Eurydice Rising: In the Hall of the Dead
This is a “Write or Die” response to The Darkness Descending
A tiny robin trilled his cheery greeting from the whitewashed windowsill. His red breast thrummed in the soft, pearly glow of the new-born day.
Two bluebirds and a Jenny Wren warbled from the shelter of fat, pink buds in the nearby cherry tree. Their delicate harmonies twined and blended and rose in the crystalline air as palest, rose-tinged streamers heralded the gilded dawn.
The verdant garden awoke, unfolded around them.
Petal and leaf, flower and bud unfurled. Lush, mossy dells bejeweled with dew opened to the warm-fingered rays of the rising sun, swelling, rising, yearning upward like a woman welcoming her lover.
Meg jerked awake, shivering. Awareness returned.
The anemic, pencil-thin beam of light tracking across her eyelids faded into bitter day along with the vivid, Disney-esque dream it had triggered.
Dream? Nightmare, perhaps…
The chill of the dank concrete floor beneath her trembling body bit deep into bone and sinew.
And the lone window in her nine-by-nine cell did little to brighten Meg’s surroundings. A heavy metal grating bolted into the frame kept her from…
