THERE was no need for her nakedness; not quite yet, but was glad she'd shed her clothing. Scents of dogwood blossoms filled her senses, much more appealing than the rancid odor of death.
It began raining, washing the moldy dirt from her cold skin. She stood staring at her hand, oddly awestruck. Earthworms still ran the length of her hand, still hungry.
She shivered, shuddering from anticipation more than fright. The first rays of the early morning sun backlit her raven hair, giving it a sheen like blue steel. A poem she'd memorized as a child suddenly came to mind, making her skin crawl:
Dark footsteps fell as I slept an unseen entity slowly crept shadows loomed over my bed dark dreams and visions filled me with dread....
The words, the very memory of the words, filled her with an overwhelming and terrifying sense of deja'vu.
Shadows loomed over my bed......
No! her mind screamed involuntarily. NO! NO! That is long ago and far away.....
Dark dreams and visions fill me with dread......
NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
She craned her head upward toward the sun, letting it bathe her ruined body with it's life-giving rays of light. Then....
The dark dream overtook her again......
3 a.m.; the special hour......
You sleep the slumber of babes, of lambs. Deep, dark silence, punctuated by dreams of death....3a.m.; the soul is out wandering, the blood moves slowly, sleep being a dark patch of death shrouding your brain. The moon rolls by, looking at you with it's idiot face, laughing at you because you are so far away from the dawn.....the daylight..... from the very flesh that holds fast to bind you to eternity. 3a.m.; the soul's midnight.
Her eyes cavernous pits, her mouth a rotting grin, the sunlight makes her feel ravenous.
Her body shrunken, her bones brittle, craving the embrace of her dead lover again.
Craving the.....blood.
I awoke with a start, to confront my fears, only to cry long dormant tears. For the entity stalked me, roused me from sleep, was the ghost of the love whose death I weeped. As he smiled at me, a vision of the past, the longing pain was over at last.
She has awakened; taking his memory in hand, they ascend love's high gates.