FF - Prequel

This is the prequel to ‘Red and White’ – last weeks Friday Flash. Although it stands alone I think. 

 

As his heart was wrenched from his ribcage his eyes never left her mouth. The delicate arch of her full red lips as they formed that smug smirk. Not a word was exchanged, her expression said it all. 

 

Some sense of ice descended through him, within the blink of an eye he was entirely in control. No notice was paid to the tear trailing down his burning cheek as his feet carried him to her. She didn’t miss a beat nor bat an eyelid as he covered the distance with an assured ease. Her eyes never left his face as she was enthralled by the contrast laid before her. His calm demeanour betrayed by the flush upon his cheeks. Her arrogance was her downfall, he had always said it would be. A small smiled flashed in his eyes as he plunged his dagger into her heart. A fitting death he felt. 

 

The ruby droplets pooled in the hollow at the bottom of her once elegant neck. Her eyes wide with shock, quickly turned glassy as her soul descended into the pits of hell. He allowed the corpse of his former wife to slump onto the floor, his face fixed in a rigid blankness. The numbness had flown through his very being before settling in his bones. Where his heart had been, not sat his last shred of dignity. 

 

Blinking, the realisation dawned him. He opened his lips a fraction to breathe once more. The cold air did nothing more than fill his lungs, his sense of life had taken off into the darkness with a fleet-footed lover. Gazing at the body before him his mind began calculating the consequences. His rushed maths told him he had no more than six breaths before his wife’s lover and her men crashed into his solitude. On the fifth breath he turned to the door, slowly drawing his sword as the heavy wooden door splintered inwards. Some part of him smiled as he thought how the most dangerous enemy is he with nothing left to lose. 

 

The door had barely struck the floor before the hoard of men charged into the room. Each of them covered head to foot in white, supposedly a sign of purity in their knowledge and support. Thoughts ceased to migrate through his head as the men ran towards him. None of them had been trained properly, the white silks blurred into soft white fleeces of lambs to the slaughter right before his eyes.

 

His cold blade slid through the warm, firm flesh of the first man. His jaw slackened as blood slowly crept around the sword before his withdrew it with a satisfying wet noise. The former king found some odd sense of pleasure in sating his blood lust on the pathetic welps. Unlike them, he had fought for and earnt his place. His movements were smooth and assured like a raging torrent slicing through a soft green valley.

 

The whelps didn’t last long, their muscles were small and their bones frail. The room was filled with the crunch and crack of victory before the last gasps of weakness. He took his time with the last one, enjoying the sticky blood streaming down the ‘pure’ white. The laboured breathing as he gazed upon the grey, blood smeared bundle of his own organs lay besides him.

 

The king sighed softly and picked his way across the room before returning to his throne. 

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