Mama, Mama, help me get home
I?m out in the woods, I?m out on my own.
I found me a werewolf, a nasty old mutt,
It showed me its teeth and went straight for my gut.

Mama, Mama, help me get home
I?m out in the woods, I?m out on my own.
I was stopped by a vampire, a rotting old wreck,
It showed me its teeth and went straight for my neck.

Mama, Mama, put me to bed
I won?t make it home I?m already half dead.
I met an Invalid and fell for his art.
He showed me his smile and went straight for my heart.
-"A Child?s Walk Home" (Delirium by Lauren Oliver)

Three. Two. One. Sleep.

?Wake up, little bird.? He cooed. Him.

She jerked, blinking into focus several times, lashes black wings against pale cheeks. The water around her rippled outward, each little wave chasing the prior and next until they broke apart against the metal of shipping crates. Towers and towers of them rose into the sky until they were lost among the pitch of black, nevermore. They were stacked on either side, looming, forward and back and forever, where she stood waist deep in the frigid, murky depth between. Supported by rusty metal brackets just above the water, were planks of wood, rotting in places like lies.

Shivering, she started to move, lifting her hands to skim the surface. She?d barely controlled the shaking from spent hours before. The mud beneath was sucking at her feet, dragging her deeper, pushing her to the side for a way out before the darkness and cold all around pulled her under. Setting her hands on a board, she kicked, she twisted, she pulled herself up and out before the water could take her, heavy as a stone.

The snake of fear coiled tight in her stomach, waiting to strike. A few lengths down there was light where before there had been nothing. Red, orange, yellow flames jumped just inside the opening of a container. Shadows writhed and folded into one another, twisted and bent, thrust and moaned. A lover?s dance. Phantoms in the dark. The stench of something burning singed the air filling the spaces between. Somewhere beneath, cloves.

One step before the other and she was drawn closer, pulled by fear?s fingers. As she neared, she could see something turning on a stick just out of reach of the flames. And there were feet. Feet that belonged to legs that belonged to bodies and faces she knew so well.

The both of them, One and his Other, sat cross legged and shirtless on either side taking turns spinning the carcass that roasted. Around and around it went, unrecognizable, the surface charred and wrinkled. When one was spinning the other stabbed at the thing with a knife, pulling off a chunk which he sucked into his mouth off the tip of the blade.

Canaan was the first to notice her standing there, his grin for it so beautiful that she almost forgot where she was and smiled back. Jaw working around the meat, he handed the knife to Salvador who took it, and pointed. ?You?ve been a bad girl,? he crooned at her.

She shook her head, back and forth and slow. ?No.? No, no, no. Not for so long of a time.

He flipped the knife, handle for blade, blade for handle, while Cane turned the body around and around. ?Why are you trying to hide? He?ll always find you. Us. He always does.?

?No---no---but you know. You said--? She stuttered, tripping over her words. Salvador?s eyes were missing. Where they should have been were sunken empty pits sewn crudely shut. But still, his skill with the knife was adept. One last cycle and he threw it. It grazed the side of her neck on the way across the divide where it smacked loudly against a wall in another open container. Clattering to the floor, it skittered along where it stopped between the legs of a Sinner. He was on his back, head in a cradle of arms. A sweet smelling cigarette was perched between his perfect, dead lips. She reached up to press her fingers against the sticky warmth beading along the surface of her skin. The Sinner smiled.

?We?re monsters,? Salvador told her as he stood. Above her head there was a scratching, a grating shriek of claws over metal. A scream pierced her ears, high pitched, neither human nor animal but something terrible in between. It was the sort of sound always remembered no matter how many beautiful things came afterwards. She looked up and into the eye of a Nightmare mask. In his mouth was something white. Small, and white, and soft. Patches of fur clumped and stuck together, matted with saliva and red red blood.

Too late. Salvador?s arms slashed out to shove her. She lost her balance and fell backwards off the plank. But instead of falling into water she fell into a cage whose door he slammed shut. Her back hit the bars and where the skin was exposed, it burned hot searing pain. She cried out and lurched forward, folding her arms and hands over her chest. She spun about wildly, looking everywhere and all around. She was trapped in a birdcage made of wrought iron, suspended on nothing, floating in the air above. The jackdaw with a secret, stared down.

Salvador sprang onto it, gripping two bars, and pressed his face close as it swung back and forth. The stench of his skin blistering made her nauseous. ?Stop it?stop it---let go!? She was reaching for his fingers, pulling at them.

