© Feb. 15, 2017. All Rights Reserved.
Hiding inside of her zipped, black, winter coat, Lunaria wears a tiny hour glass as a gold pendant attached to a stainless chain. She has black and white, camouflaged jeans and black cowgirl boots. While her puffy hair remains attached to her scalp, her hair strands moves against her walking direction. Her black cat (Zoella) meditates in Indian Style with her furry neck extended out of her black, leather purse. Bypassing several frostbitten cadavers, Lunaria ambles up a narrow, spiral, and icy stairway, attached to an unwelcoming mountain. The unsettling view below are massive vessels that appear like ants the higher she walks. Zoella hides her face in the purse as the wind proceeds to blow and the surroundings turn to pitch dark.
From the midst of the mountain, she makes a sharp right turn into a gloomy cave where slaughtered, decomposed cadavers parts surround the entrance. The strong wind blows from outside leaving a cold temperature in the cave. She keeps a deathlike stare at half of his frostbitten face. Reluctant to step closer, Lunaria smells his horrible odor. Zoella exuberantly sticks her black and white face out of the purse, and turns her head in utter disgust. The vagrant is scrawny and shirtless in his mid 30s, sluggishly, nervously walking out of the darkness. He is legally blind in his right eye.
In tears, begging with a stuttering lisp, both of his hands are positioned together, “Plea-plea-plea-the… I h-have no money to t-th-urvive. I b-beg of you. Plea-the help me.”
Lunaria responds, “It’s not up to me. You know the rules.”
Veins protrude from Cyril’s body as he argues, “B-b-but…”
“No is my final answer,” she says.
Cyril gets curious and asks, “How did you find me? Why are you here?”
Exhilarating Zoella, a sarcastic Lunaria caresses the back of Zoella’s head while saying, “You reek so bad that Zoella smelled you here. I couldn’t possibly repay her.”
“You know I can’t leave thi-th cave. If I leave, I’ll die. I’ve lived in this cave for 5 year-th…”
“And? My forefathers died trying to leave this place I bet they died by a creep. That creep looks something like you. I don’t deal with myths. There’s hidden artifacts worth a fortune in this cave somewhere and I don’t have time for your games. Tell me where the artifacts are.”
“You’ll never find them. I’ve hidden them well.”
Something odd occurs. Like human instincts, Zoella nods her head sideways. Cyril stares at the cat in complete awe. A confused Cyril wonders if Jesse nodded her head sideways was a coincidence. He’s in a predicament where he wants to leave the cave, but fears to.
Lunaria aims a handgun at a defenseless Cyril and says, “Don’t worry about Zoella.”
She aims the gun at his forehead. They hear a startling loud sound from a vessel 17,000 feet below the cave. The noise causes Cyril to fearfully speed into the darkness. Knowing there’s cobwebs and spiders surrounding the place, she shoot the gun in a standing position. She turns on a her gun-mounted flashlight that’s attached to her handgun.
Simultaneous to the flashlight producing crimson, spatial brightness, Lunaria hears the sound of running footsteps in front of her. Two, deranged girls speed out of the darkness, drenched in sweat, blood, and distress. A frightened Lunaria nearly drops her handgun as the two screaming girls speed through her physical body, jumping out of the cave, off of the mountain. The girls disappear in midair as the vision fades.
The closer she walks, the closer his crier is. The temperature changes from cold to extremely hot inside the cave. It’s approximately 98 degrees inside. She questions why the mountain still has its natural form throughout all of these years without melting. Her skin itches from the various toxic gases wandering the area. The coughing is so hard that it’s hazardous; she runs out of the hot section of the cave to breathe. Then, she slips off her winter coat before returning into the darkness.
Causing Lunaria to dart her head around her surroundings, she hears disembodied voices of defenseless women. The women are squealing while being lashed at with durable, black, leather belts. Never has she been more afraid in her life, but the prestigious reward of the artifacts is still on her mind. The thought of the reward disappears when she runs out of breath. Thus, she can’t fathom how a miserable Cyril lived in this cave for so long without committing suicide.
Lunaria stares at the disgusting sight of the roach-infested surface with the light beaming directly upon it. Dust falls from the deteriorating area above her onto her face. She wipes the dust from her face, then desperately gets on her knees to crawl. Zoella is inside of her purse that’s strapped on her back. In the crawling position, there’s little air to breathe for. When she rises her head, her flashlight is beaming on Cyril, sitting in a corner.
Cyril screams, “Pl-pl-pleeeeaaaa-ttthhe! Pl-pleathe! No! Don’t kill me! Pleathe! I kn-know you. You-you’re Lunaria!”
She rises to her feet to breathe and the temperature is once again cold. The bugs annoy her, so she shakes them off of her body. Zoella licks the neck of Lunaria. Lunaria uses her hand to brush off several bugs that crawled on Zoella. Then, she caresses the back of Zoella’s neck.
Lunaria has a horrible flashback of when she was 9-years-old. Two teenaged boys stand above her; she’s a in a supine position as the boys threaten her. 15-year-old Singleton in all black attire and a black and white, camouflaged ski mask is holding a keen knife. Singleton laughs at Lunaria’s tears and laughs harder when Jonathan (wearing a black robe) makes a malicious smile. While they stand, Esprit, Lunaria’s older sister (who is 12-years old) is staring at the entire event. Esprit is sitting calmly on a wooden bench with a newspaper in her hand and refrains from telling a soul about what occurred.
Jonathan yells, “Get up or I’ll stomp your head through the concrete! When I stomp, I’ll sell your body like your sister.”
The moment Lunaria rises half way, Singleton pushes her to the ground, saying, “If you rise, I’ll stab you with this knife, then I’m datin’ your sister!”
Jonathan laughs, “No! Esprit is mine!”
Lunaria exits her flashback and covers her head like she’s suffering severe head trauma. Blood then leaks from the right side of her abs, seeping through her black sweater. She lifts up her sweater and sees the remembrance of her stab wound. Cyril has a look of confusion on his face as she aims the gun toward his direction. She fires the gun. A bullet hits his right pinky. He screams as she aims the gun at his forehead.
3 Days Later
On a mahogany table, Lunaria is in a white bathrobe, consuming cereal while video chatting with Esprit. Zoella walks circles around her cellphone. Zoella then squeals, running off of the table. The kitchen light flickers on and off, then her bedroom light flickers on and off. A petrified Lunaria darts her head around her surroundings. Her living room, black, flat-screen television cracks on its own as if someone swung a sledgehammer at it with all of their might. Thus, Lunaria panics, screaming as she nervously rises away from her video chat conversation.
She screams again, but louder before a concerned Esprit asks, “What’s going on over there?”
Esprit hears the sound of her baby sister throwing plates from the table. The sound of Lunaria’s fish tank on her kitchen counter cracks. Esprit screams at her computer screen in concern, but then remains silent. She sees a gigantic dark shadow that’s on the wall choking her baby sister with one hand in the air. Lunaria is struggling to breathe and break free, but her neck snaps. Esprit is speechless in too much trauma to move.
Isaiah Lawrence 