Just a little belated something...

Author's Note:  I usually write a scary short story every Halloween to celebrate the day. (Yeah. This would be something I wrote for fun, not out of angst/trying to resolve complicated emotions.) This was this year's story. I know it's a tad late, but I've been out of sorts lately and really haven't been able to focus on writing. Enjoy! (P. S. Forgive the missing word in the meme. I didn't make it.)

La Douleur Exquise

The dun of an autumnal twilight streams languidly through the tree branches above.

Twilight is peculiar this time of year. Rather than truncating the colors of the scenery, the dusk turns the landscape into something more earthy and ethereal, almost sensual and decadent, a sort of richly muted extravaganza for the eyes. The cool, crisp air takes on a heavenly, yet unplaceable quality that is most apparent as the sun wanes. The atmosphere is alive with a moving, yet unknowable energy that is as enticing and electric as a forbidden lover's French kiss.

I sit at the base of a denuded oak on a soft velveteen carpet of polychromatic leaves and listen. I don't know what I am straining to hear, but I know I will recognize the sound the moment its decibel levels are finally audible to my limited human ears.

I strain myself to sit even more still than the hulking tree behind me out of fear it--whatever it is--will be scared off and not come to me.

It has to come to me, I know not why, so I must be very, very placid, even moreso than a boulder.

This thing--whatever it is--controls my fate from here on. 

I belong to it now.

I know not why I was chosen for it, but I know it is not my place to question why any more.

I belong to it, and that is my fate.

Many hundreds of years ago, it was considered a great honor for a young woman to be chosen by it. They had elaborate ceremonies to honor it because they believed that it brought the rains that allowed the crops to grow.

But I know better.

It controls no part of the natural world. It is merely hungry and lusty, as it has always been. And always will be.

As civilization progressed onward to the modern era, people stopped believing in it altogether and young women were no longer sent to it.

But it is very patient. 

It waited for me to come along.

I instinctively knew about it from a very young age. I knew I was intended for it when I came of age.

I have come willingly.

Suddenly, though I do not recall hearing a sound, my ears prick up.

At last. It has come.

It comes from behind a neighboring tree and gently steps towards me. I almost giggle aloud when I see it because it has taken the form of a completely nude man, even though in reality it has no actual sex. It is being thoughtful and trying not to frighten me by taking a human form. It is expressing its gratitude that I have come. 

All this I understand at a primal level--it has no need to communicate with me. I know. I just know.

I begin to disrobe. 

When I have completely disrobed, it begins to approach me. I hold my arms out to embrace it. 

It walks into my embrace.

When we finally touch, the sensation is simultaneously the most wonderful and the most horrible thing I have ever experienced:  Nausea, dizziness, bone-crushing pain, burning, relief, relaxation, ecstasy, inner peace--all of those and many more. I gladly yield to it.

The next day, some deer hunters find my disemboweled body in the woods.

The case will never be solved.