DEMENTED | Romance | Fantasy | Slight Thriller

Chapter Twenty: Memoriam in morte

Ebony wasn't sure if her flashbacks truly had been flashbacks or not. After all, it was the Goddess's doing. Who was to say if she did or not? It was all her game, regardless.

As was her sister Crimson's. She doubted Crimson would've decorated the castle in her honor, but she surely must've been pleased at the thought of Ebony squirming in uncontrollable disgust.

Keeping her eyes to the stone floor, she tried not to think about the blood-paint and moved on, running her hand along the grand staircase's banister for guidance.

She chose the left wing first. It held her childhood in its walls–the sounds of her mother reading to her and Crimson as they fell into deep sleep, the harrowed corners she'd wet with her tears. Distant memories flooded through her as she traced her fingers across the intricate detailings on the walls, worn from all the times she'd done the same when she was much younger. She felt a twinge of nostalgia and moved her hand away from the memory.

Down the hall, at the left corner, was her childhood playroom. This had been where most of the stories held their weight, and more were created. It had been the room where, not too long ago, she'd lost her true sister. Only a mere shadow of what she'd been remained, and it hurt Ebony indescribably so.

Shaking, she forced herself to open the door, and gasped. Unlike the rest of the palace that was covered in blood-like paint, this one room remained the same. Untouched, to the point where cobwebs clung to her mother's rocking chair and was white with dust and... she could still see glass on the floor–the same glass that had once pierced Crimson's head.

That was more than she could handle. A shudder ripped through her, and she ran back down the hall–away from the memories, away from the pain–the past that consumed her.

But not all her memories had been cruel to her mind. She could remember the times when her mother still resided in the land of the living with a sort of tenderness. It had been a time when her father had been sane, and, like her sister in the past, could once live without alcohol. She looked onto those memories fondly, because little did she know back then that those would be the only times she and her family would ever be happy together again.

But that room... that room she dared not take a step into. It was where everything that had once been right turned so, so wrong. It was where both her father and Crimson had lost their minds.

She had a headache, just then. It wasn't the kind where it remained a constant state of discomfort, a linear spectrum of pain, but rather an inconsistent one–one that grew and then waned and then grew back again. She could sort of see the red on the walls shriveling into a mottled brown before her gaze, revealing their innermost secrets and knowledge for her to know. The wallpaper in the rooms she passed seemed to be peeling, revealing rotting yellow walls.

It was all sad in a way she couldn't quite explain. Depression made it a shadow of itself. The once glorious and fortified palace was crumbling. It was becoming the ground.

She paused at the first room of the left wing–her mother's weaving room. She'd forgotten about it. Entirely. It was strange how she could've forgotten such a crucial detail in the time she'd known her mother. A sense of guilt washed over her. She felt ashamed to have forgotten–she was losing a hold of her mind.

When her mother; Amaris, wasn't tending to her children or the Absinthian royal court, she was in her weaving room. Tapestries had always been her specialty, not court affairs–and King Reznor had loved her for it. Every time she bore a child, she wove a tapestry for what she saw in them. For Crimson, it was power laced with addiction and strong leadership. For Ebony, it was selflessness–with guilt overshadowed by madness. While her prediction for Crimson had been true, Ebony's was off. She never understood where madness would play a role in her life–she'd been far from it, so she thought. And she created a third tapestry, or, to be more precise, her first–a swirling tapestry of blue and white, which she addressed as hopelessness and lost dreams. It had been for her first child–a boy, born into a world his eyes would never see. She'd known it even as she worked on the tapestry in her early stages of pregnancy: her first child would be stillborn.

The last tapestry she wove was for herself. She had been healthy then, the motherly glow still flush in her cheeks and lines of laughter on her face, not of pain or tears. But she wove the tapestry so unlike her at the time–despair. Where death soon followed.

They hung in her room now, lifeless, as if the vibrant room served a dual purpose as the gallows.

Ebony felt an urge to walk in, and this she did–although this room held memories, they weren't her worst, and this pain was bearable. It brought color to her vision and deepened her mind's capacity. It helped her think.

Queen Amaris had also seen it fit to teach her daughters the woven craft. Although neither possessed the same level of talent and prophecy, Ebony could still recall how to properly thread strings through the large looms and create the image she saw in her head. This had been her pastime before her banishment to the Chasmic Absinthe–whereas her sister had wanted to become like her father in politics, Ebony had wanted to become like her mother in skill. Years of practice did not give her her mother's ability, like Crimson with her father's political schemes, but she was extremely well-versed in its knowledge.

Everything she did before her was a blur. She chose the colors that spoke to her, and excluded the ones that didn't. She wasn't sure of the image she was creating, but each thread she wove in and out worked on its own, eventually creating a blur of color. Her movements were unscripted, but sure and precise, the technique impeccable. For hours she worked on the tapestry, feeling nothing, thinking of nothing–simply doing. It was an instinct. It flooded naturally through her mind and body and hands and onto the loom. Night grew into day and she could feel her stomach rumbling, but she continued. If this was how Crimson felt with her ichor addiction, Ebony could understand the appeal–simply threading away and thinking of nothing in particular–it was beautiful.

It was a few days later when she finally stopped, the color and image flying out of her system. The tapestry was complete.

To say it looked beautiful was an understatement. It was truly exquisite–a work of dark colors transforming into light and seeming the exact opposite all at once. Yet there was something equally haunting about it, strange and disturbing behind its lovely shell. The tapestry left Ebony with both awe and horror.

Then–something happened. Something that had never happened to her before. It was quick, but loud, and a word spoke out to her that brought her to her senses immediately. It sent a shock through her veins.

The word was Death.

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Word count: 1212 words!!

Still keeping up an inconsistent uploading schedule lol