?I miss you, Spooky.? he said. But it wasn?t Salvador speaking. It was a different voice, a rasp of a man that had forgotten her for the forever of another.

?Please,? begging. She was pressing her palms into his hands, rolling, shoving, anything to get him to let go. His fingers flexed suddenly and he took them back, seared pieces left behind. She pushed at his forehead and chin, but his mouth opened wide and he latched onto the side of her left hand, grinding his teeth until the skin broke. She choked on a gasp and shoved at his face. He released her seconds later and fell back.

?You still taste like I remember,? said another. A chill wrapped tightly about her spine and stilled any more movement. She stared at Salvador through the bars, at his handsome face marred down the sides by blackened burn marks. He was smiling. Smiling as he stepped backwards through the fire, back into the place he?d left vacant by Cane.

?What do you want?? Her words were hardly a whisper, but it didn?t matter.

?Everything.? The word echoed, drifted between the metal containers.

Salvador crouched down into a balance on the balls of his feet, wiping the back of his burnt hand beneath his nose. Blood and charred pieces of skin smeared over his lips. The smile he wore was a mess of gorgeous chaos. Without warning, he swept out with his right fist and plunged it straight into the chest of the Cajun. He yanked it back, pulling a beating, bloody heart free. Cane?s expression fell away into shock taking his smile with it. But he wasn?t looking at Salvador with so much pain in his eyes, he was staring at her. She clapped her hands over her mouth when his pressed to his chest over the gaping hole. Cool tears pooled in her palms beneath her chin. She?d forgotten when she started to cry.

?Stop it,? she told Him, words muffled beneath her hands. ?Stop.?

Cane?s body crumbled into itself before tipping over into the fire, catching flame. What remained on the stick tipped and slid across the metal floor. It thumped once onto the wooden plank before dropping into the water below with a splash. She puffed out a gasp and grabbed a bar on either side, pulling herself closer even after it was too late. Pain sliced into her palms and she jerked her hands back to her chest. Salvador clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Claws scratched and shrieked against metal somewhere above. One hand beneath the other, he threw the heart up into darkness.

?Don?t be sad, pretty bird.? He was everywhere and all around.

?No?no---no. I won?t do it. I won?t.? Louder and louder.

The cage tipped and teetered when something landed on top, falling from nowhere above. It was a pelt of fur, delicate and white. The misshapen head of a rabbit dipped into the cage to stare at her with vacant, blue eyes. There was a wooden bracelet around its neck. From his perch, the jackdaw let loose a series of high-pitched metallic sounding tchacks before scooping between bars to peck at the rabbit?s face.

She doubled over like she?d been kicked in the stomach, mouth wrenching wide in a sob that made no sound because she inhaled at the last second and covered her mouth.

?I have presents for you, free of charge, because I know you?ll never stop.?

A noise, dainty and sweet drifted up from the floor of her cage. It started out as one, ending in the harmony of many. She knew the silver swan song intimately. It was the gentle, tinkling chime of razor blades falling. They piled up, covering her feet until they spilled through the bars into the water below. They sang to her, glory be in the highest, salvation from it all.

?Do it.? He encouraged. He nurtured. He loved it. ?Just one, pretty bird. Just. One.?

The blades blurred into a smear of shining silver through her tears. She was drowning and there was no one to pull her out. She fell to her knees and picked up the nearest one. Through her sleeve she cut.
?No more no more No More No More NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE??? chanting for every pass. Louder and louder until she was screaming. Screaming for Him.

?Yesssssssss??? He purred. ?I can?t wait.?

* * * * * *

Somewhere on some floor of a building full of shades and twinkle lights, all the windows in a room cracked and shattered for a scream, raining glass trinkets into an alley below. Shadows clung to one another in the corners, whispering, watching a songbird rock back and forth, chanting.

?no more no more no more.?

(Thank you to those involved for trusting me with evilness and your characters. <3)

--revisiting the edge


?Ssuch a tiny thing.?

A jewel the size and shape of a teardrop hangs suspended in the blackness of space. Like a miniature, misshapen planet it spins slowly and surely on a perfectly vertical axis. The whole of the object is warm, green light. It makes him think of summer, comfort, and home. Seeing it float and turn through eternity fills him with an inner peace he cannot quite explain.

When it shatters, he can feel himself shattering with it into so much dust.

The dust becomes snow; endless black becomes so much white.

A tall, muscular man stands before him. His eyes are fragments of the shattered jewel. They are so green. His face is sculpted of five o?clock shadow and stoicism, marked by a stern severity. The smile he is wearing does not suit him. That smile belongs to another creature that has slithered into his skin and taken control.

