The Night on the Hill
When the night falls, monsters begin to call.
Echoing caws break out of the inky sky, a deadly warning dispersed over the dormant town. A murderer is at large tonight, missing from the conical-roofed prison and found on the wooded hill.
Like the crest of a wave hitting the shoreline, Melia bolts downhill, breath as wild as a tornado. Frosty air thrusts in between her trembling lips like a blade, each inhale a cut into her lungs. Her tousled hair flutters and slaps across her face in a sudden breeze. A sloppy prison uniform hangs from her bony shoulders, its red-stained shirt smelling of rust; on her feet, a pair of sandal slippers are scraped torn and weighed down by gravel. Wrists and ankles unshackled, she’s been fleeing like a terrified mouse since sunset, but the hill never ends under her feet.
***
Before daylight perished through the line of barred windows, patrolling footsteps awakened Melia as they clanked past each cell in the hallway. Huddled in a corner, she squinted at a strip of shadow creeping into the doorway, her ghost-white face glowing amber under the oil lamp dangling from the ceiling.
Unchained, the iron grid-door creaked open, revealing on the floor a goblet pushed inside between two sinewy hands, a grotesque vessel carved with claws bending on its bowl.
“Drink up the rum,” The Man left the order, his eyes narrowed and his lips slanted into a smirk.
“What is it?” she asked, her lashes flicking up as she scanned his ashen face.
“A promise of liberty,” he croaked a response and bent a finger, its crooked nail tinkling on the claws.
At the warden’s departure, Melia crawled to the door, sniffing as a rich, sweet aroma wafted through whirling steam. Ninety-day confinement without a taste of liquor was a torment for an alcoholic. Nevertheless, life taught her the lesson that the more special a thing, the heftier the price one ought to pay for it. She pondered the authenticity of the drink, her fingers quivering around the stem, and all the while, watched the liquid glint in the silver bowl incessantly flashing a cold light.
Hand tilted, she took a few sips, her tongue thrilled in the silky texture that washed nerves off from her mind. Walls reeled and blurred her sight; she floated like a drifting cloud. Nausea set in and pulled from her mouth a trail of red fluid tainting the shirt. She collapsed on the floor, her eyelids drooping over a last glimpse of the flickering oil lamp.
When the sun sank, Melia woke under a twisted birch on the hill, spine pressing against a crack in the bark.
***
Night sweeps across the hill like a charcoal drape. Melia finally reaches the edge, a high cliff facing down to total darkness. With each step, she gingerly treads on the rocky surface. The dark hill reminds her of Leana, her sister and an ex-lover’s fiancée.
That night when two sisters stood on the hill, the same gloomy shade hung in front of them. The diamond engagement ring on Leana’s finger glared into Melia’s eyes like a sharp white ray.
“I’m so sorry,” Leana apologized.
“Don’t worry.” Melia smiled, giving a little pat on her back. “I want you to be happy, even if you’ve decided to be with my man.”
“You’re such a sweet sister.” Leana’s eyes glittered with tears.
Below the surface of Melia’s merciful gesture lay a shattered heart no amount of glue could fix. Her face contorted and twitched like a snapping rubber band. The gentle hand on Leana’s back became heavy, heavy, heavier.
Rocks crackled beneath Leana’s feet, a raspy noise followed only by a wail carrying down the cliff.
The mere thought of Leana makes Melia shudder, cold sweat covering her forehead. In the wood behind her, crows cry a mournful melody while they scratch across rustling leaves. Beetles click their wings and strum the grass, wriggling behind rocks and striking discordant squeaks. As crows shake off feathers and soar into the sky, hisses arise from birches, once, twice … a ragged whisper drilling in the silence. She stands frozen, breath pausing, not long before spying a snake twining around a trunk. Terror hidden deep in her throat forces out a scream, drawing threads of icy torchlight piercing branches and twigs. The most dreadful sound arrives, approaching closer by second — not that of nocturnal monsters, but human footsteps.
“Found her!” a hoarse voice shouts from a distance.
Melia remembers the voice all too well, from the night she was chased running on the hill to earlier in the day she was given the rum. A gush of red fluid floods her mouth and chin and dampens the shirt. She sticks out her tongue and gives it a few licks, savouring its metallic taste while thinking of the sweet rum — a promise of liberty.
Steps pattering on the grass rush through whooshing winds. Melia stumbles along the edge, heart throbbing and trickles of sweat running down her cheeks. More fluid erupting from her mouth drenches the uniform and soils the ground. Stones and sand sneaking into the slippers bite her feet, flipping the frail body over in the air. Trees, rocks, hill … all rise above her and fade into the night. Leana’s voice echoes at the bottom, “Welcome to Hell.”
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