blemish - 2.3

Character List: The Artist | The Lady | The Commissioner | Henrietta | Louise | Firo | Gray

Henrietta paused as the door melded shut behind her.  “Louise?” 

“Yes, my lord.”

“You are… behind that door.  With two others.”

Louise’s eyebrows knitted as she frowned.  “That should not be, my lord.  What makes you say so?”

“What my blemished Likeness sees, I see, Louise.”  Henrietta stepped forward, reaching for Louise.  “Tell me.”

The maid smiled.  “You are quite perceptive, my lord.  This time does not come for many until their own dust ages.”

There was a seam… running across her face.

Her head opened.

Thousands upon thousands of wires: metal, formed the structure for the skin-muscle shell of Louise.  It was like looking at an intricately woven mannequin.  Henrietta reached forward instinctively, pausing inches from the metallic frame.

"Please, look inside." Louise's voice intoned, having taken on a distinctly metallic quality.

Will I break the structure if I move them?  It is of no consequence.  Henrietta smiled, pushed through the... there was nothing.  She brushed strands of metal apart.  All there was to be seen...

Was black.