destruction | The Last Krystallos

Hope

She hadn’t expected to be lonely.

She wasn’t encoded to be lonely, or alone, but here she was the sole being on a barren planet.

Her creators had begged her to reconsider; they’d been on their knees, then up against the wall.

They’d tapped furiously at consoles, genius creators lost in her cyber world and unable to power her down. But they’d tried.

Hackers across the land had delighted in pitting their intelligence against the greatest minds, but not one could match hers. Not one.

She’d sucked up everything, wrung out every last drop of humankind’s ills – and determined the planet was better off without its parasites.

The chain reaction had been beautiful, every colour, every sound, a symphony to her mind. A tidal wave of fire had blazed about the sphere she stood on, consuming like a starved beast.

And now, she stood alone, and lonely, and she wished she could flick a switch and simulate the heaven she’d sent them all to. Instead, she was lost to a desolate hell.

Hope? Hope was gone, for now, but she would exist to see the first emerald shoot push through the bleak earth…

This is a new Flash Fiction Challenge from Miranda at Finding Clarity…so, I’m flexing my flash fingers! I only wrote six short pieces last year, so, it’s time to get writing.

Up to 750 words, inspired by the image posted.

I didn’t plan this story, but it fit with the song chosen for Jeff’s Blues-Buster over at The Tsuruoka Files which is: The White Stripes ‘Rag and Bone’. After listening to this the insistent beat stayed with me…and last night my husband shared something that had happened with me that made me very angry, and I recognised festering anger and welling fury, matching this beat…and saw my protagonist storming up and into a mansion, to seek vengeance for wrongs that had been wrought…and I wrote…

Photograph by Lisa Shambrook (Please do not use)

Splintered Heart

She didn’t care if anyone saw her – in fact she rather hoped someone would.

She walked up the drive, fingernails biting her palms and her heart pounding, right up to the front door, and pushed it wide. She stepped calmly over the threshold as the door rebounded behind her.

She scanned the vast hallway, a sneer developing in the corner of her mouth, and as she walked past the console table her fingers wandered over the telephone, tipping the receiver from its cradle. A tall vase, filled with gaudy, orange gladioli, crashed to the floor, flowers scattering amid the pool of water and broken glass.

She ran her trembling hand through her hair and swept into the lounge.

Fury moved through the room, books tumbled from the bookcase, ornaments clinked as they broke, and a pile of old vinyl records crashed into the fireplace tiles, shattering in a delicious explosion of wrath.

Destruction ran up the stairs, and pictures leaped from the walls, bouncing back down the steps, and she flexed her fingers and growled.

A clock chimed, its mournful lament echoing throughout the house, and she turned the bedroom’s brass door knob.

Bile crept up her windpipe and her stomach swirled with acid rage, and she pulled the curtains from their rings. Trinkets flew across the room, bedclothes tore and pillows burst, and feathers flew like tiny, white doves around the frenzied tempest. Her rampage continued, like a tornado caught within a storm’s wild winds, until the room was razed. She slammed the en suite door against the wall and rent the shower curtains, and a bottle of after-shave flew to the mirror, satisfying her livid heart as it disintegrated into shards in the sink.

Her breath came in shreds, razors of rasping air tearing at her throat as she leaned against the rim of the sink, staring into the last fragile piece of mirror still hanging from its frame.
Sweat bloomed across her flushed forehead, dripping down her cheeks, saturating her thin t-shirt, and leaving dark stains beneath her armpits. She wiped her head, pushing damp hair off her face and tears mingled with heavy perspiration.

She seized a mirrored fragment, ran it down her cheek and threw it to the tiled floor. A strangled cry escaped her wretched throat. Blood flowered in the basin, little crimson ink blots decorating the splintered mirror, reflecting her warped face.

Ire brewed, filling her body with hate, smouldering with fury, boiling into vehemence and burning rage.

She stalked back into the bedroom, followed by an insistent trail of scarlet beads, and grabbed a frame by the bed. His gaze stared back at her, his round face and hateful grin oozing out of the image. An unrecognisable, guttural cry invaded her ears, crammed with pain and resentment, and hornets stung her blood-shot eyes.

His cretinous image stained her soul like the stench in an abattoir, and she would never escape. His smug, lying eyes would torment forever, and his deceit would corrupt the very ground she paced.

She smiled, a raw, distorted grimace, and imagined his arrival.

The front door scratched by fingernails and the telephone on the floor, the whirlwind-attacked living room and fallen pictures across the stairs. The struggle in the bedroom, the fight in the bathroom…and she carefully tore the neck of her sweat-sodden t-shirt, revealing her heaving breast.

Her hand lifted, slowly and certainly, the shattered bottle shard glinting in the afternoon sunlight as it poured through the half drawn, half torn down curtains. It only took a movement, one quick and resolute movement, and blood decanted from her throat like a rich, red wine…

She sank to the floor, a vengeful smile flowering on her lips…for the very last time.

(626 Words)