs had broken her jaw open, and a soft bloody kiss went in.

     They had never found her corpse, never had a burial, her remains lie there still on the bed. Your consciousness fades but your soul is held within the mirror.

     Endless nightmare.