Flash Fiction Horror for Black Harvest

Death by Self-Murder

Death by Self-Murder

          She fell darkward. Where she headed, no sane person goes eagerly-- the land of the FreGore, the land of the doomed.

          They say murder conveys the soul directly to Hades, yet the murder of one’s self exceeds the murder of another. The land of the doomed is even worse than Hell.

          Cresanda fell steeply. At last she came to rest upon a bed of thorns. “Oh,” she gasped, and the agony of the barbs stunned her. Yet, in a moment, she removed herself from their midst and tumbled down into barren dirt.

          The broken parts of her body reassembled, the thorn holes merged, and her blood-sap congested. Cresanda sat up. “Why?” she groaned. “Why? My body was drowned, my soul plunged downward. Hell was supposed to be my reward. Her eyes saw the mounds of dust, her hands felt the desolate expanse of desert, and her mouth tasted the sourness of an empty planet.

          “Oh, where has my death brought me?” she sobbed.

          At that moment a thorny bush woke up and rolled over. The needles on the bush reached out and punctured Cresanda’s foot. She sprang up and half-ran, half-hobbled off.

          Once she had heard tales of FreGore, where the dead supposedly suffered non-stop to the end of forever. Those rebellious, cruel, and naughty were lectured about its existence, but the truth was that they never listened. They simply rolled their eyes of nonchalance, their souls too full of mockery and disbelief. Secretly they always laughed at the tales the wise ones told.

          But now Cresanda was not able to laugh, not as the thorny bush attacked repeatedly. She ran. But there was no place of safety. FreGore was all around her.

          The thorny bush pounced and tasted more of her sap of death, the dregs of what was left of the blood that had once flowed throughout her body. Cresanda dashed on, farther and farther. The thorny bush pursued, and Cresanda ran as she wept and rued her fate.

         A burst of speed, a dart to the left, a turn, a fall, and then up and on. She ran across the planet, but the thorny bush kept after her, and then at the top of the dry dunes of the rocks, Cresanda reached a place where she could go no further. She panted, and then she collapsed. Her tears poured forth -- tears of heartache. The thorny bush sucked, and chomped, and gnawed. The bush consumed her.

          The sky of dawn shadowed pale oranges. Cresanda heaved up her head and gasped. She breathed. No, not breathed, although she thought she breathed. But the truth was that her lungs held no more breath of oxygen. None. Cresanda no longer needed such. She was dead.

          Her body stung from the thorny bush's assault, but Cresanda rose and scanned the sky. Here, she must forever stay, she thought. Wretchedness swept over her. How could she learn to tolerate FreGore? But she had no choice; there was no way out. She could not murder herself again. She was already dead. She could never escape this horror.

          Cresanda walked away from the thorny bush. The shrub was now sated, fat and full, a yawn away from sleep. Besides, thorny bushes do not care where one goes when they are replete.


          Cresanda stumbled forward. She yearned to meet another body, another lost soul.

          She walked for hours. The scene around her was desolate, the sky of rotten lemons, the land of constant knolls and rust-colored sand. The back of her calves ached from the upward scramble to see what the vastness held. She thought she was probably dehydrated, but there was no water. Her stomach felt empty, but, of course, there was no food, only the next dune, and the next, and the next.

          Several thorny bushes attacked her. She stood as they sucked. She could not escape them. She knew that now. The barbed suckers hurt, but she no longer wept. She tolerated.

          At the peak of one of the dunes, she came upon another person. He was mad. For awhile he chased after her. She left him in the dust, and walked on.

          For weeks, Cresanda searched for another soul, and then at last she found one, another woman such as herself.

          “Why?” Cresanda asked the stranger.

          “Because,” came the reply.

          “What now?” Cresanda begged for answers.

          The woman could not respond. She evaporated.

         Once more Cresanda trudged forward. The thorn bushes feasted as she walked, but Cresanda endured. Her blood sap flowed, her thoughts pondered, and she learned to tolerate the abuses of FreGore.

          Years streamed by. The sky overhead sputtered out days and dark, and Cresanda bloomed knowledge. Death was not fun.

          On the second year of her morass at FreGore, she returned to the place where she'd met the madman, but he was gone, also. Cresanda sat upon the dune and contemplated reason and found no purpose.

          And so she chose to flee down the route of lunacy. She drew a deep breath and screamed. She never stopped, and today she screams on. And the thorny bushes yet suck and gnaw and chomp.


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