Snowflake

 She was against the ground, lying on the cold and wet snow. Her white fur jacket was spotted with patches of red blood, clumping it together. Entangling strands that were so carefully and painstakingly put in their place. Her hands were half-covered with loosely hanging mittens, exposing her warm, lively skin to the cold and desolate air outside. Her warm pajamas were frost-ridden and in a frenzy, torn at places, and her feet were bare with ghoulish looking wounds as if teeth had carved into her feet. Leaving behind small valleys of frozen blood and flesh, ready to be taken by the freezing gale and kept preserved. 

Her neck was torn open, showing the world her bones and flesh and glands that had dried up. Her head was surrounded by scarlet, still slightly wet with the slow-flowing and thick red concoction. Her eyes, bloodshot, were staring into the grey sky above, and her lips, although cut had a certain grace to them were dry and blue and had chipped to such an extent that someone would have mistaken them for leftover coconut shavings. 

Her petite little nose was clogged with clots that that long hardened and surrounded her nostrils like spikes kept top ward off wild and minacious animals. Her cheeks were no longer red but had a blue-ish tint to them, covered in open pores and freckles till up her nose, on display. Her eyelashes had long fallen off because of the brittle cold and her hair which was before tied in a knot was now spread all over the red carpet for her head like a blonde contrast. Her whole body seemed so fragile that one would be petrified to even touch her, fearing she would break into a thousand shards of glass. 

So daring had that night become that it had started to take over the living. So, daring and yet maniacal that it seemed to have fun. It had planned well to stage the murder as suicide, seeming that the girl was depressed and had gone crazy. Crazy enough to drive her nails into her feet and tear them open, crazy enough to shred her pajamas, crazy enough to pry open her neck with them. And that was it. The end. She died in the night and no one noticed. But I care to debate that no one heard.

Everyone was sleeping soundly in their beds while night. Oh, so sweet but malicious night worked its magic, away from the eyes of crowds and even animals. Leaving no one but the moon to witness the devastating horror that followed. You know, sometimes I think that the moon knows all our secrets but now I believe that it does. 

I sometimes doubt the innocence of the moon too. Everyone calls it beautiful and lays upon it showers of appreciative verses but most forget that it too has a dark side that it chooses to hide away from lust-filled eyes. It also seems to have a pact with night, always accompanying it wherever it goes and attracts all the attention while night does its wicked work in the dark. 

It all seems too perfect, isn’t it? The perfect trail, the perfect location, and the perfect cadaver. I really wish it was. But like all good things come to an end similarly after all the perfections come the mistakes. 

The mistake was such that the night, our dear night, wandering the dark, navigating the streets with nothing but bloodlust written all over its face, roamed the white landscape till it saw lights. Warm and flickering lights. It was behaviourally attracted to it, only to place its hand on it and bring the primordial darkness. If the night had its way it would extinguish all the lights on earth and spread cold and pure dread among the small and squeaky inhabitants.

Even the light had given up and started to retreat to its own shadows when it saw night approaching slowly and by a masterful whisk as if it had done it a million times before smote the light with its black hands to its sparks. The night caused such unrest inside light that it flickered wildly in the presence of night and often itself died but the few courageous lights were roughly put out by the monster of a creature. 

The night had gotten away with one kill. So, he thought why not another, and then another and another until he became consumed by the thought to such an extent he got addicted to it. An addiction that could not by any means be corrected. I’ll tell you in a sentence and you’ll imagine it all. ‘The town delved into utter silence!’