Not Delilah

"You've got your music up so loud, you're going to go deaf!" Delilah's mother yelled.

"Maybe I want to go deaf." She said under her breath.

"What was that? Why would you want to go deaf?" She turned to her mother now, not watching the distant cars whiz past the window and avoiding her mother.

"So I wouldn't have to hear your voice again." She said, never letting her eyes leave her mothers. Her mother was dumbstruck. She almost didn't stop at the set of red lights ahead and almost rammed into the back of the car in front.

"Why would you say something like that to me?" Her mother finally asked, voice quiet and low. But Delilah wasn't about to answer. She pointedly turned away again from her mother and stared out the window at all the happy, passing people, wishing she could be one of them. She didn't regret her words; in fact she was happy that she finally got them out. But she was definitely afraid of the consequences.

Things hadn't always been so bad between Delilah and her mother, but you could say the same thing about every other relationship she'd been able to maintain lately. She was angry at everything. For what? Even she didn't have a clue. All that she knew is that she didn't want to talk about it.

She'd been on her own for all this time, so why let anyone intervene now? Her mother had picked up on this behavioural change some weeks ago. Little things hinted a change, like how she didn't talk or smile much anymore, or how she didn't go out, or sit with the family at the dinner table. She just stayed locked up in her room all this time. But this was the tipping point.

"What is going on with you, Delilah? You've changed." Her mother wanted so much to talk to her daughter, to connect with her. But Delilah had other ideas. She finally decided that she was going to be one of the seemingly happy people, shopping in her city.

She suddenly opened the car door, thankful that the inner city traffic had slowed to a stop. She got out and slammed the door behind her before her mother even realised what she was doing. She hopped across the street, dogging the cars, ignoring the screams from the blue van behind her, stuck at the red light. The middle aged, blonde woman was frantically undoing the manual window on the other side of the car and was screaming for the dark haired girl to get back in the car. People were watching, interested and curious, but no one was going to do anything.

Today, her name wasn't Delilah, and that ugly car wasn't hers and that screaming woman was not her mother.

Today, maybe she'd be happy.

Unfixable

Her cold blue eyes were looking at me, but she was looking straight through me. She wasn't here with us in this room. She was within her mind, like the first time I saw her.

It was a small room that we sat in, four walls, like most others. It had a door on each side, coloured green with rotting paint. The walls were also decaying, coloured paint flecks falling to the ground with the slightest brush or breeze. There were no other items in the room besides the two chairs we sat on. We sat facing each other under the dim centre light.

"Speak to me." I said, but she didn't listen to me. She continued watching but not watching me. "Please, Melissa, please just speak." I begged.

"Don't call me that." She snapped, her eyes suddenly focusing on me.

"But that's your name."

"My name is not Melissa." Even though her tone implied aggravation, I was taking her speaking as good and kept pushing for more.

"Then what is your name if it isn't Melissa?"

"I have no name. I don't deserve a name." Her eyes suddenly became unfocused again, as she sank into her dream world.

"Everyone deserves a name. Everything in fact." She didn't want to answer me again. "Why don't you think you deserve a name."

"I don't think, I just know." I wanted to continue, to search deeper. I thought I had made progress. But suddenly she stood up. "I have to leave."

"But why?" I asked, jumping up as well. I didn't want her to leave. I was afraid of what she might do if I left her.

"I need to go now." She turned to leave, but suddenly looked lost, undecided to which door she should take. "i need to leave. Let me leave." She directed her frustration to me, blaming me.

"Please don't leave. I want you to stay." She spun around to face me, her full attention focused on me.

"You can't save me. You're just another one of the boys who think they're in love with me. You think you can fix me and then we can be together and live happily ever after. But it just doesn't work that way. I'm broken and unfixable. So let me leave." I was stunned. All this time I've been trying to figure her out; trying to determine what was wrong with her. And yet in one go, she seems to have me figured out, just like that. Was I that easy to decipher?

"Wai, I-" I tried to give her some sort of answer, but my words were caught in my throat.

"No, don't. You don't need to explain yourself. I know you. I know your type. Just let me go. I don't want to be saved."

"But...you're drowning." With a sad look, she turned away from me.

"Maybe I want to drown." With those last words she took the first door she reached. I never saw that girl again.

My fault

"Is it bad that I haven't slept or eaten for three days?" I asked him. He turned to me with his beautiful eyes wide.

"What? Why not?" I didn't hear him though, when you're tired, many sense just seem to turn off when they want to.

"You have amazing eyes, has anyone told you that?" he was a bit surprised about my sudden change in topic, but he stood up, lifting me up by the arms as if I was simply a doll. He was a steady tree to my weak legs, and I lent against him when my body felt it didn't want to move again for a little while.

