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[Keeper]

I'm actually posting a full story for once. Of course, for me to complete a highly-detailed story, it's quite short and straight forward with the plot. Idk; you be the judge of that. Enjoy!

The Flower Among Carrion

The blanket of nightfall mantled about the withered constructions of a flattened city, its populace absent from the busily crowds they acted as throughout their daily lives. This fair city was dead. Its only accompaniment came in the presence of ruins and remnants of the past lives that resided within the 21st century city. How such a tragic fate befell this civilization remains an enigma. Regardless, it has been left to fester in the ongoing passage of history, only today to be a No-Man’s-Land.

A shadow lifts from the ruins, hunching awkwardly as it limps through the rubble before its frail toes. The shadowy figure grips the slab of a traffic street light, crunching its fingernails deeply into its mass. Hastily, the shadow flings itself from out the ruined building, landing perfectly upon the littered streets of the deteriorated city. It examines its surroundings, taking in the horrific presentation before its large eyes. The night-light lit their sanguine radiance, shimmering their glistened illumination upon a small object hanging from a twisted power line. The shadow snatches the object greedily, smiling vacantly at the object’s buttoned eyes and sawn smile.

This was when they came. An unruly bellow sounds from the distance, quivering the concrete beneath the shadow’s fragile ankles. It gasps in shock and retreats from the streets. Hordes upon hordes of otherworldly giants spawn from the corners of the city’s alleyways, proclaiming their presence through each dire stomp. These giants, resemblances of cruel, artistic creation; tangled in exaggeratedly long strips of decayed flesh and twisted constructions of ebony metals; cluster the city streets. The feeble shadow hid amongst the buried rubble it had appeared from, considering them its only safe haven from these abominable fabrications. It never understood where the giants had come from. They seem no different from whatever else the shadowy figure had explored in the dead city. Though, times as this, when the giants bellowed their hellacious cries, it felt their presence was never meant to be a benevolent one. Ungodly as they were, the shadowy figure never underestimated their hulking might. The giants took wherever they bellowed theirs, and would hold it as theirs with dire prejudice towards any approaching soul different from theirs. This proved difficult for the shadowy figure. What could a mere girl do against these reincarnated automations of defiled, human remnants?

The poor child sat in the gird of darkness, awaiting the departure of the giants. Luckily for her the giants leave with astonishing haste. However, this good fortune only meant someone else had trespassed over one of their tyrannical proclamations. Even with the inability to speak proper speech, the small girl wished the trespasser the greatest of luck. With that, though, she scurries towards the theatre.

Once, this civilization claimed the theatre as the jewel of its art, a paradise, from which artists, dancers, writers, any creative mind, could come and express their imaginations. It saw the varieties of the entire city's artistic populace's imagination. Audiences witnessed the solemn gentility of the calm, the complexity of the intellectual, and the absurd morbidity of the macabrely-influenced. Regardless of how imaginative, or even revolutionary, these minds proved to be, they were at a lose before the unknown harry that consumed their long-dead city. The only appreciator left, to sensibly compel to the theatre's scraps of literature and art, was the girl that sat lonesomely amidst the numerous seats encircling the looming stage across from her.

The girl had found a playwright's script for a tragedy, a story which involved the mishaps of an orphaned brother and sister, who lost their way in the innumerable districts of London. Unknowingly to her, the girl was vastly capable of reading these playwrights' various stories, had already filled her mind with quantities of genres. This only meant for momentary tranquility away from the daemons that surrounded wherever else she ventured. Sadly, though, there came little enjoyment in leaving the theatre, for a safe departure from it and to her safe haven meant trespassing on the giants' territory. And, quite honestly, she desired to live another day.

All remained silent among the hollowed deteriorations of the streets, though, the girl contemplated it was only minutes before the giants massacred her before reaching her destination. Nevertheless, she chances fate, charging out from the crushed doors of the theatre, and onto the concaved sections of concrete. Her attempting flee is seen before one approaching giant though, clarifying the discovery through its thundering bellow. The girl huffs loudly as she felt the traumatizing stomps of the horrific automation behind her, approaching ever so nearer to her insufficient self. This was expected though, for she knew such actions only met with death by these terrifying monsters. Though, equally expected, did this girl desired to continue on living. She swerves upon entering the corner of the neighboring streets, quickly confusing the giant into chasing after nothingness. The bellows and stampers of her pursuer echo away into the wind, and with it, a loud crash. She peers over the corner to spot the giant encased in rubble and heavy debris, incapable of it ever overcoming its encumbering prison. Therefore, she could only hope for death upon the malicious creature as she changes directions. Off she went to the clothing stores, in desire for clothing, to shield her from the chilling cold that soon met with the night.

