“Oh, she’d cut me up,” I sang.

Dragging the blade up my skin, she drew a line of blood from the middle of my thigh to the collarbone, but I didn’t scream.

“Oh, she’d cut me down.”

She followed the incision back down, carving deep into muscle and flesh.

“But I’m not around. To see her,” I finished.

I was dead and she was enacting her love on my corpse.

She dropped the knife and began fingering the gruesome gap in my chest; finding delight in the soft texture of my inner flesh.

“Oh, she cut me up.”

Satisfied with exploring the layers of my chest, her fingers ascended to my collarbone. The tactile sensation of my bare bone brought a smile to her lips and a glimmer to her emerald eyes.

“Oh, she cut me down.”

She leaned over my slumbering body to plant a kiss on the bone, her smile broadening. A bloody endeavor, she pulled herself from my shoulder to clean off her lips on mine.

It wasn't as though she didn't relish the sensation of my blood on her — quite the opposite. She even savored the taste.

It was for my sake. When she left bloodstained kisses on my cheeks, when she retreated to my shoulder and smothered every inch of the gash, even when her tongue entered my body and she tasted my organs, it was all for me.

Naturally, I forgave her for recoiling from my body in the subsequent shame and guilt that my taste evoked.

“But I’m not around

By the time she had finished savoring my insides, her face was painted red, concealing the blood rushing to her cheeks. Once more, she touched the bare skin of my thigh.

I was dead and she was making love to my corpse.

to see my baby.”

adapted from Not Around - Nova

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

* * *

Farihn stayed unconscious until the morning, where before he sensed its warm light cast on him he felt an intrusive object penetrating his lips, resting below the tip of his tongue.

“Augh!”

Farihn expelled the foreign object, recoiling on hands and knees, swiftly distancing himself from the mysterious assailant. Before him were the crossed legs of a woman clad in nothing more than a diaphanous morning gown, regarding him with an irritable countenance.

"Ugh, finally," the woman huffed at him. "I've been trying to wake you up for—"

"Who the hell are you?" he erupted furiously. "And why did you do that?!"

“Relax, guy,” she commanded him. “You wouldn’t wake up and poking wasn’t working so…”

She shrugged nonchalantly.

“So you stuck your foot in my mouth??” Farihn asked, ears steaming. “Who the fuck are you?? How the hell did you find me?”

The blonde woman uncrossed her legs, meeting his anger with her own.

“Seriously? I save you, and this is what I get in return? Not even a word of thanks?”

“You put your foot in my mouth,” he replied, exasperated.

“That means nothing and you know it.”

Cheeks flushed, Farihn looked at the ground.

“I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything from the first fucking vermin I stumbled upon in a fucking cave,” she said, turning to leave.

Quietly, he spoke.

“You should’ve asked if I wanted to be saved, anyways.”

“What did you say?”

She whipped around, anger etched into every wrinkle in her flawless skin.

“You sorry little fuck,” her face twitching uncontrollably, she strode over to him. “‘You should’ve asked if I wanted to be saved—,’” she whined mockingly, “shut the fuck up! You were already fucking dead! Dead! And you know what?” she asked, hoisting him up.

Farihn stayed silent, watching her with teary eyes.

“If you were gonna be a pussy and kill yourself like that, you should’ve done it in some fucking city sewer, you scum.”

Slumped next to a dried puddle of his own blood, she walked away from Farihn; back through the stream and on stones she plotted her steps in return for the forest’s freedom.

“That pep talk could’ve gone a little better,” she muttered. “Ugh…”

Compared to the cavern’s menacing shadows and humid air, the soft clear light peeked through the gaps in the trees and the occasional cool breeze billowing her gown was a relief. Indifferent to breezes that revealed far too much, the blonde lady sauntered from the cave’s entrance, ascending — at no steep heights — the bend around the cave’s mostly buried ceiling.

“Hey, young man,” she said to herself, “let’s start over. My name is Evangeline, and I have resurrected you. I gave you life because I knew you could bring light to the world. Yes, you can. Uh uh uhh,” her pointer finger descended, shushing an imaginary Farihn. “No matter how you might feel about yourself now, I believe in you.”

Evangeline retraced her steps back: down the mossy, leaf sprinkled path, through the cave’s opening, following the scattered rocks beside the stream. Thinking out loud, she prepared for her surprise therapy session all throughout.

“…I believe in you, and I am a goddess. A goddess believes in you!”

“You’re a goddess, huh?” he said sardonically. Her muttering had been caught by his earshot and she stopped only a few meters away. “Would’ve been nice if a goddess was there when Amelia had her head blown off.”

“Hey, young man,” she replied, kindly. “Stop being a bitch so we can leave this fucking cave already.”