The Cave

There were three. Then there were four. Seven. Twelve. Eighteen. Hundreds. Thousands. Until there were four once again.

In the cave inside the valley there stood the four, hidden by bare trees and whirlwinds of fog-like dust. The walls were smeared with glossy sludge and the dead creepers spread like veins from the farthest end of the valley and into the mouth of the cave.

Scraps of dress socks, chewed-up stockings and a long skirt were folded neatly on the muddied floor. Two of the four had worn socks, and the other two wore skirts.

The night melted into soft shades of violet, red, and orange. They had hoped for damning winds and rain and blue thunder and sounds. Instead, gleams of light peeked through the barricade of gray vines loosely hung at the cave's entrance. One by one, fingers shook and cold faces grew crimson.

The four looked like terrible statues. The light tattooed their pasty skin, dancing against their flesh as the vines swayed. And as exposed and naked as they could be in the near darkness, the attention from the sun fed their minds well. With hearts permanent to winter's touch, the rays of light stirred heedless thoughts into their minds. Thought after idea and thought after more idea.

One pair of socks on. One skirt on. One pair of socks on. One skirt on. One, one, one, one, one. Their chests heaved up and down as if they had sprinted over the green hills and back. The third of the four dragged her nails into her shoulder blade, muttering five words under her breath.

What the world would have thought of our four was simply that they were blind to were the moments of the people, of the outside, beyond the cave. They would claim the lot were a collective tragedy of lost promise, absent of the white picket fence and the potential for a creation as necessary as a child. To be wed in faith, to be rewarded in the golden claps of your interns, and to be revered as a pregnant woman should.

But no, as romantic and glorious that future would have been, the four have chosen subtlety. This didn't mean avoidance of the public, or expressive triumph or even of flattery – it meant secrecy.

Secrecy of extreme truths to either inspire or damn you; secrecy of selfless intentions with grand wakes; secrecy of one's hidden passion – enough passion to question whether your ribs or your heart were hurting you.

The rest of the world didn't understand what secrets were. Always flitting from mouth to mind to mind to mouth to mouth to mind until the shock of surprise was dulled by commonplace of the gossiped fact.

Of course, the four had good reason for babysitting their secrets. No one liked a tattle-tale.

Not everyday surgeons were given live, healthy subjects and were told to murder them.

- myfairladybug -

The adrenaline of it was an understatement. They were addicted. Addicted with the adrenaline, their lives, themselves, each other, and the twisted silver lining of a knife.

So, you see, their resolve for murder was never intended to be nourishment for grief and the Angel of Death, but to impose penance, granting chance for both sinner and innocent. They, with steel grips and sly hands, offer criminals another chance in a different world – one where wrongdoers felt parallel to the land and the sky. To tumble through doorways, toes deep in wet sand until He has forgiven them. Purgatory was comforting to those with shallow breaths and a bruised conscience. An easier route, if you will.

They were helping the environment with established structures for eradication, and ridding the filth that stained the heels of their shoes. All the while pleasuring themselves with the thrill, settling for no less than the divine.

No ungodly criminal was to walk, let alone breathe again. The four wouldn't have it. They wouldn't have it.