The Woman in Pearls

TW: This is probably my most graphic piece yet, so please if you're at all susceptible to gore and/or violence, stay away, I repeat stay away. Anyway, this is a piece I wrote a while ago and it's probably one of my favourites. Enjoy!

    The woman in pearls was once a beautiful queen, loved by her people and cherished by her small kingdom. She would roam her castle in her favourite silver dress, and a beautiful pearl necklace draped around her neck, and she would greet her family and friends who accompanied her in her home. She would take a carriage and check on her kingdom granting her citizens wealth and food. She loved her kingdom and it loved her back. She would play with the children, chat with the mothers and fathers, and bless the newborns with a kiss. 
   One day during a particularly cold winter day, the queen decided to go for a walk. She loved the way the snow made her silver dress glow and her pearls shine. Then as she looked at the bare trees and the shining snow something quite peculiar caught her eye. A small set of footprints, racing into the forest. Seeing as she knew many of the children in the city, she decided to follow them. She giggled and pretended to be a hunter of sorts. My, what a time that would be, she smiled at the thought. The crunch of the hardly-treaded snow beneath her boot was satisfying and crisp, deeper than her normal path, urging her to explore more into the forest. 

    A harsh wind nipped at her face, and she pulled up her scarf. The queen started to worry. It would be hard enough as queen of this land to find her way back to her towering castle. She started to run, the cold flowing through the seams of her coat. She followed the tracks, this way and that. Then she slowed as she neared something strange. A splotch of red, ruining the purity of the snow. It was a deep red, splattered in such a way that anyone who had seen it before would have recognized its devious shape. 
    Blood. The queen moved closer and gasped as she realized it was fresh. She then heard a scream. Many other royals would have run and gotten their knights to investigate. But the Silver Queen was not one to turn her back on someone in danger. She ran towards the screaming and as she got closer the bloodier the snow got. Then, she turned a corner and her mouth dropped. The queen was now staring at a being that could only be described as horrific. 

    It was tall, even taller than the queen herself, its body was thin and opaque, like fogged glass, but it was drenched in the crimson tint of blood. Its arms and legs were shaped the same way a child would draw lightning, and they cracked every time the creature moved, breaking in and out of place with every nudge. It wore a colourful but cracked mask, seeming to mimic a church mural that had been shattered. It had unsymmetrical holes for eyes and an abnormally sized grin with teeth cut out of it, similar to that of an old fashion jack-o’-lantern. It had meter-long knives for fingers that were skewering the young girl who couldn’t have been older than ten, suspending her just close enough to the ground that her little pink slippers were almost touching. The little girl had blood dribbling out of her mouth, dazed and fading eyes, and her limbs were all broken and now bent in unnatural directions. 

    The queen felt the fear inside her, spreading like a disease throughout her body, weakening her arms and legs. But her courage and love for her people couldn’t be shaken. She forced herself to move toward the creature, and when she was close enough she stared deep into its empty eyes and mustered all her courage.
“Release her at once.” The Queen commanded. The creature jerked its head towards her, making her heart pound painfully against her chest. The beast stared for a second, and then made a choppy noise that the queen assumed was supposed to be a laugh, but sounded similar to the sharpening of a sword, as though its lungs were filled with glass. 
“Who are you to command me, girl.” It said with a tilted head. It’s voice was oddly smooth, but broken, as if it was on a radio going through a forest. The use of the word “girl” made her angry. 
“I am the queen of this land, and that little girl is a part of my kingdom. Release her at once.” She took an anger-drive step toward the creature. The creature stayed unnaturally still. It’s black eyes bore into her mind. Then its body sporadically shifted, as if the bones momentarily forgot that they were supposed to stay stationary. 
“Interesting. You truly are loyal to your people. You have my respect. So, I have another proposal. If you give me the girl, I will give you unimaginable power. It will make you unstoppable, powerful enough to carry your kingdom towards never-ending success. And I'll grant you unlimited years. All for just one... little... Brat!” It's head snapped towards the broken child.
The little girl let out what should have been a scream, but came out as a gurgled grunt. Her dying eyes strained and looked directly at the queen, pleading in the only way she could. The queen quickly looked away, first at the snow, and then back to the creature's dark eyes.
“And the alternative?” The queen asked after mustering the remaining boldness she had left. It laughed again.
“I take you instead.” 
It’s smile seemed to grow, as if it could sense her shift from morbid curiosity to cold fear. The queen didn't dare challenge the beast. 
The queen’s mind frantically searched for a solution to her situation. She knew what she had to do. She stepped forward, and she saw the creature's head tilt slightly to the side. Then, she looked at the creature's broken smile, it's meter-long claws, and finally, at her citizen, who she was only now starting to recognize and the daughter of the Brown family. 
“I’m sorry,” She murmured. “I’m sorry, Hedda” 
The beast looked at the girl.

