First line by Erin, remainder by me

To get myself going in the new year, I told Erin if she provided a sentence that would serve as the first line, I would take it from there and write a vignette. So she did, and I proceeded to keep my word.

The shadow men had pursued her for a lifetime and finally she was face to face with her demons. Surprisingly she felt neither fear nor resignation, but rather, impatient curiousity. After chasing her for many years, surely they had an objective in mind. Now that she had allowed herself to be caught, why did they not immediately pounce and devour? What did they hesitate for? Did they linger over their prey mainly to prolong agony, or had they hunted for so long that the original objective was long forgotten?

When fangs were finally bared, she was surprised to see that they were her own. She stepped forward against all instinct and was forced to supress a grin when the demons took one back in retreat. She raised her line of vision to the heavens and howled at the moon, because for years it had been the lone witness to her terror. Now it was again her audience of one as she sprang to meet her demons head on. If she was to perish at their claws, at least it would be on her own terms. But instead of tearing into their flesh, she found herself clutching at the vacant air they had vanished into.

She walked up to the full length mirror and let her robe fall to the floor, revealing her naked form. She regarded the violent bruises for a moment, then looked beyond them at the moonlight reflection of a woman made of cast iron. Her days of running were over. The time had come to start hoping she was not irreparably damaged, to begin anew by baptizing herself with the demon blood on her hands.

Copyright 2007 by Roy L. Pickering Jr.

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