Two Wrinkles In Time

It is pointless to run, my darling, because sixty seconds ago, I will kill you.

My blade will have sliced reality open right in front of you. It will have first pierced it as it would a bed sheet left hanging to dry, flapping in the wind on a Sunday afternoon. But the metal will have drawn a line in the air that the ghostly tear will have followed. Then I, La Dyablès, machete firmly in hand, will have emerged from what your mind, at the time, could only interpret as the other side of here—whatever that means to you. I know. I have seen that look on the faces of countless unlucky… clients. You will not have been the first nor the last to try and reneg on a riches for soul contract only to present this visage to me when I come to collect.

You will have gasped because, to your knowledge, I am—or was—but really, still am standing behind you. “How…” is the only sound I will have allowed to escape your lips.

That rip through existence will have been large enough for you to see the scene on the other side, behind me—the place you would think of as there. You will have inspected another you through it, as if on a 3D movie screen behind a door that is not supposed to be open. In this there, everything will have looked just like in your here but timed in reverse and unfolding twice as fast.

You will see yourself unfall, unstricken by my blade, sticky blood releasing the debris it gathered on the ground, running back onto your clothes, unstaining them, flowing up into your undying, unmangled arteries. The shock on your face, however, identical… and so delectable.

The gash will have closed again behind me before the feeling of confusion will have had a chance to leave you and you have time to settle again in your here.

Forgive me in advance—no pun intended—if I enjoy this more than you believe I should. I am the She-Devil, after all. Dealing violent death is more than a task. It is an art, a calling.

“How…” There you go, as I promised.

Blades rummaging through your bowels, from the front and the back—where I both stand—I will cackle, lick my lips, penetrate your gaze and suck the essence of your soul, like the marrow of a juicy soup bone that has stewed for hours in a meaty broth. You will be so delicious. I will take my time with you. But do not worry. There is no pain—not much. I will have been too quick for you to realize that the monstrous beauty that I am can stitch and cut the fabric of time. I do it with as much ease and pleasure as what I will be doing to you next. You will still be held firmly by the claws of stupefaction. There will be no time for you to feel anything. Time only stretches on my end.

In the few seconds you have left, the only thing you will be able to take away from this—my sweet, delicious victim—is that there is no outrunning me.

Look, I am devil of my word. You have been dead all this time. No pain.