He realised I wasn't going to walk, so instead he lifted me up so easily and carried me in his arms like a child. I guess not eating might have payed off finally. I was lighter than a child possibly. His gorgeous face was all that I could see and the evening sun framed his face so perfectly. He looked like a golden angel, my saviour from my Hell. His sun kissed, light brown hair was lit up and his brown eyes were set straight ahead, filled with his concern.

Suddenly his halo was gone! It was dark, but in the afterglow I could still see the definitions of his face.

"Where are you going to take me?" I laughed, my words sounding funny on my lips. We were back at the car park, right at the door of his old, beat up car. He opened it so fluently while balancing me and put me in the passenger seat. How could we be back here already? It was over half an hour walk.

"I'm going to take you home. You're not well."

"I'm perfectly fine!" I said, suddenly angry at him. How dare he say I'm not well. He was trying to put my seat belt on me, but I shoved him away and put it on my self. He walked around and got into the driver's seat, only worry on his face.

"How can you say that! I've worked so hard to get here." My words didn't come out as clearly as I had intended them, and he looked at me differently this time. Was he sorry for me?! Of course there was sadness and worry in him, but there was something more. He pitted me didn't he! He didn't reply. He wasn't ignoring me, he just couldn't answer me.

"Let me out!" I yelled. "Stop the car." This got him talking.

"What, no! I can't stop. Please just stay in the car. We're almost home."

"No I want to get out!" I screamed, banging on the door. I couldn't find the handle to the door in the darkness and I leaned forward trying to see. It was a bad idea though, because instantly I felt sick. I sat up quickly and the world was spinning. The bright lights in the streets didn't to much to help either.

"No don't!" he yelled, grabbing my shoulder and throwing me back against the seat.

"Stop it!" I screamed. "What's happening to me?" I pressed my hands against my head and lent against my knees, but nothing could stop the pain.

"Please, just calm down." he tried his best. He truly did love me, because no one would care as much as he did. I was sobbing now, but I could hear his soothing voice perfectly. "We're almost ther-" I could also hear the other car ram into the side of ours. I can still hear it perfectly, ringing in my ears.

I woke up the next day in hospital, blurry faces watching above me, moving too quickly for my mind. I tried to rub the black stars away from my eyes, but I couldn't move my arms.

"What's going on?" I asked. I got my answer a few hours later from the doctor caring for me. He wasn't watching the road, he was to busy watching me. The other car had run a red light. They got away with just a broken arm. He cared for me so much, and I was barely awake to notice. I'll never get to show him how much I love him now.

I had been so determined to be perfect for him, but without him here anymore what do I have to live for? I know it's melodramatic, but how could you possibly know what I'm going through. I broke a couple of fingers and my nose, but otherwise I'm alive and well.

This just goes to prove my whole theory. Everything I ever put my all into is always taken away from me. But there's more. Every single time it's been my fault. Always only my fault.

The Queen of Hearts

She devours the hearts that she receives, like they were chocolate buttons, hoping that the more she takes the more likely that she'll have one of her own someday. Her body grows with the rolls of puppy love fat and the hunger intensifies. When she grew taller and bigger than anyone before her, the people filled with fear below her fought against her, piercing her thick skin with their arrows but none could break her. So they named her the Queen of Hearts, the beheader of all men, and wait in the shadows until her king can put her out of all misery.

Cathy's Challenge

Cathy carefully stepped one slow step at a time forward, following the line of people. She had been there for what felt like hours, no, days. She was tiring quickly, but her life depended on getting to the end. Others waited with her in the line, some tiring quicker than her and falling to the peril of starvation and weakness. All were taller than her. They all seemed to be stronger and wiser than her. Surely they would make it to the end over Cathy. Surly she would fall weak. But with each passing hour another would fall away. Angry with themselves most likely, they would fall back into the jungle and lose on the blissful prize that lay at the end.

Her legs were getting tired and her eyes were getting heavy. She had travelled so far, like so many of the others, through monstrous lands full of strange creatures that yelled and barked, nipping at her toes and fingers and swooping low.

She looked back over her shoulder. Behind the chains were her family, held back from freedom. Her mother, her father, her brother and sister. Their lives depended on her getting to the end of line.

"You can do it Cathy!" Yelled her older brother. They were cheering for her, they believed in her! With determination, Cathy turned back to her challenge, but they weren't making it easy for her. Strange bird like creatures of all colours descended down from the grey skies with their large claws and shiny beaks, believing her to be the weakest. But they were wrong. She put on her scariest face and roared as loud as a lion, and the creatures scurried away back into the jungle.

