[Flash Fiction] || Orion

Pretty, pretty girls. Their names forgettable yet sticky on your tongue, somehow sweet yet simple and generic.

They move in a pack outside a club that three of them don’t have ID’s for. But with their sly grins and big eyes and pretty jewelry they’ll be too flashy for any bouncer to turn away. They glitter in the night, practically glowing as they wait in line to enter. The single bouncer guarding the entrance, after a few minutes of glancing at them from a distance, waves them over.

Maya leads the other six of her sisters to the doors, her ambitious charm making her the lamp and they the moths. They flutter together and the bouncer says something inaudible to them. Ellie and Allison let out clear laughs. They sound like bells on the breeze. Maya hushes them. Celena steps forward and says something to the bouncer. Maya nods. The bouncer smiles. He robotically opens the door, and like ducks in a row, they walk in. Asterid is the last to enter, and she gives a final nervous glance to the outside world before going inside.

In an alley across the street to the left of the club, there stood a man, whose features were hidden in the dim lighting. He had heard much of the seven sisters, the paramours to this half-awake city. Each one of them were involved, no, tangled with some other person of power in the city. Untouchable, immortal girls that sneak into places at night with quiet threats and delicate thoughts.

The man had been in the alley for two hours, patiently waiting for the seven of them to show up to this club as they did every other Friday at 11:30. They were creatures of want, but also of habit. It made the man’s job quite simple.

Was it mercy or cruelty to have waited this long to get this close? There was both intentions in his masterful design, in his heart there was an ambivalent feeling about his oncoming plan. He consoled his soul in the alley, nursing the indifference necessary to continue on the path he had laid.

He imagined their big eyes. Their graceful movements over the sidewalk. They moved like water, with intent and arrogant fluidity. He could see them now, wandering in the sun, their youth melting into the spring grass of a park. But they couldn’t care less, their heads as one but far, far away from one another.

He checked his watch. 12:50. One of them would be feeling ill about now, asking to leave. Two of them would beg and plead to stay, but the rest would let concern take hold of their consciousness. They’d be out within the next ten minutes.

He waited. It took them only five minutes to vacate the club.

Maya.

Ellie.

Mary.

Celena.

Taylor.

Allison.

They link arms as they exit, tipsy smiles and weak ankles among them all.

Asterid sticks behind them, her head upright on her stiff spine. Her eyes are glassy, but narrower than usual. Her features are tight. She isn’t inebriated. That much is clear.

The man waits for them to get some distance before following them down the street. They are loud and obnoxious, desecrating the nearly-dead city night. But there is something beautiful in their lack of mind. They float along the sidewalk like the wind.

The man keeps his distance, his steps lighter than theirs. He feels tense as he waits to close the space between him and them. But he airs on the side of cruelty. After three hours of patience, he deserves the satisfaction, of, that’s how he thinks through it. He wants them to be on edge, not enough to do anything, but just enough to heighten their breathing, to make the heart move just a little differently.

Five minutes pass. They don’t notice him. He slinks behind them, close to the sides of buildings, his head down. They have started to walk faster. But none of them have glanced behind them.

He notes he is about seven meters away. He looks at the street ahead. It’s dead. Only they make the city roads alive now. He removes one meter of space.

Another.

Two more.

One more.

He can hear their breath more than the clicks of their high heels. He can hear their hair as it swishes over their shoulders. They haven’t noticed him. They are too high up, to far away, too in their own heads to note the man behind them.

He closes one more meter and is now steps away from Asterid. For being sober, she too, is in another world of worry, so much so, that she doesn’t even feel the man’s hand as it touches her shoulder.

All too slowly, they realize they’ve been pursued. His hand remains an echo on her shoulder as Astrid runs with her sisters down the street. She feels faint, but her feet make heavy contact with the ground, and all her head maintains is her heartbeat, his heartbeat, and the pounding of her glittering shoes on the pavement.

 

Reflection ||

For this piece, I based it upon the lore behind the constellation. The constellation Orion was based upon the mythological hunter of the same name. He was known for his great skill in combat and in hunting, and was reported to have even worked with Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. There are many myths and perceptions about him, but one in particular is relevant to the constellation.Orion was said to have lusted after the Pleiades, seven sisters who were so beautiful that they regularly had affairs with gods. When they refused his advances, he chased after them, intent on causing them harm. Zeus, the god of the sky, saw the sisters’ plight and turned them into stars to save them from Orion. When Orion eventually died, he became a constellation, too. Now the constellation Orion can be seen chasing the constellation of the Pleiades across the night sky.

I don’t mention Orion or the seven sisters by their real names. I thought that in order to create suspense, I should develop the sister characters a little more than the man, as to keep him shadowy and unknown. My goal in creating this flash fiction was to modernize the tale of Orion and bring in more gothic and horror elements.