Go to hell,” she says, “maybe then you'll understand.”

His eyes fill with tears. “Maybe I don't want to understand.”

There's a knife lying next to her moon face. Seven inches, gleaming steel. His fingers around the black handle, stiff and cold. Eyes closed, words of encouragement whispering out of her barely moving, pale sapphire mouth. Is it his resolve that's stiffening even more or his fingers? He touches her long hair with the tip of the blade, and it gets caught. She shouldn't have used such cheap black hair dye. He sighs, his brow creasing into a worried frown.

"Now, for me,” she whispers urgently.

He looks at the knife through a blur and his tears drop on her breasts. He moves the knife to her thin throat and presses down. Blood. Hot and steaming, explodes into his eyes, up his nose, into his screaming mouth, screaming, too much blood, screaming black.

On the first morning of Peter's death, he didn't wake with a gasp or a shout. He only had an overwhelming feeling of resentment. He turned his head to the nightstand. The alarm clock should have woken him up. It would have if Peter had set it properly, which he never did. He bought the small red alarm clock on the advice of a co-worker. An overpriced device from Tokyo, he was positive he spent far too much money on the damned thing. He still hadn't figured out all of the functions and, of course, its failure was always stupidly obvious. He set it on snooze instead of buzzer. He set it on six p.m. instead of six a.m. He stared at the empty spot next to him on the bed. His wife hadn't returned from the hospital, he realized as the early morning fog faded. Yes, the alarm should have woken him up. Inanimate objects were so uncooperative.

Light refracts in strange ways - in broken shards or symmetrical arcs evenly split into seven colors. The true color of Ilma's eyes is, by definition, terracotta. Reddish brown. But our eyes deceive us, produce optical illusions when eye color is combined with daylight or darkness. By day, her eyes are diminished to a pale sepia. By night, a glowing red like two perfectly round fire opals. Compared to her white hair, which perpetually hung in wilted curls, her eyes look as pink as albino mice. In truth, the only accurate word to describe the color with our own flawed human eyes, is sepia. Like an old photograph waiting to be remembered.

Ilma runs, not voluntarily and certainly not without pain. She had been wearing shoes when she started to run but they weren't her shoes and they were miles too big for her. Man-sized boots, to be accurate. She kept on running, not missing a beat even after the black leather boots fell off her dainty, white feet. The sidewalk cement didn't scrape the delicate soles of her feet. They are covered with slippery ice and a thin layer of powdery snow, which is falling fast now. Her feet are turning blue and red though, sending violent shivers up to her shaking shoulders. She's only wearing a man's white dress shirt, after all. She glides to a halt in front of the door, which she almost missed in the pitch black night. Grey metal, adorned with colorful graffiti, the door is heavy and Ilma is struggling with the cold handle. Finally, the door opens just enough for her to slip through unseen. She looks over her shoulder once more before she slithers into the abandoned warehouse, and disappears forever.

The first level of this building is hugely intimidating. The floor is covered with dust and fallen plaster and the only light comes from neighboring buildings which shine all night long. There are no stars or a moon this night, this Christmas eve. The sky is covered by a blanket of storm clouds threatening more snow. Light fixtures dangle uselessly in an organized pattern from the ceiling. Most of the bulbs are broken, looking like razor sharp teeth ready to devour a prey.

Ilma shudders unconsciously and walks to the nearest dark corner, with exhausted light steps. She floats down, tucking her icy feet beneath her. She pulls the shirt down over her knocking knees and lets the cuffs of the sleeves cover her stiffening hands. She didn't plan to run like that. She's not a stupid girl, she was just caught unawares and dashed through the streets like a frightened deer. Her strong wings she always kept hidden fight beneath the cotton of the dress shirt. In one sudden movement, they rip through the back of the shirt and sprout like eager spring flowers.

Didn't I mention she has wings? Oh yes, beautiful, strong wings the same colour as her eyes with veins of burnished copper.

He shouldn't be late. Shane had plenty of time to kill before meeting his fiancee at the hospital. He winced. 'Kill' wouldn't be a good word right then. Of course, there won't be anything wrong, he reaffirmed. Abby's tests results no doubt came back perfectly normal. All the worrying would be for nothing. The late nights comforting her as she was ravaged by nausea and numbness seeped into her fingers...no. There was nothing wrong. Shane repeated his daily mantra to himself as he walked through the downtown, late afternoon crowd.

A business woman in a maroon dress suit glanced at him as she marched in her high heels. He smiled, mostly to himself. He supposed she found him attractive, most women did. But since falling in love with Abby, he didn't notice the innocent flirting anymore. Well, that wasn't entirely true. He was a warm- blooded male after all. He had noticed the fluttering lashes, blushing cheeks and sudden nervousness. He just didn't care anymore. This thought used to be comforting to him, he relished in the certainty of their relationship. Until two months ago when Abby fell down and complained she couldn't feel her left leg and he had to carry her up the stairs because -

No. There was nothing wrong with Abby.

Okay, so you've found your perfect match, your soul mate, then you swore a suicide pact and now you're spending all of eternity with the love of your life. Only one little problem... you've changed your mind.

They called me Julia Waters when I was alive. But now I'm just plain Julia. I know, such a middle-class name. Perfect for bland housewives from suburbia Hell who always give their husbands blowjobs first thing in the morning before making them breakfast with freshly squeezed orange juice. But I was different, I swear. I was going to give them all the finger, in a great big painting as tall as the office building I worked in.

I was an artist, you see. A walking cliché. Tortured, stringy hair, an over-sized sweater and jeans that had so many patches you couldn't really call them denim anymore. What happened to me? The most tragic, horrifying thing that could ever happen to an artist.

I got a job.