She was almost at the front, so close to the prize. Then, out of the darkness of the trees came huge yellow eyes. They stared down at her, hypnotising her. They were so mysterious and mystical that they distracted her from her task. The line moved forward, it was almost her turn, but she couldn't stop staring! She shook her head and grabbed her camera, using the flash to stun the climbing beast.

As soon as it was out of the way she ran up to the front. It was her turn at last! Finally she would receive her prize. All her hard work would finally pay off. She looked up at the tall smiling woman, the keeper of her treasure.

"Hi sweetie, welcome to the zoo cafe. What can I get you?" she asked.

"One hot chips, please" asked Cathy.

Shifter for Hire

I didn’t know what to say. Those gorgeous eyes were staring so deeply at me, so filled with concern, that it almost made me sick to think that I was hurting him. I opened my mouth, hoping to force the words out, but the truth wouldn't come, it refused to be told.
“I can’t…” is all I ended up saying. “I can’t stop.”
“But why? It’s killing you. You’re killing yourself.” He pleaded. But I didn’t want to hear it.
“It’s my job! I was given this gift to help people!”
“You’re helping the rich get richer, and screwing their competitors. What your doing isn’t heroic. Don’t delude yourself into thinking so. You’re doing a job, like everyone else in this world, but if you keep pushing your powers you’re going to get yourself killed. Why can’t you understand that?!” He was beginning to shout his reasonable words, but he was just making me more aggravated.
“You don’t understand anything! Who the hell are you to tell me how to do my job? I have worked so hard to get here, and I’m not going to let you of all people distract me from finishing what I came here to do. Any day more spent here than I have to is a waste of time! So leave. Me. Alone!” As I shouted those last words, I could feel the sickness coming. I didn’t expect it, but I should have. It’s more likely to happen when I get angry. It’s not a good combination with my fiery personality.
The sickness starts first as a splitting headache. It’s horrible. It tears at your brain with the hooks of its hate and swims through every nerve in the body. Not a pleasant experience. That is the warning. It’s a heavy hammer of a knock to tell you to get the hell out of there. You want to be alone for phase two, or things might get tricky. He was about to start talking again but I couldn’t let him see me. I turned and stormed out of the living room, like it was all part of my bitchy tantrum. He didn’t know that I was hiding. I slammed the door behind me and locked it just in case he decided to drop his usual manners. I couldn’t take any chances now.
My run away was just in time because I could feel the change happening. I ran across the room to the hanging mirror and watched my body and face change drastically. He was knocking at the door now, testing out the handle to see if I’d locked it.
“Please let me in. I want to talk to you. You have to stop running away from me.” And the pleading continued, but I wasn’t listening. My only concern for him was that his worry would lead him to knocking down the door. I had no doubts he could.
I couldn’t take my eyes away from my image on the wall. I’d gotten used to the idea of my image changing, since I first discovered I was a shifter, only five years ago now. But I have only seen the change like this once before, but at the school, when a shifter lost control. They took him away and I haven’t seen him since. I was out of control too. That was part of the sickness. The face that stared back at me was constantly changing; another feature shifting each second, until my face was just a blur of different people. I didn’t know what to do, but I started panicking.
I started scratching at my face, but I couldn’t even feel it. All I could feel was the burn of my transition. It was horrible and terrifying, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I was almost tempted to open the door. But I didn’t let that idea take over. I sat of my bed and did everything I could think of to calm myself. It was hard to stay still in the pain, but sitting down helped a little bit with the headache. I thought calming thoughts, about my family and my future, I even prayed, but nothing would stop it. At one point, the pain got so intense that I finally lost it. I passed out on the floor, the refreshing relief of unconsciousness taking over.
I don’t know what happened between then and when I woke up again, but I had moved. I was in my bed and it was morning. Had any of that happened? Was it all just a nightmare?
I sat up in bed, a headache rolling over, crushing my body like a heavy stone, and looked around the room. Nope, definitely not a dream. The door was leaning against the wall, splinters sticking out at the hinges.

The Art of Failing Gloriously

I looked out over the crowd that was mercifully shrouded by the darkness, while I felt stark naked and vulnerable in the harsh brightness of the stage lights. My voice had left me and I stood still with my mouth open, my audience waiting for the words that I was desperate to express. But they had disappeared from sight, and I was left helpless to the scrutiny of the eyes of my peers. I could feel the words forming behind my eyes, but my lips made no attempt to process them. I was stuck in a trance and sinking into a sick place that I had no desire to visit. That same sickness was building up within my throat, threatening to beat my words to my mouth.

