Read Misfortune’s Favorite Customers :: The Man in The Red Coat

Oriana Penrose expected her death to be less violent.

She imagined her death to be rather mundane, given her current situation. She saw herself growing as wrinkled as a raisin baked in the hot sun, and as old as the grandfather clock her master kept in his study. She could have seen herself resting her dusty, old bones for the final time on the stone bench in the garden, after a long day of sweeping and dusting the lady’s bedroom.

In other instances, she could have seen herself perishing in a carriage accident, on her way to retrieve a hand tailored coat for the lady’s daughter. Or perhaps in a hunting accident, being mistaken for a docile deer by the master’s son. In a less mundane senario, she could have even seen herself bursting her head open like a grape against the marble flooring of the dance hall while mopping it.

Instead, she was gifted her demise by impalement through her stomach.

A broken, rotting tree stump in the middle of the forest appeared to be a decent resting place for Oriana’s lifeless corpse. Her ashen body hung from the stump like a pile of crusty bed sheets left to dry for weeks on end.

The only other source of color that she had left in her body was the blood that gushed out from her abdomen, painting her final resting place in a rusty matte red. Any other blood that smothered her hands and face was baked into her grey skin. If she was still remotely alive, it would have given the appearance of blush, painted on with some sort of deathly red lipstick. Perhaps it would have been a perfect contrast against her lavender colored eyes, which were now nothing more than a pair of foggy, fleshy marbles that were being invited back into the depths of her skull.

Aside from her ashen colored skin and the literal tree stump stabbed through her entire body, the sign that she was nothing more than a freshly prepared corpse were the formless, charcoal figures that danced around her body enticingly.

Shadows, they were called. One may have mistaken one of these formless, nearly transparent entities for the shadows people left on a sunny day. They seemed to drift across the land much like a tattered leaf in the gusty wind, with no final destination. However, many have pointed out that they seemed to adore people, following humans much like a shadow as well. These shadows followed people in every nook and cranny they could shove themselves into, crossing miles and miles in order to gain a mere glimpse of a fleshy, human face. However, what they were even more infatuated with, was a freshly created corpse;

Oriana’s soul was ripe for the picking, afterall.

The shadows molded into one foggy entity as they danced gleefully around the corpse, licking the surrounding trees and leaves in thundeorus hunger. Their white, scratchy faces only stared blankly into Oriana. They were unable to visually express their undying desire for her soul.

Flicker

WOOSH!

Brilliant orange flames smothered the forest. Its tendrils angrily crawled across the brush, scuttering through the bark of the trees and engulfing everything in its path. The shivering shadows appeared to cry at the sight of the boiling flames, instantly scattering at the dangerously bright light.

“Go on, shoo, SHOO!”

Some shadows were lucky to evade the warmth of the flames. Others were nicked with fire. And some unfortunate few were consumed entirely beneath the hungry tendrils of the blaze.

As soon as the shadows dissipated into the depths of the forest, the flames swirled high up into the sky, sparking like a night full of fireworks. The source of the fire, a man in a simple red coat, soon stepped up to the corpse that was formerly Oriana, and carefully inspected it.

“So cold….” The man’s pitch black nails grazed Oriana’s face, as he gingerly pressed his thumb into the upper part of her neck “You must have met your untimely end quite a bit ago, haven’t you?”

Aside from the obvious fact that Oriana’s body was nearly as cold as ice, the age of her corpse seemed to be indicated by how glazed over her eyes were. As much as the man in the red coat stared into her lavender colored eyes, her corpse was unable to respond and stare back at him. And much as he attempted to strike a conversation with Oriana, he was met with a stark silence.

The man in the red coat didn’t expect all that much, but her unfortunate predicament made him curious. Briefly, anyways.

Before he lifted his hand away from her face, a small, brilliant object caught his eyes. A simple, silver locket sat upon the corpse’s chest, peeking ever so slightly through the thick fabric of her shirt. He narrowed his golden eyes towards the small trinket, before he stabbed his blackened fingernails into the metallic surface.

