The Becoming of Anaria

The night was dark and overcast as Anaria stepped into the street. Her life had been one misadventure after another. She sighed and looked around. The street was quite empty; her luck was in once again. Nothing ever worked the way she planned it. Any other night the street was teeming with life. Cars speeding past at speeds that should have gotten them ticketed. However, tonight it was quiet, eerily so. She hitched another despairing sigh and stepped back onto the sidewalk. There was no use in hanging around. "Anaria, you terrible little wretch. Not even death wants you in his embrace."

The night had been still only the slightest traces of a breeze caressed her heated skin. Something was amiss though, she could feel it. Anaria Ellis had been born with a gift. Most thought of it as a gift, Anaria thought it a curse. It seemed to be her only reason for existing. It was the only reason anyone else would bother to associate with her. She knew this all too well, a stronger person might have refused them. She kept helping the ones who came to her just to appease her loneliness even if only for a few minutes. SStrange it was, she could heal others but not herself. Then again, perhaps there was no cure for what ailed her. Loneliness was a cruel thing, the joke of a deity with a warped sense of humor.

She held her arms out at her side mimicking a crucified body. "This is me.," she whispered. "This is Anaria, Haven't I suffered these wounds enough? Haven't I been hanging here long enough? Hanging in this oblivion." She paused listening as something shifted in the darkness. "Does this mean you are giving me the relief I want?" The answer came literally with the breeze. It picked up suddenly though she still heard the sound of something rustling. Something winged and, her instinct told her, ultimately evil.

She began to walk faster. Though she wanted to die, welcomed it in fact, she was afraid of anything evil. She had been brought up a Catholic. She did not believe in the teachings of the church, she did believe there were distinct good and evil deities. She was almost running by the time she reached her home afraid to turn around knowing she would see the fiend behind her. Knowing it would have glowing eyes and talons of steel. She managed to get the key in the lock despite her shaking hands and hurried into the house locking the door behind her. "Anaria? Is that you?" a voice called. An old voice, one ancient as time she supposed. It was the voice that belonged to her burden.

“Yes Auntie, it's me." she called as she removed her jacket. "Great." she whispered. "A forty-five year old woman still lives with her spinster aunt. Great aunt even." she spat. She paused as she thought over her last statement. She was forty-five and never married, not even engaged, ever. Not one man had ever thought enough of her to make her any proposal. Didn't that make her a spinster too? At least her aunt had been beautiful once and had many men and proposals. However, she had loved only one of them and when he died well...here she was some sixty years later still alone.

Her aunt came hobbling into the room despite Anaria's dismay. The sound of her cane on the hardwood floors maddeningly deafening. "Where did you go? I thought I told you that young couple was coming by to see if you could help the wife. Such a nice young woman, too bad the cancer got to her so young."

"Yeah too bad." Anaria echoed. Who cares? She thought wildly. Who cares at all? Her mind raged. She wanted to die and death did not have time for her why should she keep him from anyone else? She though bitterly. "So, did they come?" she asked impatiently.

"He called but I had to tell him you weren't here. You could hear the disappointment in his voice. He's lost his hope, Anaria. Without hope you don't have squat." the old woman observed. Anaria nodded and mounted the stairs. "You going to bed?" the old woman asked. She seemed offended. Anaria nodded not wishing to honor such a stupid question with an answer. The old woman hobbled back into the den mumbling to herself, her cane striking the floor harder than usual.

Anaria pushed open the door to her bedroom and peered inside. The fright she had received outside came rushing back to her. Everything in the room was just as it should have been. Anaria had always been very orderly. She firmly believed everything had a place. She stepped into the room, and closing the door began to remove her clothing. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She was not so bad, nice curving figure, chestnut hair, and dark brown eyes. Yet she was rather plain and that was her downfall of all the assets she had, the one thing she did not have was the ability to stand out. She blended in with the masses until she was just another face in the plain crowd.

Now she was forty-five. Did this, in fact, make her a spinster like her aunt? What were the requirements for being a spinster? She wondered. She ran her fingers over her cheek thoughtfully; though she was plain, her skin was young and flawless. She did not appear her age. She fancied she appeared closer to twenty-five than forty-five.

She turned back the bed and climbing in wondered if the fear she had felt on the way home had any basis or if she scared herself. She pulled the blankets tightly about her and allowed her mind to roam freely. It would be the last time it did so.

A chill in the air brought her fully awake a short time later. She sat up and looked around the darkened room. The window was wide open. Odd, she had not noticed before. She threw back the blankets and started to get up. It was far too cold out to leave it open. She assured herself this was the reason and it had nothing to do with her fright before. She was suddenly and viciously thrown back upon the bed by something yet unseen. She opened her mouth to scream but it seemed all the air suddenly was sucked from her lungs.

Her eyes darted wildly around the room seeking the source of her ailment. The sound of wings reached her, softly and faintly they moved, leathery and rustling like old paper. A scent permeated the air, one sweet, almost sickeningly so. She heard her name whispered distinctly. "Anaria." the voice was sultry and low but not at all human. The voice was ethereal and neither male nor female, androgynous. The word formed within Anaria's mind.

She felt fingers caressing her skin, slowly tantalizingly. They moved over her breasts and along her stomach. She held her breath. She had never felt such sensations before. The invisible fingers touched her vagina, messaging the opening, feeling the soft, curling hair, exploring the entrance to her nether regions. Anaria smiled ruefully at the thought, no longer were they barren and unattended. Fear crept through her as her situation emblazoned itself upon her consciousness.

The fingers caressed her vulva before driving themselves deep inside her. She moaned despite her fear. She felt the lips of her lover touching her own softly, tenderly. The tongue slipped into her now anxious mouth and entwined with her own. Her entire body was alive with sensations. For once, she was living instead of existing. She knew on sheer instinct she had been chosen by a lover far more powerful and alluring than any ordinary man. The quiver subsided as her fear abated.

A sudden blinding pain invaded her bliss as her lover fully penetrated her. It was like hot coal within her. Her abdomen seemed on fire as the fingers drove deeper. She imagined she could feel it touching her ovaries, burning her femininity from her. She sought to scream again but the tongue slithered further down her throat. No longer pleasant it seemed cold and snakelike. The pain continued for what seemed hours then abruptly ceased. She struggled to breathe, the white-hot heat still burning deep within her. Her stomach hurt badly and her breasts felt burnt. Her eyes watered ceaselessly and her back screamed in agony.

She sat bolt upright screaming in undaunted agony. Her back felt as though the very skin was being ripped away and her eyes burned as though assaulted by embers. Her mouth tasted of rotten eggs and her senses were besieged by a sickening odor, she was certain it was coming from her. The room seemed darker, ominously so. The warm night suddenly became inky and menacing. Despite the pain in her eyes, she noticed she could see minute objects about the room with painful clarity. Another scream arose in her throat and the darkness pulled her into its murky depths.

Awareness came slowly and gradually as if arising from a body of water a level at a time. The first thing she was aware of was the pain in her back. It was gone, completely dissipated in its stead she felt something...something attached to it.

She forced herself off the bed and looked into the mirror. What she saw should have sent her into fits of sheer terror. Instead, she smiled at her reflection. Her glowing eyes fiery in the darkness, her breasts firmer than ever. Her hair had taken on a new sheen and was so much longer, hanging down her back, framing a face that was hideously alluring. She reached up to touch her face and noticed her nails. While they were not steel, talons they now were. She smiled once again revealing razor sharp teeth. Unfurling her leathery wings, she touched the glass one last time before turning to meet her maker, her lover, the unseen one.