Deadline Dames, ROD #18

It's time for the Deadline Dames, Readers on Deadline #18. This isn't the picture used as the prompt on their site, but since they ask that their pics not to be reprinted, here's one that I liked. If you'd like to see their gorgeous image, please click here.  If you'd like to try your hand, it's 250 words by August 11, 2010.  The prize this month:  A Cup of Normal by Dame Devon!

The Last of the Days

Grace stared up at the predawn sky. She turned to the east to catch the last glimpse of the sun she would ever see as it broke over the horizon.

This was never the life she had hoped to live when her marriage to Victor had been arranged, a midnight service held by candlelight. He'd been so beautiful, pale skin nearly glowing as he stood in the black of night. The ruby red stone he placed upon her finger glowed with the same eerie light.

She glanced down at her hand where the ruby still rested, all these centuries later. Soon it will be over, no more tomorrows.

It wasn't worth it, watching death come but never for her. The bloodlust was never satisfied, eating at her constantly. When Victor collapsed into death's embrace of day sleep, she slipped into her wedding gown, hidden away for all these years. The lace fragile and yellowed, but still wondrous to her eyes. The last thing her mother had given her. It was only fitting that the gown which bore her into endless night, should bear her into true death.

As the night's grip weakened, she watched the sky with sudden fascination. It turned from a deep purple to vivid pink, breathtaking. The pink bleached away to a pale blue, she'd forgotten it's beauty. Her skin tingled with the first wisps of the sun's rays. Just before the sun burst into life and she into death, she whispered, “Goodbye.”