“Hm….” The man muttered to himself “Quite tattered little trinket. I suppose it’s seen quite a bit of love in its day…but, it’s not mine to investigate”

He then carefully tucked the locket back into Oriana’s shirt, ensuring it was well hidden and protected from any prying eyes. Without another word, he carefully wrapped his arms under the small of Oriana’s back, and began to lift her up from the sharp tree stump.

“I’m sorry…” his voice was as soft as velvet as he slowly slithered her body upwards from the stump “But there’s no time for resting,”

It was a bit of a struggle, with how her cold flesh began to shrink and freeze up. But with a few careful tugs, he soon released her body from the tree stumps. His expression soon turned sour however, as he turned his attention to the gaping hole in the middle of her torso. With her body free, he could examine her more precisely with a fine tooth comb.

The giant hole in her body was of most concern, the man thought. Multiple organs and other important tissues were most likely torn to shreds. The sheer amount of blood that was soaked into the tree seemed to indicate that she had severe blood loss as well. She wasn’t entirely in rigor mortis, but he could feel that her elbows and knees were a bit difficult to bend comfortably in his arms. Regardless, the man in the red coat found himself carefully wrapping his hands around her the side of her back and her legs.

Inspite Oriana’s injuries, the man was optimistic. It wasn’t every day he would find a random, unnamed body in the middle of the forest. And it wasn’t every day he would find a corpse with some resemblance of a soul still within them.

Perhaps today was his lucky day. Maybe he could finally revive a corpse from the dead.

And if he couldn’t…well at least he could let Oriana’s corpse rest beneath the earth, where she now belonged.

Huff

Oriana couldn't feel her lungs.

As hard as she breathed, as hard as she gasped for air, she couldn’t feel her lungs swelling desperately for air. She couldn’t feel the fearful thump of her heart either, her blood seemingly failing to pump through her veins. She couldn’t even feel her stomach twist and turn. She could feel one thing in particular, however:

Fear. Unbridled, unrelenting fear.

There were perhaps many things she was frightened of in the moment. The fact that her lungs and heart didn’t seem to be functioning nor all. Or, perhaps the fact that she sat in the middle of some sort of intricately decorated circle, brush strokes littering every direction as far as the eye could see.

Or, maybe it was because of the man, dressed in the red coat, standing right in front of her.

His pitch black nails pierced the leather backing of the book that shivered in his hand. As much fright seized Oriana’s body, she could see the man’s wide, large eyes stare right back at her, studying her every little movement. Malice, or fright seemed to fill the man’s eyes, but rather…utter surprise. A curious expression in retrospect, but an expression that made her feel like some sort of zoo animal to be gawked at.

The man dressed in the red coat stayed glued in place. The only movement he seemed to allow himself was a brief peak at the pages of his leather backed book. But, as soon as he drew his eyes to the book, he lifted his eyes back to Oriana. Oriana thought maybe there was something more to his wide, frozen expression, but she was stuck in some sort of staring contest between the man. The silence between them only grew, which eventually caused Oriana’s fearful, quivering lips to stay firmly turned down. It was only then, whatever fright she had transformed into impatience. Perhaps a bit of anger regarding her predicament as well.

She could barely analyze the situation she was in of course. What she could process was that she was surrounded by what appeared to be a summoning circle, not to mention there were various papers and books tossed haphazardly around her as well. Some of these papers were mere, incoherent scribbled, other papers had similarly drawn circles painted upon them with crusty black ink. She couldn’t see far behind the man in the red goat gwaking at her. Her only view besides the pile of papers and the man in the red coat was simply pitch black, rivaling the darkness of the man’s nails, and perhaps even the Shadows themselves.

Aside from her initial observations…one question in particular stuck firmly in her mind. It was such a loud thought in fact, Oriana let it slip from her consciousness right to her pursed lips: