Scarlett

Prologue

The city pulsated with raw heat beneath the neon veined strands of fake light. The garish jaundice of night filtered into the sodden pavements; mingling with the stark glare of governmental imposed streetlights — casting uneasy shadows and doubt across the oblique tarmac of the streets..

She was unperturbed. The blood red stain of her trench coat and her dark unwavering eyes were all she needed to survive. Alluring. An enigma. By day she was a phantom, moving in-between circles, building networks – dealing in women.

By night she was a predator – enacting their vengeance; stalking sterile conference rooms, haunting gaudy faux-gold executive lounges, infiltrating ostentatious hotel suites. Her confident, beguiling laugh, a siren call. She could extract information in a gentle stroke of a varnished nail tip. A contrived wink of an innocent obsidian eye. A seductress in red. Scarlett. Deep and dark and all kinds of imaginary bold - perfectly balanced with a soft, feminine gentility. Men fell into her dagger willingly. And she knew it.

Scarlett, a descendant of the original Red had evolved somewhat from her great Great-Grandmother, as is the nature of survival. The wolves of her predecessor’s time were far more suited to the sluice of men. Armoured and bound by an allegiance to the Kings of the realm. Whichever realm. The protectors always wielded a bow, taut with privilege. And stained with deceit and false ideals.

Those were entirely different times

She, who had once been the victim, enlivened with the blood of man – gorged readily on vicarious revenge - her red stained lips would rid the city of wolves. Her fangs undetected until it was too late. For them. Alas, the frailty of man. Their vermillion iron surged into the fabric of her coat. Feeding her lifeblood. A trophy of sorts.

What once had been little. Usurped. Had grown into a beast to fear, The protector of her maternity. The hunted. Hunting. A She-wolf reclaimed.

Chapter One

Once upon a time, as one may have come to expect, there lived a young dark haired girl. She was little - petite for her age one might say but she always had a knife edge to her. A penchant for the darkness, if you will. This, therefore, I am afraid, is not a fairy tale of damsels and Knights or princesses and fairies. There will be no battle of light and dark. Only the clashing blackness of deadened souls. There will be no survivors. Only victors. And victims. Who you choose to side with speaks more of you than it does of them.

It all began as fable usually does:

In a land far away. The forest was dark, melding in with the starless sky. The trees rustled softly, the night breeze breaking the unfathomable silence. It was no place for young women, especially those sneaking out to see their questionably older boyfriends.

Her coat, cardinal red, hid her black lace corset. She had styled the look with the sole purpose of tying in her newly acquired knee-high black platform boots. And of course, to lock in Chase. In her mind, she had completed the desired goal. 'Goth Chic', all the way, she thought as she carefully applied her now signature ‘Scarlett Moon’ double gloss lipstick. Puckering her lips to the bathroom mirror, she winked a heavily made-up hazel eye at her own visage before barking goodbye to her mother. She grabbed her rucksack, already filled with alibi cookies, and sauntered out of the rickety front door.

Living in such isolation on the edge of the Garnet forest, she had grown up well enough. Free to roam the land, assured in her footing. But it had also given her the wildness of the moon and a deep yearning for more than the damp earth. She would write of longing. Longing and death in tattered note books.

At barely sixteen, boyfriends were still forbidden, unfairly, she thought, considering it was, after all, the 21st century. But her mother, having given birth to her only child out of wedlock at the same age, wasn’t taking any chances. They had moved to the forest to escape the temptations and trappings of the city. A new life for the young protector and her baby daughter.

And so Scarlettt had resorted to her teenage ingenuity to bypass what she perceived as draconian smothering. And her Great-Grandmother was an expedient cover story.

She had met Chase at school. Well, not so much at, but after. He led the school clubs. Not long out of university, he had returned to Maikoh Heights, his old high school, to earn some much-needed cash before figuring out what to do with a philosophy degree.

In a moment of uncharacteristic spontaneity, she had signed herself up for ‘The Chess Society’. Having never been popular – well, in fact, having never really had a friend to speak of – she liked the idea of learning strategy and figured that life among the so-called ‘geeks’ might at least give her some semblance of social interaction, albeit slight.

He was the club manager. Of course. There was something about his dusky, contemplative eyes that had instantly tapped into her secluded spirit. He was both lost and found, together and broken in a way that she too had felt throughout her life in the forest. He was, for all intents and purposes, the only male she had ever encountered who had ever bothered to engage.

