I-Man cometh...

“So you came, huh?” I ask as I move up to face the angry girl.  She folds her arms across her chest and widens her stance. Rani is beautiful. Her hair splays across her shoulders and shines in the moonlight.

“I told you I would be here. You lied to me, Lei.”  She points at Darren’s untouched gravestone and neatly arranged flowers. “I thought that vandals had broken his stone. You lied…why?” Rani smirked and shook her head slowly. I see the confusion set in the lines of her face. Her gray eyes bore into my brown ones.

“I knew you wouldn’t come unless I told you that story, Rani. It was the only way I could convince you to come.” I shift my weight from one side of my body to the other and clasp my hands together. Looking at her, I pull my bag to the front of my body defensively. As I turn to face Darren’s grave, Rani sighs and bites her nails. She looks down in silence.

“Why did you really ask me to meet you here, Lei? You know this is hard for me.”

Pushing my red hair from my face, I step toward her and clasp her shoulder softly. “Rani…he would have wanted you to come…sometimes. Dont you think?” The sounds of my forced fake conversation seemed to lodge itself in my throat and I swallow to loosen it. Impatience keeps me shifting and biting my lip. “Rani-i have a confession to make.”

At the sound of my voice she turns. I can see the tears poised upon her cheek awaiting their descent. They startle me with their realism. Her lips are trembling and her eyes are innocent as they question me. “Why- do you do this to me, Lei? I can not bear this pain you know.”

Clearing my throat, I reach into my messenger bag and grip the dagger. It is cool to my palm and sends shivers through my nipples. I freeze, watching her still face. “I have other reasons for you being here, Rani.” I press my body close to hers and slip my free hand underneath her hair. It is warm and inviting;making me hesitate momentarily.

She smiles sadly and turns her hips toward mine. “I know the truth, Lei.”

My mind thought process of murder stops abruptly and is filled with alarm. “What!?”

As she presses her body against mine, she leans into my ear and whispers. “You want me, dont you…It was never really about Darren was it? You want me all to yourself and always have.”

My grip loosens of the dagger and I feel my pelvis tingle. She is captivating and weakness holds me tightly. “Rani…I…”

“Shhh…dont talk. I know why you brought me here.” she coos as she slips her hand between our bodies and grasps the front of my jeans. “Is this what you want?”

A small sound escapes my lips as I begin to abandon my mission. She has me and I do not want to end this. Bringing my other hand free of the messneger bag, I grasp her face and devour her lips with mine. I shall kill her another day.

“Lei..”

The masculine voice brings me to reality as the cold blade enters my abdomen. My breath catches and every muscle in my body tenses. I am hurt, Im hurt bad. “What?!” I question looking her in the depths of gray hatred. “why?” Realization and the blade bring me swiftly back to the mission at hand but it have been aborted…rather reversed.

“You Bitch! You thought you would kill me–did you?” Rani seethes as she grits her teeth. Holding firm to the dagger’s handle my hands cup hers. It is simple a fierce tug of war. The cold steel introduces itself to my intestines, pushing deeper into me. The pain is just beginning to deepen.
With one hard push and a foot to my chest, Rani rips the knife from me and shoves it in once more. Then shoving me to the ground, she drags me to the earth covering her dead lover. Lurching, I puke upon the grass beside Darren’s grave.

“You are an idiot, you know that, Lei? Did you honestly believe he wanted you?” She laughed maniacally as she licked the crimson stained blade of my knife. Pacing back and forth, she chuckled in unbridled anger. “You always tried to take him from me and then you were always trying to seduce me as well. You are paying now, arent you.” She stopped suddenly and stared down hard at me. I could almost see pity in her darkened eyes. I writhed in horrendous pain and she tilted her head and rolled her eyes into her head. “You will pay a life for a life.” She said, turning away.

“Rani…you dont understand.. I”

The blow comes so quickly that I cannot block it. Her foot hits my cheek and I hear the bells start to ring. “Shut up! Bitch!!”

Rani freezes and tilts her head. Looking toward the headstone she nods, and then speaks in the same direction. “Yes, my love, It is time.”

“What…Rani..”

She turns back toward me snarling. “Not you!!! I am not talking to you! Shut up!” She quickly  slings her face back toward the stone and her expression softens. “I am ready my sweet I-man.”

“The shock hurts me more than my bleeding gut, and everytime I try to crawl away, a spasm of pain racks my body. Blood covers most of the mound of earth above Darren and has begun to seep into the ground. I can not stop the bleeding and I begin to cry. I am surely dying.

Rani’s body is suddenly racked with shaking and trembling as her eyes roll into her head. She begins to chant.

 “I-MAN! YOU HAVE DELIVERED US FROM THE CONFINES OF THE LIVING MAN…DRAW US TO YOU…MY LORD. YOU HAVE SHONE LIGHT UPON YOUR MIGHTLY PROPHESY. I-MAN…WITH THIS SACRIFICE OF LIFE’S BLOOD…YOU WILL BE DELIVERED. REBIRTH FROM THE WOMB OF THE EARTH. ARISE AND TAKE YOUR GIFT OF LOVE FROM ME!”

 Rani raised her hands to the sky and began to cry; my blood smeared upon her cheek.
In horror, I look on, barely hanging onto conciousness. The pain turns dull and dizziness overcomes me. I watch Rani chant and sing praises to I-Man as the wind picks up mementum. It trashes her blonde hair erratically as her gray eyes peirce the heavens.

“I-Man ARISE!” She screams once more and pushes upward with her claw-like hands.

A rumble resounds throughout the cemetary and the ground shakes beneathe me. I feel a strong pushing under my shoulder as I desperately claw as the surrounding grass. The earth begins to bubble up around my body. Blood soaked clods of dirt roll away from the center of Darren’s mound of earth, and it happens. My breaht catches in my throat as hands burst through the soil and grasp for the air. The tattered dead hands open and close like a newborn learning its first motor skills. I laugh sickeningly at the thought. Before my vision turns to black, I see his face. But I can not hear his voice.

Rani’s chanting continues as Darren pulls himself from his earthen home and turns his rotting face towards me. Even through the gore, I can see his smile and my love remains true.

—My love only surpassed by her devotion–Rani’s devotion…and I-Man’s deliverance.