"I bet I could change your life." I could see the ghost of my mind travelling before me, clear cut and perfect, saying and doing exactly what I should be doing. And all I could do is watch.

"I bet one word could change you life. You might not even notice it when it happens, but trust me, it'll happen one day."

I had to push myself, force the words out of me, but I couldn't. And as I watched myself move with such grace and speak with such determination, all my audience could see was my failure.

"When I think about Annabelle, I don't think of all the things she did, like her stellar grades or her good sense of fashion or even all the friends she had on facebook. All I can think about is how she changed my life, and now because of the people in this audience she'll never know."

I was a failure. This whole time all I wanted to do was to glorify Annabelle for who she really was in life, not for what people thought about her or what they saw on the surface, because all that was a lie, and only I knew the truth. If only she was here now, maybe I could do it.

"Get off the stage retard!" yelled someone from the crowds. I realised that they were speaking to me, and they broke me out of my fixation with this ghost of myself.

"I-I-" I looked around the stage, at the people, at the darkness in front of me. I couldn't do it and before I knew it I was back stage, away from the uncomfortable stares of the audience, on the floor sobbing. My heart had finally caught up with me and was thrashing against my chest. I was gasping for air and desperately trying to find my inhaler. I ripped off my jacket, searching though all the pockets, but I couldn't find it. My breaths were short and rapid, and I gave up my frantic search to focus on my breath. Maybe I could settle myself it I just could concentrate. But all I could think about were the people down there, confused and judgemental. Annabelle would be disappointed.

Black spots were forming in front of my eyes and I didn't even have the energy to cry out for help this time.

The gifted one

Every night I see bone, my bone, flesh coloured. They say I'm gifted, I'm special, that I'm their saviour. But I don't want that. I'd rather starve like the rest of them that live the life I'm forced to live.

These days food is scarce, and the nights when we can't find a scrap of food my people turn to me. Their pleading eyes, how am I supposed to refuse them. They're kind to me, to say the least. They don't force me to give in, unlike the stories I've heard about the people like me.

Every night I die a more gruesome death than the night before, and every morning I wake up with the bruises, deep and black, haunting marks of my so called "gift".

I am a feast, a meal to some. The flesh is stripped from my body by a man with hungry eyes and drooling lips, eager to satisfy the roar in his belly. I usually black out about the time my limbs are completely bare of anything but bone. I've gained strength...stamina since the beginning, when they discovered my "gift". I used to black out at the first sight of blood - my own blood - spilling to the ground by the litre.

Every night I cry and scream in pain, but not for the doers to stop, but for them to go too far, for them to be that little bit too greedy. I want them to do it, hoping that I don't wake up in the morning. Praying that my eyes stay forever shut, and that my body is finally laid to rest, deep down in the earth where I can finally decay for good.

They're skilled though. They know exactly when to stop, exactly how far I can go. They've had generations to practice, on my mother, on my grandmother, all of them were exactly like me. It's a family thing, something in my genes. They say it comes from the before time, when food was still plentiful. The people of the before time could see that their food was thinning, plants were dying, animals were disappearing. So they made me - well they made a distant relative, decades ago, to feed the people that could no longer feed themselves. I am their saviour, or so they say so. I don't know if I believe them. Every day, in the hours that I live, I pray for a real saviour, the real gifted one that is supposed to save my people. And every night, as my torture comes to suffocate me in a cycle, to repeat itself over and over, I pray for my death - my final death.

Death's Rule Book (2)

