#acesoleil

This is a small excerpt from our collaborative project, Prisoner 115.

Of course, we avoid death. To know something is inevitable is one thing. To accept, to truly feel it... that's different.

— Michael Haneke

I wake in a panic because I know, dimly but with certainty that I shouldn’t have woken today.

This an excerpt from Ace Soleil, one half of the dynamic duo that is Freya Rose, from a work in progress, as of yet untitled.

I dragged myself the remaining block to our street, a ways down from where the entire neighborhood had gathered to observe the spectacle. The fire department was battling down the blaze. My father stood at the center of a circle of his associates sobbing out--his wife, his wife was still in there and where, where was his daughter, for he simply couldn’t bear to lose his entire family.

A man--I could only describe him as a dark man, dressed in a dark suit, with dark hair, and the most unsettling dark eyes-- broke away then from the circle of commiserators, approaching me. “Miss Ainsley.” His voice was like the grating of broken glass in my ears. “Please come along, if you would. Your father is quite distraught and may be comforted by your presence.”

His hand fell upon my shoulder. It took everything in me not to shy away; his hand was huge, heavy, and cold like stone. “If you would come along,” he repeated, and all but dragged me to the center of the crowd, where my father stood wailing and moaning and ever so graciously accepting the condolences of our kind neighbors.