Bleeding Green

The world did not know her.

They saw nothing special or unique about her.

Yet there she was, the cool embrace of silk wrapped around her skin as her presence sank and floated around the box. She felt small and thin, swimming in rich green colored silk that clung to the outline of her body. An emerald hue reflected off every wall in the box, turning the dull walls into an animated confinement.

Lucia let time sail her by on the sea of green waves. The box was closed, the only light was that reflecting off her own skin. She had grown so pale in the box that she imagined herself as the moon, illuminating the walls with a radiant frosty glow.

Lucia was indeed, nothing special.

She'd been convinced of that long before the box, but she did not remember why. She was in the box because she had no one. No one though her unique, no one saw her as worth keeping. She was born by moonlight, a whisper in silence.

Lucia knew there was nobody in the box with her, yet she did not feel alone. Sometimes visitors came and passed through the box, but none stayed. They could not stay, even if Lucia asked them to. She would grow too sensitive to their light, and she would become weak in their presence. The life of anyone who traveled through the box drained quickly before her iridescent eyes. They might appear, youthful and spirited, but they always left withered, empty, and aimless. Lucia could not speak with them. Lucia, in fact, did not do anything in the box. She was the guard, only there to observe as the travelers came and departed from her presence.

But not even that made Lucia special.

The visitors entered the box close to Lucia, and they slowly drifted through the space until they reached the opposite side. The visitors glared at her during their time in the box, out of spite and anger, thinking her responsible for what they experienced. They assumed she was taking their life for herself, grasping for immortality or relief in her own confinement. They assumed she was the force that drained their lives from them. But the magic that took their existence was not hers, but that of the box.

Sometimes, Lucia wished it was her. She wished that she was powerful enough to drain the souls that came into the box with her, or that their suffering would benefit her in some form. She wanted to believe herself capable of such power.

But alas, she was not.

Lucia was not special, and she was not powerful.

Those thoughts would flee from her mind just as easily as they came. The box did not allow for anything to stay except its guard and its master.

The box was controlled by a magic produced by its creator. Lucia's master condemned her to the box, where she would be the only light amidst darkness. The only sound among the silence. Only a wisp in the space. Lucia had once thought herself special, she once believed she was worth saving.

In fact, once upon a time her master had agreed with her. He had been the only one to tell her that he would save her. He saved her from her confines of loneliness, despair, and deep sorrow. He promised salvation, peace, and tranquility.

When he found her in the pit that she had dug for herself, she believed what he said.

Her master, the potentate of the box, of her soul, of the world, was none other than the Lord of the Underworld. Upon her rescue, Lucia was reborn with a new name, no doubt in semblance to his familiar title Lucifer. Of course, she did not call him by that name.

In fact, she never addressed him.

Lucia watched as her master came every once in an eternity to see her. His appearance was flawless, trimmed in shadow and full of mystique. She perceived him more as a presence than a person. But he was the center of her gravity, the only thing in all the worlds that could move her. When her master stood before her, she reached out for him in every way that she could. He would not move, and neither would she. Her body was unfeeling, her mind the only proof of her sentience. She felt his presence saturate the room until her light was dimmed and intermingled in his dark reach. He would speak to her, and she would stare back at him in awe.

"What a marvelous job, my sweet."

"Oh, how you glow, my dearest."

Lucia could not nod her head, could not move in his presence. The silk around her could not force her limbs to move even the slightest bit. She only looked upon him, her yearning thoughts centralized on him. She had an obsession for her master, not only out of desire but out of necessity. He was her potentate, her ruler, her overlord. She felt frosty drafts wafting out from him whenever he was near, and her emotions stretched out warmth in return. She felt unmatched comfort in his icy presence, she never expected anything different from him. One might call it love, or devotion.

Lucia did not know such words to describe her affixation on her master; she only knew what he spoke. She only knew the doctrine he parted onto her, and she held it close to her. His words were all she lived by while he was gone. And when he came to see her, to see the box he had designed, she drank in his presence until it permeated her throat and coated her body in his scent. Each time he departed the box, she reverenced him as the creator. He was all that she had known, his presence the only thing to soothe her.

Lucia remembered nothing of her time before her master, save for the pit he pulled her out of. the feeling of hot ragged soil sticking to her skin, the wooden planks barricading her every movement. Now, the box filled with luxurious green silk was her shelter, and her master was the vertex in which she existed.

Oh, how she wished for him to return.

This was her eternity. Her time before her master did not matter to Lucia, only him. The only things that mattered to Lucia was her master and the box she guarded. The box that he had created. She had been created for the box, and for its creator.

She was condemned for eternity to watch the travelers and guard the box. Her master kept her there, and she had no desire to be elsewhere. If her master was to return, she would be there, waiting for him. She would guard the box for every eternity, as long as her master would return to her. She may have been condemned to the box, but the box was also condemned to serve her and her sea of green silk. She waited, until the box opened once more to let in its master, her master.

"My Lucia, are you ready for a change?"