My Inked Hands --- Black Death

My Inked Hands

It was dark and I was on my knees, my hands pressing against the chest of my dear friend. My friend was hurt badly. Bleeding from the chest. My dear friend’s eyes were closed and the black blood was starting to seep through my fingers.

“Hang on,” I heard myself say. “Just hang on. It’s only a scratch.”

My friend’s breathing were shallow, his face crunching up in pain. “Just… a scratch…” he said.

He needed help, but no one on this planet could do anything without thinking I was some insane person. “Just…” I looked around frantically. We were just outside my home. I could go in and get paper… “Just press against the wound!” I shouted, staggering to my feet. “I’ll go get paper,” I hoped I was doing to right thing.

Inside my home, I stormed my own bedroom and pulled out notebook. “Paper, paper, paper…”I cursed softly under my breath. No clean paper. At that moment I heard thunder just outside. My heart sank. “Oh no.” Running up to a window, I saw rain clouds forming. “Oh no, oh no, oh no!”

I ran about my home, tossing my folders out, raiding my computer desk, and looking under my bed. Funny, how whenever you need a new, clean sheet of paper, I could never find one. “Dammit!!” I cursed and raced outside. For right now, I had to get my friend inside. It took me a couple of minute to get to my friend. Around here, the weather changes quickly.

Outside, rain was starting to sprinkle the pavement, making it look darker with each drop. “Can you walk?” I asked stupidly, kneeling down on my knees and wrapping one of his arms over my neck.

“Just a scratch,” he said groggily. His hand was still pressed against his chest, but it was covered with black ink. He winced when a droplet of water hit his face. “Rain…?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know! Just try to work with me here,” I panicked when the droplets became more and more frequent. I began walking with him, back to my place. But my friend was far to weak. He would stumble and trip over the smallest of things. I ignored the possible permanent damage the ink might do to my shirt and tried to get my dear friend to limp.

Instead, he laughed softly to himself and looked up at the rainy clouds. “This is… my first time… being out in the rain.” As he said that a droplet hit him several time on the face and he began bleeding more. He faced me and grinned painfully, black ink running down his face.

“Stop looking up!” I snapped at him. In my hurry to get him inside, I guess I should have noticed the puddle in front of us. But I didn’t. When I tried running over it, my foot twisted at the slipperiness and both me and my friend fell on our backs. Unlike most people, my friend shrieked at the contact of water. I scrambled on all fours and tried lifting him up, but it was too late. Much like ink on paper, he began to fade. His inky body just slipped through my hands. “No, no, no, no!!!”

In a couple of seconds, my greatest creation and my best friend was nothing more than a black puddle of ink in my yard. All I had were my inked hands.

Now who’s going to tell my story to the world?

-Poppy Mare