A Summers Evening and an Autumn Morn.

(Read the post 'On a Summers Day' first. Then this one'll make ALOT more sense.)




The body was Andrew McPhearson, the child, one Julie Andrews, and enither were the same. One, obviously, went to the morgue to be identified by dental records-- that's all they could use -- the other went catatonic, in order to save itself the mind rejected the cruel world around it and created one of its own devising.

Outwardly she was a silent, simple girl, no interest in interaction of any sort, she ate when forced to and broke her mothers heart by refusing to look at her, but through, always through, fixed on some distant point where crimson-black blood pooled, where dark blow flies droned and the sickly sweet scent of decay filled the air, where all the noise in the world couldn't break the shattering silence of an unvoiced scream.

The media behaved as it is wont to do, flocking and fluttering, scavenging and prying, delving sticky fingers into badly healed -- barely begun to heal -- wounds and pulling the ugly, foul, tittilating bits to a harsh and unforgiving spotlight. As expected, the summers day, bright with life, was replayed, repeated, displayed in a thousand different ways until public opinion deemed the entire thing a hoax, just some family's craving to be on television.

Never mind the shattered family of the deceased, never mind the previous happy, healthy child driven to seek her own world. Neve rmind the anguish the fluttering, craving, prying, uncaring fingers -- and eyes -- of the media caused. It was all a hoax, a plot, a conspiracy, a trick.

The medias loss of interest was a blessing that came too late -- too late for Andrew's family to have the required privacy to mourn, too late for little Julie, who having to relive, and then witness it from a dramatised perspective, listen from a thousand different mouths -- why would anyone desire to remain in such a heartless world? So little Julie refused to make even the little progress she had out of her self-imposed prison, retreating in so far that she barely had any desire to eat, each mouthful swallowed was a hard won victory.

Life went on, as its wont to do, two months passed, three, and the media forgot about Julie Andrews and Andrew McPhearson. Summer changed to Autumn, dusky and brown from bright gold.

It was a crisp Autumn morning, the mist was clinging to the ground and every breath fogged in the air. The scent of winter was in the air, it was a taste on the back of the tongue, crisp, icy, chillingly close with the illusionary softness of snow. Rosy-cheeked from the cold, laughter and playing in the piles of fallen leaves, the child, a little boy, six or seven, ran behind a tree, out of his parents' concerned and watchfully indulgent gaze. All was well.

A peircing scream split the air. Followed by two more, then naught but helpless, hopeless sobbing.

Rushing to look, the mother added her screams to the shattered peace, before dropping to her knees to embrace and rock her sobbing son.

Strung out between two trees in a crude X, head lolled back in the limp, absolute relaxation of the dead and unconsious, was another body.

(Warning for those with tender stomaches, it gets graphic)

The skin, rather than removed completely, had been peeled back to expose the muscle and sinew beneath. Strung out, stretched thin by fish-hooks through the nearly transparant flesh, the light shining through, illuminating veins, capillaries, arteries, trails of brilliant red -- fire-engine red -- blood trailed down from the wounds, slowly seeping lower with each painful second.

The internal organs had been painstakingly, lovingly, removed and strung out, netted and woven among the branches of the two trees, the metres of intestine almost braided, intricate, lace, the stomach caught in the dark grey webbing. The lungs were pulled out of the chest cavity, the ribcage pulled open like some glistening, banded, red and white butterfly, the sternum cut clean through. The heart stretched out, the lungs likewise exposed, two pink sacks hanging, stretched in the air. In this mass was the body, the skin a backdrop for the macabre web, where the own internal organs were the bands that trapped the 'fly'.

It was too cold for the flies, so their droning swarm was absent, no moving black tide of hungry bodies swarming, moving, writhing over flesh and skin alike. The blood dripping, slowly seeping down the skin to plop ever so slowly onto the dry leaves was still wet, still fresh, still warm, still flowing. The strung out, web-captured body jerked and a helpless, hopeless whimper of pain sounded, silencing the sobbing into a gasp of horrified shock.

"Oh Dear God, it's still alive!"