"Hey there, goblin girl," he had said, nonchalantly, easily. "Fancy a game?" tipping his pointed chin towards the table in the centre of the room. Others might have been offended by his choice of salutation. She, however was not.

He was all charm. Charm and a seductive poise that unnerved her.

Their relationship had played out on the monochrome squares, pawn for pawn, until the fall of the queen. She lost more than she won. In fact, she never won, but that only lured her more towards him. He made her feel as if she had. He made her feel like a worthy victor.

Chess became Chase, and lingering after evenings a little later than the rest, the inevitable came to pass.

Great-Grandmother became an expedient cover story. The end game. But not the entire game.

For months they had met at the same clearing. The inner atrium of the forest where the moon filters light into a cascade of gold, protected by a battalion of ancient oaks. They had carved their names in eternity on the heart of the largest trunk. They had talked sometimes, but often just held each other, his hands straying a little further each time. She had resisted.

But tonight, as they embraced under the shifting glow of darkness, she could feel his chest muscles vibrating under the strain of his heart. Pound for pound. Beating into her. More vigorously than usual. His eyes seemed more intense, alive somehow. Yet darker, his pupils dilated. Instinct told her to run. Innocence and delusions of love told her to stay.

Grabbing her violently, he tore wildly at her clothes, ripping her coat with his teeth; she felt them biting into her neck. Violent. Drawing blood. She screamed, but her voice gave way to the clutches of fear. Silence could not help her any more than noise. Not in the confines of this heart.

She shoved him with as much strength as she could find.

It wasn’t enough; he hurled her backward into their tree, smashing her head into the rugged bark.

As she fell, she saw it.

A glinting hematitian eye. The sharp steel of hungry fangs.

She scrambled frantically to her feet as the creature, with precision aim, hit its target.

Chase fell voicelessly to the furrowed ground.

She did not dare look back as she ran headlong through the blackness, her chest pulsating as her soul navigated the betrayal. She could not hear him behind her. Only her own feet pounding the shrouded earth, hacking through the reticence. And her pain. Caustic, screaming into nothing.

The route was subconsciously ingrained. Like a migrating bat, she flew past the elm that marks the beginning of Devil’s Lair, past the Torak bridge, and further through the sunflower orchard. Heads slumped forward under the penetrating gaze of an intoxicating moon.

It wasn’t until she reached the ramshackle wrought-iron gate that her thoughts turned breathlessly to Chase. She stopped herself before it could become cemented memory.

She stumbled painstakingly up the cobbled path before gently easing herself through the unlocked door.

As she tiptoed across the bare wood of the hallway floor, she noticed the faint flicker of candle flame coming from the doorway of the living room.

“I’ve been waiting for you, my dear.”

Inhaling, she composed herself, then walked towards the voice.

“Grandma Melangell: …" She stopped dead in her tracks. "What the f…" Hesitating, “W-what in the world happened to you?”

Her usually composed Great-Grandmother was splayed half on and off the paisley sofa. Her usually neat grey hair was dishevelled and falling across her forehead. Her left arm was bleeding into a floral cushion.

Her glasses were missing. And her hematitian eyes were frantic and glazed with an eerie red glow.

“I could say the same about you,” She retorted.

Scarlettt, desperately searching for an alternative truth where none was to be found, began to speak, "I..I.."

“Hush, child! Clean me up for heaven’s sake!” she held out a bony arm, “And when you’ve done that, clean yourself up!”

She did not move.

“But Grandm…”

“What, Grandma? Nothing happened is all. Remember this, dear If I teach you nothing at all before I pass on to the next. Remember this."

She sat bolt upright.

'Us women need to stick together. There’s wolves in them woods!”

The funeral had passed in an instant but the memory of her great-grandmother would last into eternity. The night she had saved her from Chase had been the last night she had breathed in this live. Scarlett’s tears of despair fell into the muddied hollow of her grandmother’s grave. Guilt mingling with regret; solidifying into resentment and fury.

She was no forest girl. Seeking solitude and the sanctuary of anonymity, much to her Mother’s angst, when her inheritance came through, she moved to the city as quickly as her knee high boots would carry her. Although she hadn’t quite realised it yet Scarlett had chess to play. And wolves to devour.

Chapter 2

Ideas originally inspired by a Vocal Social Challenge. which you can find here