The Pinky Promise - Draft 1

He believed in the words. They were her words and she had them engraved beautifully in nice running letters around the silver ring. "Eternally yours". And now, with her gone, the ring was all he could hold on to and he did so by selling everything else he had. Zeus, Aphrodite, the matador and the bull, the cherubs, the two headed dragon, the giant sea-turtle. He sold them all. Marble statues he had sculpted for her out of sheer passion and love. They were never intended to be sold.

Yes, he was a sculptor. For a living, he made tombstones, and occasionally, a bas-relief or two, or an angel of death for a graveyard. He hadn't made any after the day he carved her headstone. The bas-relief on it had their hands hooked in a pinky promise and the Celtic writing below it read "I will win you back, Carissa. I promise I will win you back a thousand times over if you leave me". Hector and Carissa were both in their early twenties and had just realized their feelings for each other when they had that conversation. They were a very handsome couple. She had asked him what he would do if she ever left him. He had looked deep into her beautiful blue eyes and replied with the promise, and she had made him hook pinkies with her and repeat it. "I promise I will win you back a thousand times over if you leave me". Hector meant every word of it when he said it. Five years later, when he wrote it in stone, he still meant every word. But for this he would have to travel to the dark continent. He would have to seek out the voodoo priests and convince them to teach him the blackest of their tricks. Necromancy. Bringing back the dead. And for this, he needed money. A lot of it

It cost him seven years, twenty one of his favorite sculptures, and a good part of his soul to finally master the dark art. Today was the day he was going to finally put it to practice.

He had made all the arrangements just the way Shaman Bimkubwa had taught him. He had drawn a perfect pentagram with the white ash from incinerated elephant tusks. On each of the five corners he had erected a six foot tall burning torch. Inside each of the five triangles, he carefully drew the symbol for one of the five elements. On the five intersections, he placed the severed heads of five billy goats. And right on the heart of the pentagram, lay the most life-like of all his pieces of work. Lying on her back was Carissa, life-sized, bare naked, and moulded out of earth soaked in goat's blood. She looked stunningly beautiful even though she had reddish black skin, empty sockets without eyes and toothless black gums that showed through her parted lips

Head shaven and skin painted, Hector danced around her like a mad man, chanting the magic words he had learnt. With iron pliers, he pulled out his fingernails one by one and placed them on her fingers, crying out in pain, but never for once stopping the chant. Then he did the same with his toe nails, followed by his teeth. He placed them all carefully on her, planting them exactly where they fitted. He found it harder now to utter the words through his toothless blood-filled mouth. But he wasn't done. He took out a sharpened piece of ebony and started skinning himself, writhing in agony while doing so. Somehow, through all this, he managed to gurgle out the chant unobstructed. He covered every inch on her with his bleeding skin. There was one last thing to be done. He placed one arm on her face to make sure he had the position right, and with the other, he gouged out his eyes. He could stand the pain no more. A cold shadow shrouded him numbing all his senses at the same time

When he regained his consciousness, he couldn't remember whether he had placed the eyes in her sockets or not. The wind felt like fire on his exposed flesh. Every inch on his body burned. All around him was the same shadow. But it wasn't cold anymore, nor did it numb the pain. He lay there waiting in the darkness

It seemed like an eternity before he finally heard her voice

"Hector?"

Her voice was smooth as silk, just the way he remembered it. He reached out a hand with the intense desire to feel her soft touch

"I'm not sure I want to do that" Said her voice

"Why not, lovfff?" Blind Hector found it impossible to speak properly without teeth "It iff I, your Hector"

"I know", said Carissa "I see the ring"

Then there was a pause. One that felt like for ever

"What happened to you?", she continued "you....you're ugly. you look like an abomination, and you speak funny!"

"That iff unimportant" said Hector " You haff been afleep for a very long time. Thingf haff changed a little. But I am fftill your Hector. I lovff you. And I haff won you back. Dont you lovff me?"

She did not reply

Hector found that the darkness made time stretch a lot longer. He had always been the patient one. He could definitely have waited longer for her reply. But his blindness and pain made him unusually impatient

"Dont you fftill loff me, Cariffa?"

She giggled at the way he pronounced her name. Then there was the same awkward indefinite pause again. And then, with much effort, came the reply

"Honey,... I know you love me. I dont know what the hell has happened to you, but you look horrible and scary. You look nothing like my Hector, the one I fell in love with. He had beautiful olive skin, long curly locks and sexy hazel eyes"

"But..." Hector stopped. Not because he didn't know what to say or because he too didnt particularly fancy the way he sounded. He just knew all of a sudden that the things he wanted to say would not make any sense to her

"I'm sorry, sweetie", continued her voice "I cannot do this. I don't feel the warmth for you anymore... Forgive me"

In the pitch-black, he heard her footsteps fade away slowly and he tried to picture her walking away in his olive skin and with his hazel eyes. Then something took over him. Something that strongly felt like the commitment to an unfulfilled promise. He couldn't feel the pain anymore. He smiled a toothless blood-dribbling smile and said, mostly to himself

"Well, that waf jufft onffe. I pinky promiffed I'd win you back nine hundred and ninety nine more timef"