“Whimsical washings my dear, for there is no more,” he says with an awkward smile. “You just need to realise it was never going to go your way.”

She continues to stare down at the coffee cup, ignoring his words.

“You can play the card that was dealt to you, and attempt nirvana, or you can do this a be damned!”

“Will you relent? Will you be still?”

He stares silently towards her, while she continues to watch the cup. “I am like the ice of these walls dear child, I will not relent, and I will never be still!”

“Then you will be forever damned, for this is not just a moment that will be left from your memories, it will be a forever that will never be.” she spits with venomous intent, as she casts a glare of hatred up from the cup and into his awaiting eyes.

He allows a wry smile the crawl across his lips like a caterpillar and strokes his lengthy beard with pompous pride. “You show such aggression for someone so young, and clearly out of hope. What makes you think you can disrespect me so flippantly?”

She laughs, “I’m not trying to disrespect you, and if that is what you feel I have done, then I apologise with a heavy heart, for my words were meant as a…” She doesn’t get to continue her sentence as he is upon her.

The table and cup are knocked to the ground as if they were leaves in the wind, while he tightens his grip around her throat and hisses like a snake. “I have given thee more space than I have any other. I have allowed you to live when others would be dead long ago. I stand here, with my hands around your throat and finally feel like I am who I am supposed to be, once again. Tell me why I should allow you to live? Tell me why I shouldn’t curse you to the longevity of a forever trapped inside this tomb, like I have the rest of these pathetic lost souls?” he growls through clenched teeth, as he lifts her high into the air with one hand, and gestures around the room at the silent spectres that stand watching, with the other.

Her eyes bulge from their sockets, and she at first allows herself to lie limp in his arms, but as the seconds tick over to minutes, she feels a hopelessness take over, and she frantically tries to free herself from his grip. As she lets out gasps of fevered desperation, she frantically tries to pull his fingers from her throat but finds it almost impossible. She then tries to claw at his face, digging at his eyes, sobbing uncontrollably.

He smiles wryly and pulls her to him. “You see who holds the power now wench?” he hisses as he licks the tears from her face and tosses her to the ground.

She gasps desperately, dragging in breath after breath, tightly clenching her hands into fists as she tries to gain control of her nerves once more.

“Now,” he says with a broad smile across his face, as he places the table back on its feet, and sets the coffee cup in the centre once more. “Let us play again, and maybe this time you will make the right decisions, that give us both a perfect outcome.”

***

Follow the below link to purchase Breadcrumbs To Madness 3 to read all 24 five minute short stories.

Before you lies a piece of a puzzle far grander than you could ever know or imagine. For scrawled in blood upon the pages hidden within the above tome is stories twisted twenty-four in all, soaked in the embers of my insanity. Five minutes to glimpse inside the eyes of someone new, five minutes to answer, five minutes to sin, five minutes to do almost anything. A god, a demon, a harlot, a whore. A fascist, a killer, a sinner, a door. Death and division, humanity askew. A belfry of bats, a sea of black cats, so many moments out there to see, so many things you could see with me. So take a seat beside me and call it voodoo, because now you ride with me too…

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