The night roams on youthfully, still filled with the carnivorous bellows of the giants, and the whispering scampers of the small girl. She arrives to a quaint pawn shop, though not the type of store she had initially hoped to discover, it proved an adventure, ever the same. The store consisted of tattered clothes and odd antiquities that most would consider rubbish before more expensive objects. Though, this little shop, located near the outskirts of the city's more cultured and earlier districts, possessed what the others the girl had fled passed – originality. Certainly, she found clothing that she had rarely seen within other shops that she ventured in the past. A cottony, tan scarf, patterned with sawn patches of burnt sienna fleece; a gray sweater, with a strange, circular insignia and arrow illustrated into the center of it; a pitch-black skirt, rippled to where it resembled a shroud; long, cotton socks with crimson patterning across the top of them, and a pair of pitch-black slippers, connected across the top by silvery buckles resembling small crucifixes; all these tempted her to wear them over her bare, shivering body. She fits all the clothing over herself, though, having to wrap the scarf almost entirely around her torso. Despite the slight uncomfortableness, the young girl felt great satisfaction in the attire. So, with content and little worry in her thoughts, she travels back to the streets, and with a great relief, no giants to intrude upon her. What astounding luck she felt that very moment as she tread through their territory, bravely daring them to charge over her ecstasy.

However, though, the night-light disperses, nowhere to glisten the route to the girl's safe haven. She stops, examining what could cause this sudden darkening. There, though, with all her fears realized in full, the hulking colonies of giants swarmed around her, leering their grotesque, human faces above her. All feeling in her body left her, ensnaring her, slippers and all, upon the defaced concrete. Her eyes alone move to explore the details of the giants around her, only so she could pray within her thoughts that another trespasser garner their attention. No one came though. Not one of the giants bellow their thundering cries. The girl felt her death was assured, yet she could not help but sulk into tears. Even with her inability to speak proper speech, she cries and cries, echoing her remorseful requiem throughout the decrepit city. The girl's dirge is swallowed by the giants' encasing war cry though, declaring for their bestial indulgence to commence.

Bright is the moon that night though, finally allowing the night-light to shine down upon the dead city once again. The streets light with a nearly deceased life, a long-forgotten memory this dead city had left to rot away in its festering husk. Truly, the brilliant radiance of the night-light glistens wildly upon the city's streets, mantling over all existents caught in its ray. The streets ignite with a blinding crimson, splattering throughout the buildings, alleys, corners, districts, avenues. It mannered not where what laid, the crimson light overtook it effortlessly. The light glistens happily upon a bicameral set of red eyes, widening excitably as they stared upon the source of the light.

It was a man, standing amongst the giants that girded around the decrepit street, and with him, the small girl, safely raveled in the entanglement of his crimson rags. She feels their twirls wrap throughout her arms and legs, allowing her cradle within their warming mass. The girl gazes upwards at her savior, sighting that even his hair, eyes, and facial hair gleamed with the intensifying crimson light. She merely fell asleep within the man's sanguine ravels, as he approaches the giants, brandishing a heavy, war-bound sickle from the ravels, coated within falling droplets of crimson. The giants bellow their cries continuously as they stomp towards the encroaching man and the slumbering girl in his arm.

“Silence. Those do not speak which are carrion,” the man whispers calmly, stopping in foot as the giants enclose over him.

There is then no more of the organic monstrosities, their peccant craftsmanship and paganized encryptions to never peer upon again. The man only stood within his consuming sanguine, still continuing to cradle the dead city to bed for this nightfall. He walks over to the concaves of the street, placing the slumbering child back within her safe haven. A faint smile appears on the man's stoic face as he brushes his raveled hand through the girl's light-brown hair. He then rummages through the entanglement of his crimson ravels, and withdraws a black piece of paper. The paper is placed beside the girl's timid, curled hands, allowing easy discovery of it when she wakes. He brushes his fingertips through the girl's hair once last time, and walks out from the street crevasse, stumbling slightly from the slippery remains of one giant. Though, he reclaims his balance, giving a last glance at the girl with his blackened eyes and crimson irises. The man turns and sighs, lifting up his hand as rainfall washes his crimson illuminations away from the dead city. He strolls down the street as the rain pours, splashing over his body, slowly melting his body away as there is no more of him to be seen.

The sun rises over the horizon as the girl awakes, only to discover the black parchment the man had left her. She unravels the paper and peers at what it was. The parchment was of a playwright's, though, none of whom she remembered from the theatre. A signature is seen at the bottom of the script, which she glances closer upon to decipher through the mundane writing style. The author: Meltavius. She peers at the title of the script. It reads: “The Flower Among Carrion”. Lastly, she reads through the script, admiring the poetic portrayal of a dead civilization and how the only life within it a simple child, taking delight in the simple memories it still held onto. The small, weary girl reads the last line of the script, a grin appearing on her face as she finishes.

“This city fell into Hell and woke as it. So, it is only right that Hell help cradle it back to sleep.”

[Twilight's Child]

o_o Hate to see you write a long story...XD

It was good, I liked it~

[Cutie]

^^ me too!!!