"Not loyal enough." It croaked. That sliver of childlike hope was drowned, replaced by the cold hands of fear and realization. The thing threw her to the ground. Her body dug deep into the ground, and she barely had time to spit out blood into the snow from the impact before the monster started shredding her. 

    The queen watched in horrific curiosity as it shaved layers of skin off the poor girls body. It’s horrific laugh echoed through the valley, only matched by the gurgled screams of the young girl. The queen watched as the mangled girl’s broken limbs were slowly hacked off, bone, skin and everything in between. It carved its way from the toes and tips of the fingers down until all that was left was her bloodied torso and head. After it finished with the limbs, the thing stopped and stared at the poor girl. The poor girl’s screams stopped briefly, but her eyes weren't covered with the blanket of death instead extremely, overbearingly alive. How had she not gone into a peaceful shock? Why was she still holding on to this burning rope? But then the queen looked at her white face, and the fear and despair painted on it told her everything she needed to know. She wasn’t trying to hold on to life. It wasn’t a burning rope, it was a cold chain, wrapped around her soul, shackling her to this reality. She wanted to die. But that thing was keeping her here. She watched as this dawned on the poor girl herself. Her screaming started again. 

    The creature stabbed the girl through the neck and hoisted her up. Blood dribbled from her mouth and fell into the mouth cavity of the creature's mask. It tilted it's head and spasmed again, then pulled it's sharp finger down so fast that the girl's body seemed to linger in the air for a moment before gravity caught up. Her body was in the shape of an upside-down V with a head. The insides of her body dropped out onto the red snow painting a morbid. Pieces of bone were littered across the snow. The queen stared at Hedda's head. She would have been beautiful. A face made for the perfect smile. That girl had done nothing wrong. The queen imagined that she could have grown up to become a loving wife to a handsome husband, with two equally beautiful children running around through a vast and open field of land that they would have bought. Instead, her life was cut short at her own queen's demand. Her mother would be worried sick, and eventually heartbroken once they found her shredded corpse. Or at least what was left of it. Her father would be the same. They would have to imagine the pain their daughter had gone through, and the worst part of it all was that they wouldn’t be able to avenge her. 

The queen's next thought made her want to kill herself a million times over.
At least it wasn’t you.
The thing turned to her. Then she felt a gust of wind and a piercing cut that seemed to go straight through her neck. The pain was excruciating, but she barely noticed. The power that filled her body like wildfire was much too distracting. The thing was gone. She saw her breath flow across her vision. It smelled like blood and guilt. 

    Thankfully, her eye's blurred with tears, tears that clouded the remains of a girl slowly being covered by falling snow. Then she turned to walk back. The queen's formerly white dress was now dripping red with blood, leaving a trail behind her. It was a quiet walk back. No birds, no shaking bushes, just the occasional whistles of the freezing winds. All the queen had left to think about was her guilt and anger. She was so blinded by these vengeful thoughts that she failed to notice the black spots speckled into the snow. She failed to notice the fumes of smoke rising into the cold air. But as every good queen does, the second she got into earshot, she heard the wails of her people. Her heart finally shattered.
It lied. 
She began to run, ripping her dress through the lethal branches of the trees. When she saw her kingdom, her shill screech joined the chorus. All the buildings had been ripped in half, people, her people, screaming, some crushed by fallen debris, many diced and dissected. The smell was putrid. She looked at the nearest person, a mother speechlessly staring at the charred body of her youngest baby. She looked up at the queen, tears streaming down one eye. The other was an empty hole, the eye seemingly cut out aimlessly by a child with a dull arrow. 
“Why.” The woman asked. “Why did you do this?”
The queen tried to respond, but before she could open her mouth the one-eyed woman sprinted at her, blood and tears streaming down her face. She grabbed onto the queen.
“Why!” She screeched. Her nail scratched into the queen's shoulders.
“I didn’t-“
“Why! Why! Why!” The nails flew up her face, cutting her neck and face. 
“Stop!”
“Why!” She didn’t stop
“Please!”
Her stinging face started to heat up in anger. The lady didn’t cease. The queen felt her anger bubble up.
“Stop at once!” 
The queen felt the bubble burst. The woman flew back and stood at attention, her head twitching in rebellion. But there was nothing she could do. Others gathered around, and at first, they dived at the queen viciously. However, she was the queen. There was nothing they could do to defy her except twitch and complain. Once they realized her power over them, they began to curse at her.
“Murdering bitch!” 
“Demon!”
“Failure!” 
    Her people, the people she loved, now despised her with every fibre of their being. And yet, they were stuck. And with each command, she realized that she was stuck as well. It felt like every order tugged her spirit away from her body. Eventually there was nothing left but an ordering husk.
    The kingdom of pearls thrived for thousands of years. It was beautiful, and the most powerful kingdom in all the land. And yet, not a single person smiled. Every face that was seen was long dead, spiteful ghosts unable to leave their mortal coil. The only smile was from the queen, who sat on her pearl throne, looking down and laughing at her glistening city. A city that once loved her, a city that she used to love.