BLUSANG ITIM (RE-IMAGINE) -- PART 4 (FINAL)

“So this too shall end huh?” She whispers to the wind as she clutches tightly the ebony dress that wraps around her body. Of course, all of it is too goddamn good to be true after all. Perhaps like any fairy tale, the ending is always up there waiting for the princess on the last page of her story. The only difference however with her is that it is already decided by heaven that her tale will end in a pitiful tragedy.

The landscape of tombstone brimming with perfume from wilting flowers and burn out scented candles seems to be a fitting foreshadow on what is about to come once Jessica reached the last chapter; that is if she still wearing the black dress after she loses her mind.

She descends from her throne and decided to ponder for a while into the heart of the graveyard. As expected, her dead servants follow her and within a minute the once empty garden of corpses are now full-packed with walking yet not breathing people of their town; roaming mindlessly above the six feet pit where they deserve to dwell, not on top of it.

Jessica’s mind, like herself, skulk from shadow to light along the labyrinth of thoughts. Suddenly the bliss the surround her ended prematurely and replaced by a somber air. She remains silent in the middle of her excursion; sightseeing every mausoleum and stepping on a random gravestone.

It almost feels like she is sleepwalking now and the comparison between her and the rest of the undead becomes inevitable; like them she just now stroll around with nothing, in particular, to look for.

She is just waiting for the pages to unfold itself without minding what will happen next until she stumbles upon a gravestone with a bouquet of dying roses on them.

“Your still there? Angel of Death?”

“Yes?”

“You said I am now the master of death isn’t it?” Jessica kneels down and looks at the name engraved on the memorial below her.

“Yes. As long as you are wearing this dress.”

“Tell me…can the master of death brings back to life someone?” She lovingly caresses the gravestone and felt the familiar sensation she once experiences during her young years where she still believes in true romance fueled with hormones and daydreaming.

The black dress didn’t respond quickly to the question unlike before. His pause seems to be a sign of dislike towards the question that he knows will lead Jessica in committing another crime under the heaven.

“Whatever you are thinking, don’t do it.”

“Just answer me with yes or no!” Jessica grabbed the collar of the black dress as if she is threatening it to ripped it once more.

“Yes. That is possible. Transferring the life force you acquired into an already dead body.” The voice answered. That ability of the black dress is actually a secret one and no one from the previous wearer didn’t even know about it nor manage to use it.

Unlike its innate characteristic to absorb life force, enslaving the living where the life force comes from and making the wearer a being of eternal beauty, the power to revive the dead is dependant on the will and decision of the wearer. If they know about this power that the black dress can bestow on them, it's up to them whether they use it or not.

The angel of death wishes that they won’t if ever by chance they discovered it but Jessica can’t fulfill that wish. Not with this man that beneath the ground; the only man who shows to her once that love and care are not subjected to face factor.

Jessica calls on the most buffed among her undead servant and commands them to dig below the gravestone. Barehanded, they scrap the ground without even a flinch when their fingers start to break one by one. With their sheer large number, it only took them a couple of minutes to take the body from six feet under back once more to the land of the living.

Jessica opens the coffin and there she beholds a skeleton already sloughed off the majority of flesh on his body. She is perpetually looking not into a dead body but a lifeless collection of bones.

“Richard Benedict Pangilinan…” She sighs longingly as the flashback of the memory of a guy from her past made her blush like she was a high schooler again.

Richard was the only guy in their class who talk to her; the only person who didn’t mind hanging with her on their cafeteria despite all the eyes on their campus are like drills that bore on their back whenever they are together. He is the first and perhaps the last person who let her feel for the first time how to be loved regardless of her face.

And one day, Richard just left her. After a week they just found out that the young man takes his own life via overdosing in sleeping pills. Nobody does why a cheerful guy like him went overboard and decides to end himself like that. But most of his friends put the blame on Jessica for hardly no reason at all other than their claims that she put a spell to Richard and it backfired instead.

It was a horrible moment in Jessica’s life; she swears to God that if there is a chance for Richard to be alive again, she will do anything to make it happen. Even if it cost her everything.

“Why are you doing this?”The voice interrupted her as she is about to open the coffin.

“If you continue this, you may not just lose your sanity. The angels won’t even permit you to enter heaven when you die.”

Jessica smiled as she looks above to the deep, black starless sky. Her beauty has already reached a certain degree that mystifies anyone who looks at her; soft and delicate figure, big almond eyes, aquiline nose, and lips as red as the newly blossom roses that promise a sweetness like no other.

She is truly a princess now on her own right and there is only one thing that will make her title as a princess in completion; the only thing that will make her story worth of time even if it will end soon in doom and demise.

“A princess needs her prince to endure the loneliness of her life.” She answered and upon opening the coffin, she moves closer to the skeleton of Richard and never minding the maggots that latch at her dress.

The putrid smell didn’t bother her as lean on him and reach for a life-giving kiss to the prince charming that will be by her side until madness claims her and paint her end with the blackest black.