"So are you Death or are you Michael?" she asked me.
"...I'm both." I answered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, which it was.
"But that doesn't make sense."
"Well you don't ask 'Are you Doctor or are you Steve?' You just know that he is Dr Steve." She still looked at me with blank eyes. "A doctor named Steve."
"Yeah I get that. But what name is Michael for Death?"
"Well I don't know! My mother didn't look at me when I was born and say 'Oh he looks like a Death. We should name him Death.' What kind of sick mother would name their son Death?!" I was bitter and frustrated and I knew she didn't deserve that, but I was in a bad mood. What am I talking about? I'm always in a bad mood, but she wasn't making it any easier for me.
"Sorry, I was just asking. I'm Shelly." She extended her hand out to me, which I plainly ignored, continuing on my travels.
"Shelly the Shadow. Well that sounds about right." I sighed. As I had noted earlier, she was a supernatural being, unfortunately paired with the personality of a very annoying human. She was a shadow creature. I didn't come by them very often in my travels as they are pretty hard to spot. But then again once you did get attached to one they were very hard to shake off. They were creatures that were made of primarily gases and light, and they attached themselves to the shadow of a living, moving being, feeding off their life. They detached themselves of that being when that being was dead. They usually go on through life completely undetected by the humans. But since I was not human, she had more of a problem than just being able to be seen.
"Whatever, I think it's a pretty name. I reminds me of the beach. I was attached to this really cute diver before you. That's where I came up with the name, because he used to collect shells." Her very long, personal but pointless story was beginning to ebb away at my patience.
"So how long does it usually take for your kind to die off when they don't have a life source?" Blunt, rude, well that was how I liked it. To the point. I didn't particularly care for her. She was getting on my nerves. Both of us knew quite well she wasn't going to live being attached to me; me being a lifeless creature, and we both knew that she was stuck with me until one of us died. I could see on her face that this had shocked her as much as I had hoped.
"Uh...about a month." she said in a small voice. I kind of felt bad at how simply she had answered me, just giving me another fact about her life that I didn't really care about. A pang of guilt rang inside my chest. But I held it back, ignoring her sudden quietness. 31 days. That was too long away. 31 long days having to work with this thing attached to my back. Like a leech. A dying leech. But still, I didn't like my work being interrupted.

There was a cottage ahead of us, down at the end of the meadow. As I got closer I realised that it wasn't much of a cottage, but really a farm shed, filled with hay and cow stalls for milking. There was work equipment and a tractor and the door was battered and large enough to fit anything through it. Above the stalls was another room, which you could get to by a ladder near the entrance. It looked like the living quarters of the man hanging in the corner of the work room. I took in all that was in the room - the rotting hay bundle that a calf was chewing away at, the picture in its frame of a woman and child sitting on the writing desk, the dirty working clothes thrown away on the floor.
Shelly on the other hand couldn't take her eyes off the man hanging from the noose.
"For someone who feeds off people's life, you don't seem to be taking death to easily."
"I've never seen anyone kill themselves before." she said to me, a little nervous.
The dead man looked at us with cold eyes wide open, skin pale and sickly. His mouth was ajar and facing downwards in a bored expression.
"A little help here?" the dead man asked us. I smiled to myself at seeing Shelly jump so obviously. She was so shocked, I could see that she was ready to jump out of her skin...if she had any skin to jump out of.
"He...he just spoke to us! Isn't he dead?" She clung to my sleeve, digging into my arm. I shrugged her off, my amusement suddenly gone.
"The dead aren't dead until I take their soul away. Everyone except me can't see that their soul is still in their body. But now it seems that you can also see that by default." Shelly still looked confused and scared, but I couldn't delay the process any longer.
"Hello Mr Evans." I said, addressing the man. Shelly giggled suddenly, but I didn't see any humour in the matter.
"How's it hanging." She said between bouts of laughter. The man stayed expressionless but gave her the finger. She stopped laughing and frowned at the man, obviously taken aback by his gesture. "What's got you so grumpy."
"Are you Death?" asked the man, ignoring Shelly.
"Yes." I didn't like when they asked questions, but it was better than when they were begging me for mercy or something like that. I couldn't take their souls easily unless they accepted the situation.
"You don't look like Death." he said, looking me up and down.
"That's what I said!" said Shelly, excitedly.
"Shut up." I whispered to her.

Death's Rule Book

Rule number one. Death is unavoidable. Everyone knows this. Even the youngest and the most naive of people will know that they won't live forever, and yet it seems that the human race is most content on changing that. That just makes my life harder; they beg me and they try to bribe me, but honestly what can they give the only person that truly has an eternal life.

Rule number two. Things will always stay dead. Well that goes for humans and animals - the rest is a longer story. There is no such thing as resurrection in humans, you're just not capable of such things. All this talk of CPR is rubbish. I come across the poor souls that are still partially attached to their body when they have some useless person beating away at their chest. "Get off me!" They yell, because they don't know that they're dead yet. But they kneel over the dead, tears spilling over their cheeks, desperately clinging to the deceased.

Rule number three. Death, unlike life, is forgettable. No one celebrates their own death each year it comes round again - for obvious reasons. But the people you leave behind are only going to grieve you for so long before you are forgotten . Eventually you will no longer be important enough to be spoken of again; to have your memory emerge and be spoken as words. After that you will no longer be important enough to have you memory accumulate in someones mind, and you will have truly died your final death. Depressing - I know.

These are the rules I live by. These are the rules that dictate life of the humans. I don't make the rules. Trust me I didn't. I only follow thme - it is my job. I am Death, the Grim Reaper, the Fourth Horseman, and it goes on. But you can call me Michael.