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author: laetitia adams contributor

Creative Writing

A pretty pen for pretty words. Credit: Joel Montes de Oca via Flickr

The consequence of truth

She was wearing a white dress, knee-length and lacy. There were no shoes on her small feet and her creamy legs were bleeding. Down her right arm, symbols were carved, ancient Mandarin unless he was mistaken, and the blood from the wounds trailed down, down, down to the feathers she held in her hand and dripped onto the grass. The feathers were matted and looked like she had pulled them right out of the bird – a peacock, he was fairly certain. Her left arm sported a large bite that looked in need of stitches. In her left hand was a large striped horn that had a piece of glass set into the end. The glass had swirls of metal surrounding it and he realized that she was holding a magnifying glass.

“Who are you?” he asked, careful to keep his sword between himself and the girl. She was frail looking to be sure, but he hadn’t survived this long by taking things at face value.

“Io sono la verita,” she started in a language he didn’t know and her voice was ancient. I am truth, he suddenly understood and he almost dropped his sword. “E io sono qui per aiutarvi a vedere,” she continued and a moment later the translation came to him. And I am here to help you see.

“There’s nothing I need—” he tried but she didn’t let him finish, cementing his conviction that he should have run when he first saw her. She raised the glass and shot a beam of light at him. He didn’t move fast enough and it caught him in the shoulder. Fierce pain bloomed from the spot and he turned to run. When he tried to move his legs, they didn’t respond and he fell flat on his face.

“Silly little crumpet,” said a new voice, and he lifted his head. He saw a man, a very beautiful man, but his vision began to grey before he could really focus. “There’s no point in trying to outrun the truth.”

“Who are you?” he mumbled and thought he saw the man smile.

“Oh my little gumdrop, do try to use your brain before you’re completely useless. What always accompanies the truth?”

He tried to think, he really did, but his last thought before he lost consciousness was that his shoulder was going to hurt like Hell when he woke up.

He’d regret the wasted moment in the morning.

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