The Mistress of the Void.

The Mistress of the Void.

There I stood on the edge of the most beautiful body of water I had ever seen. Its shape was that of a perfect sphere, and at its center sat an island. A lonely piece of land with a great and solitary tree at its heart, thick with ink-black branches like deformed arms. Contrasting with the twisted ebon branches are the most beautifully brilliant red apples. These scarlet apples shined and pulsed with a violent vibrancy I have never beheld, they glowed like glass ornaments on a ghastly Christmas tree for the damned. The tree had many of these great dark branches bearing dozens of radiant fruit that shined like blisters on rotting flesh. The branches cast dark shadows on the tiny island that sleeps beneath it reaching past its timid shores.

Resting in this shadow was she…

My mental lexicon is helpless to describe her incandescent perfection She was autumn leaves, a winter sunset, her grace seduced time itself. The world seemed to crawl on hands and knees in her presence. Leaves floated as if underwater, even the butterflies large majestic beast the size of hummingbirds that circled her moved as if submerged in a dream. Their immense silky black wings flapped ever so slowly in the flickering twilight.

She looked at me…

Her eyes the color of blood fresh from the vain imprisoned me, I was helpless, I was hopeless, I belonged to her... Then, now, and forevermore. The world around me raced by as the sun rose and fell four times in a single heartbeat. The world became a blur of citrus sunrises and the shimmering moon falls, all barely captured in the peripheral of my vision. For my eyes could not move, they were prisoners staring at those crimson orbs as if my very soul was trapped inside. She called me… her ebony lips didn’t move but I could hear her voice echoing in my head like the lyrics of some song from long ago. Her voice was my voice her will was my will, I was merely a marionette strung together by the threads of her desires.

Her smile beckoned me closer…

As I stepped forward my right foot entered the then still waters of the shimmering lake. There was smoke, it rose from where my foot now rested. I felt bubbles beneath my feet, I wanted to look down to see what was happening but couldn’t, my eyes were still cemented to the crimson vision of my island mistress. Her voice calls to me and I am afraid, but I am helpless to resist the sweet melody of her desires ringing in my head like bells, bells of a church, a church of madness. Bells ringing eternal in the head of a man that’s gone insane,...

Amen.

There I stood on the midnight beach of sanity being beckoned into unknown waters by my lover of the deep, my mistress of the void.

I began to move forward each step taking me deeper and deeper into the lake of… my boots were melting away. As my pants entered the water they began to dissolve, there was a tingling sensation on my skin but it was distant, as distant as the voice of reason when deep in the rapture to love.

Her voice was the only thing I could truly hear, not the wind which raced by my visage persuading the trees to bow yet ignoring me as if I was not there. Not the birds and insects that moved in blurry streaks as if stuck in fast forward. No, nothing but her voice, even the pain, the pain I felt as this lake of… acid’s a lake of acid the thought came to me as blinding pain but then faded like the blaring horn of a train racing past you down a dark tunnel. And just like that, it was gone and I moved ever forward.

I am now naked no longer walking. I now swim. What was left of my shoes fell from my skeletal feet what seems like ages ago? All the clothing on my body has sizzles away. I felt the pain as my skin was eaten away but could not react, I must swim on, on to my mistress she is calling me. My knees and elbows are withered to the bone with my fingers soon to follow. The lake has feasted on me, I can recall it sizzling as it is eating away at my face, I had tried to keep my mouth closed but the lake ate my fleshy cheeks rushed into my maw turning my tongue into a burning bubbling mass, then poured down my throat. I am no longer breathing… I now exhale the smoke of my burning lungs

Halfway to the island, I felt lighter, although I still cannot look away. I believe my arms and legs are almost gone, only bones appear in my peripheral. As what used to be my arms drag me forward. I believe I’m dead. For I have felt the acid push into my chest I felt my organs dissolve.

I seem to be nothing more than burnt bones and tapered flesh held together by the will of my mistress. I swim on, a dead man swimming ever deeper into the void. But still my heartbeats. I can hear it like a hollow drum echoing through my bones. As I drew closer to the island shore I began to see the tree in better detail. To my astonishment, the tree itself was not wood but blackened human bones twisted and weaved together like wicker, and the fruit it bore on its raven clawed branches were not apples but hearts. As my own heart drummed on realization struck me like a whip. Those hearts beat in sync with my own. They were the hearts of those who fell victim to the void and its ethereal beauty. She smiled as if she could read my simple mind then she laughed. A short guilty chuckle escaped her Onix-colored lips.

Looking both shy and timid she raised her hand upwards towards one of the pulsing, beating hearts. A swarm of ebony butterflies that surrounded her fingers then flew up and encircled the pulsing heart, plucked it from the darkened branch that had held it, and brought it gently to rest in her palm. She then took her eyes from me only for an instant and looked longingly at the still-beating heart that glowed a soft pink light the color of grapefruit flesh. She bit it. Her colorless teeth are buried into the tough flesh of the pulsing ventricle. There was a sound somewhere between a loud pop and a crunch, and then blood burst from the heart and sprayed onto her face and down her naked body coating her like spilled paint. She devoured the heart with hunger and luster. Its crimson nectar flowed down her entire body. As she finished she licked her lips and smiled. Lips once black as night now shined with a vibrant red that covered her translucent skin.

But then the blood that coated her form and hugged her as a skin-tight silk red dress began, it began to move, it began to crawl and creep as if alive upward over her bust. It rolled up her chest, her cheeks, and into her eyes. Every last drop was consumed by her eyes and as the last drop raced up her face and into the corner of her eye she closed it tightly as if to make sure none would escape. Her pupils beneath her lids raced as if attempting to tame the heart that was just consumed.

But then they opened…

Her eyes flung open like shutters in a windstorm and locked with mine. Her pupils were now brighter, more vibrant, and an even deeper red...

"like blood fresh from the vain,” I thought to myself...

I shall be next

Yes, I shall be next... And soon my bones will be one with the ebony tree, and eventually, my heart will hang from its hellish branches,

And glow its pale pink light like an apple in the blackest corner of the garden of Eden. Waiting to be devoured by my goddess,

my angel,

my mistress,

my mistress of the void.