They exchange words, a garbled mess of tangled memories.

They battle. With fists. With tooth and claw. Like savage beasts waging war for dominance until he can no longer contain his rage and sorrow.

The white of fresh winter howls with him, pain and torment the likes of which he has never before experienced. Burning, melting, rending agony.

Then a voice, green like the light of that jewel, those eyes.

"No, hijo. T? debes olvidarse de m?."

He?s falling, tumbling across frozen earth and falling snow. So tired. In so much pain. His blood is so cold it hisses when it splashes against the ground. He tries to push up but hasn?t the strength. He falls, prone, weeping.

Th-thump.

He hears the last pulse of his heart before everything turns black again. In the dark he hears the faintest echo of coppery chime. Fading, fading? Gone.

For the longest time, there is only silence.

Nothing.

Quiet.

End.

Noise.

Howling.

He and the wind are howling furiously together as he crawls his way out of the earth. Grave soil gives birth to a new monster. Flesh and blood and fury. A sharp carapace slithers eagerly over his skin. His only desire is to hunt. To kill.

His art is to paint his winter red. The screams of the dying are his music.

They meet again under the curtain of snowfall, he and the monster wearing his father?s skin. The words they exchange are much more brief. There is hardly a struggle. He sinks his fingers into flesh that could have been butter. So soft. Melting away at his frigid touch. The heart he grabs is warm in his palm. He tears it from the chest cavity.

There is no scream.

There is a sigh.

Relief.

All that soothing green dims. Gone. A husk of gray shades is left in its place.

And a serpentine shadow shrieks a challenging battlecry.


--


He wakes, gasping.

The sound of the creaking ceiling fan mingled with the drone of cicadas that poured in through the room?s open windows. Summertime in the backwoods of Mississippi was too hot for anything less. Canaan?s eyelid fluttered when a shaft of sunlight struck his face and he drew in a deep breath. The air smelled like the earth; ripe with wet dirt and the moss that hung from the trees, so rich he could almost taste it. He lay on his back, pinned to the mattress by the sturdy weight of his lover. The man?s hair was damp with sweat, spread out like a fan, clinging to Cane?s bare chest and across his throat.

Mornings like this one were his favorite. His schedule was on a rotation, so their weekends didn?t always match up during the school year. But teachers had the summer off, and that meant they got to sleep-in together every single morning Cane was not in the firehouse. They didn?t have to go anywhere, they could stay in bed until noon.

Jeremy stirred before long, rolling over and taking the sheets with him. Canaan smiled and followed after him, fitting his naked body against his lover?s from behind. He put an arm around his torso and kissed the back of his neck.

?It?s too hot,? Jeremy muttered sleepily.

?So get rid ?a de sheet.? Canaan spoke the words against the man?s skin, pressing himself more snugly against his back.

?You?re too hot,? he clarified.

?Hell yeah I am.? The Cajun?s low chuckle was joined by Jeremy?s, who threw an elbow back against his chest in an attempt to push him away. Cane tossed his leg over Jeremy?s, trapping them, and tightened his arm around the man?s chest. ?Now what?cha gon? do??

Jeremy groaned, but twisted around in Cane?s grasp to lie on his back so he could squint over at his lover. ?Get heatstroke.?

Canaan laughed again and buried his face against the man?s shoulder, pressing a kiss or two against his sticky skin. It really was too hot to be coupled like this for long. He reached down and pulled the sheets from where they were tangled up around their legs. Jeremy?s sigh of relief had another smile flaring across Cane?s face. Despite the high temperatures, there was little protesting when Cane?s kisses proceeded down his chest and abdomen, and further still. He was only just getting started on really waking Jeremy up when the man made a startled gasping sound and rolled over to snatch the sheets back up around his naked lower half.

?Did you see that??

Bewildered, Cane sat up and looked around their room. It looked as it ever did. Every surface cluttered with the tokens of their many years spent together. ?See what?? He asked.

?There was a little girl,? Jeremy hissed, nodding toward the hallway through the open bedroom door.

?What?? Canaan craned his neck to peer at the hall, but he couldn?t see anything. He went stock-still, listening for any signs of movement in the house. He could only hear the insect?s song from outside and the obnoxious creak of the overhead fan. ?I don?t hear anything,? he told Jeremy, looking skeptical.

But the other man was so sure of what he?d seen that he was now getting out of bed. He took the sheets with him to the bedroom door, dropping them only when he?d pushed the door shut. Cane watched him pull on a pair of boxers and a pair of short. ?I saw her! A little girl with long brown hair went skipping down the hall.?

