Slipping

          It was a quiet day when the world slipped, not ending, but slowing down.

All progress slowly halted as the imagination of a race suddenly split open, pouring

out the collective horrors and superstitions, monsters and gods. Ghosts haunted

the streets, doomed to repeat their past mistakes. The dead rose from their graves

to wander about listlessly, wrecking a slow kind of havoc as they over-grazed their

food supply, living flesh. Nameless horrors crept up from the shores, tormenting and

killing all with their winding tentacles.

Corpses lay strewn about, bloated and rotten. Their living brethren bleeding into the

gutters.

No, The world did not end, but it would never be quite the same.

                The girl never makes much noise, never talking back to the man that

beats her  bloody, using her to take out his frustration , then feeling so mighty and

powerful. He uses her in a different way., His strong, firm arms forcing her to yeald

to his advances. She knows screaming would just make it worse. She quietly

contemplates how she ended up with him, this utterly human monster. She thinks

of better days and better men, now long gone, only serving to remind her of her fate.

She thinks back to how he used to be, this older, violent man. 

At first he was exciting, his  accent and  suits, wowing her with his charm, buying

her affection with expensive gifts. The other, younger man she grew up with seemed

so boring then, so plain.  A painful gasp leaves her lungs, then she

resumes control, distancing herself from the pain, remembering. The younger man

proposed to her. Before Frederick came, she would have accepted, but now

everything in her old life was dull. The wedding was large, and expensive, she could

almost ignore the sad pangs she felt when Joseph, her ex lover, did not show up.

Soon after that, Frederick moved his new wife to his own manor, a large house on a

small island. The house was beautiful ,and for a time the girl was happy, until his 

business started to go downhill, and he grew increasingly violent.

Suddenly, she’s awake. Her husband seems to have finished up, leaving a note

taped onto her bloody cheek. She reads the note, nodding silently. She sets about

her assigned tasks, cleaning up the house until by lucky chance she comes

across a scrap of envelope, dumped near a trash can. On this scrap she see’s

“Maria Espio”, the rest of her name cut off. This letter was addressed to her. She

spends frantic minutes searching for the rest, finding it in the trash, she pieces it

together and reads..

“Dear Maria,
I don’t know if you’ve been getting these, but I hope you answer me soon. I’ve been at the yard for years now, sending letters to you’re family and friends to get your address. When I do eventually get it, you don’t even respond.. I guess you’re still happy with Frederick, so I wont write you back again. After so many tries, I think its been enough. In the very least, though, I had hoped you’d visit me. your husband is rich, he could fly you out to California to see an old friend, I think.
Sincerely,          
Joseph.”

She reads this letter over and over, tears forming in her eyes as she realizes that

he had not Forgotten her. She slowly comes to a decision. She vows to leave this

island.

She’s heading for California.