Not knowing what to do with this information, Cane stared at Jeremy until he?d disappeared into the hall. Heaving an annoyed sigh, he looked down at his lap and rolled his eyes. Children ruined everything. Especially strange ones that weren?t supposed to be in his house.

?Babe?? After getting dressed, the Cajun had gone in search of his lover and this mystery child. Their home was not large by any means, and he quickly moved from one end to the other. The screen door leading outside shut with a loud bang, drawing his attention away from the empty kitchen. ?What de **** is going on??

?Cane!? Jeremy yelled from the yard.

The Cajun slid his tennis shoes on over bare feet and chased after Jeremy.

?We have to catch her!?

?Catch who?? He yelled at Jeremy?s back, who was sprinting across the lawn toward the ravine at the edge of their property. The Cajun was much faster than the Islander, who had aged over the years where Cane had not. When he caught up to the larger man, he was sliding down a sharp bank that led to a set of train tracks.

?Why is she running?? Jeremy?s boots crunched through gravel when he hit the bottom. He scrambled up onto the tracks themselves and looked up at Cane.

?Hell if I know. I still ain? even seen her!? She must have gone to hide in the tunnel that led into the hillside. The very sight of the darkened entrance filled Cane with an unexplainable sense of dread.

?Come on,? Jeremy urged, resuming the chase. He started toward the tunnel?s entrance at a jog.

?Why are we chasing her? No--stop. Jeremy!? Cane reached a hand out to take the man by the arm, but caught only air. His lover was swallowed whole by the tunnel while he lingered at its mouth. The sound of Jeremy?s boots got farther and farther away.

It wasn?t until the faint blare of a train?s horn drifted down the passageway that Cane stepped into the darkness. ?Jeremy!? Cane?s scream echoed all around him, but nothing was louder than the sound of his head pounding in his ears. ?Jeremy, there?s a train!?

Far up ahead, Cane heard the faint sound of Jeremy?s response. He started running as fast as he could.

By the time he caught up to Jeremy, the rumble of the incoming train was close enough to make the ground shake. Shock and surprise splashed across his face when he found the man cradling a girl in his arms as he ran. Cane slowed, breathing heavy as he looked from the girl to Jeremy.

?Take her,? Jeremy gasped, dumping the girl into Cane?s arms.

?But--? Canaan stared down at her. The girl looked frightened. She had her long, brown hair draped over one shoulder in a braid. Her long legs spilled over one of his arms and her bandaged hands were clutched tightly to her chest. She looked up at him with terrified brown eyes -- eyes that were familiar for some reason.

?You can run faster than me.? Jeremy shoved at Cane to turn around and keep running.

The implication shot through Cane?s chest like a bullet, ripping right through his heart and filling him with terror. He and Jeremy sprinted for the entrance, and all the while the train grew closer and closer. Some of the panic left him when the light of the entrance got close enough to see again. ?We?re almost dere. Keep runnin?, Jere?. Keep runnin?!?

His lungs burned, his shoulders ached from clutching the little girl so tightly. She shivered in his arms, eyes shut tight and her head tucked against the curve of his neck. The train behind them blared its horn; the deafening sound filled the tunnel and made her scream. She panicked, legs flailing and arms flying out to grab Cane around his shoulders. The Cajun dug his heels into the wooden beams of the rails, willing himself to move faster.

He gave a shout when they spilled out of the tunnel?s mouth and into daylight. Cane rushed the girl to the grassy bank and dumped her out of harm?s way. Jeremy wasn?t with him. He could just make out the sound of his name being screamed from the tunnel over the train. White hot panic seared through his chest, stealing his breath away. He returned to the tunnel?s entrance just in time to see Jeremy fall beneath the engine. The man didn?t even have time to scream.

Cane did, though. He dropped to his knees in the middle of the tracks and looked aside at the girl he had rescued. She wasn?t afraid anymore. She stood on the grass, watching him plaintively with those familiar brown eyes.

He couldn?t move. The wail of the train?s warning whistle roared in his ears.



Canaan awoke with a gasping breath, drenched in sweat and with his heart thundering like a kick-drum in his chest. The edge of fright dissipated within seconds, reality rushing in like a wave that consumed him, dragged him, pulled him under. He shuddered an exhale and turned over, throwing the sheets off him as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. Pride rushed him out of the bed he was sharing with the sinner. Without even checking to see whether he?d woken the man or not -- he couldn?t bear to find out -- Canaan quickly and silently escaped into the en-suite and shut the door behind him.