Scythian Nights

**This story is inspired by Joe Brolly's Genie Chronicles. I have never done a spin-off series from another author in my life, but I felt his work was so well done that I simply had to. Take the time to read it when you can, and take the time to read another spin off series A Beautiful Wish by 800lbGorilla.

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This story is a divulgence from my normal faire. In order to set it up, there is no sex in it, so if you're one of my regular readers your either in for a treat or a shock or a let-down. Either way, here it is.**

It was just another day. That thought echoed loudly in Doris's head. "Just. Another. Day." Her eyes peeled themselves open and she waited for the image to come to focus in the mirror. The eyes looking back at her were red and haggard, sunk in and rimmed with dark circles. The cheekbones protruded and the former attractiveness that she had never noticed was long gone. The only thing that remained were the freckles, those damn, disgusting freckles, and her unkempt, oily red hair.

She began to cry. She didn't even feel herself fall, but the next thing she realized was the cold porcelain of the tub against her bare back while the small tiles of the bathroom floor were equally as cold against her bare legs, and her eyes were deluging her hands with tears. Doris didn't know why she was crying, so she cried even harder in rage and confusion and hopelessness. "Another fucking day," she huffed, her words punctuated by sobbing gasps for breath, her tears stopping long enough for her to breathe deeply. She felt her body slump down even further on the bathroom floor, her bones jabbing into the tile, making her skin feel unfamiliar. "Just like the last day, or the 10 before it, or the 100 before it." To Doris's mind, it might as well have been a million. She had long since known or cared what day it was.

She came to sometime later and was vaguely aware that she was walking through her Grandmother's house, through her house. There were so many happy memories attached to the antiques and treasures her Grandma had scavenged in her trips, so many rose colored memories. All those golden days and carefree times faded from gold and pink to sepia and eventually to black. That was a different time, a different Doris. She felt the hot sting of tears on her cheeks again, then the drip on her bare breast, barely perceptive of the wet heat as it rolled past her areola and further down her body as the tears rained down again and she collapsed in the hallway, sobbing heavily. She could remember being happy. She could remember that normal people are happy, but Doris MacAlbee could never remember from a day in her life what happiness felt like.

She became aware of the fact that she needed to use the bathroom and she still hadn't yet today. Her unwillingness to shit on the floor rose very slightly above her unwillingness to do anything at all, let alone move. She pulled herself along the floor, her hip bouncing into the only book case in the house that was not part recessed into the wall. Pain lanced through her atrophied body and she heard the dull thud of something hitting the floor in front of her. The object was near her head, close enough it could have hit her, close enough to wish it had. Doris noticed as she made it the last few feet into the bathroom that it had found itself into her hand, and mysteriously staying there, it made dragging her weight up the sink very difficult.

By the time she had sat on the toilet and felt herself start to empty, she heard something but was not sure exactly what it was. Her heart jumped in her chest, her tears seeming to freeze. The fine hairs on her body stood up on end, her skin alive with tension and fear. The soft noise came again, and the soft, echoing sound of a giggle bounced around the room. It left, but the pulse thundering in Doris's ears may have drowned it out. It disappeared and Doris's pulse slowly returned to normal. She was getting ready to try to get up when something moved in the hall way, something short, something shadowy, like a child playing hide and seek. Ice gripped Doris's heart and panic filled her senses. She stood to slam the door shut, but her diminished legs could not support the sudden movement.

She crashed into the door instead, slamming it shut with her entire body weight pressed against it. The bouncing echo of the ghostly giggle filled the room again and Doris was aware that she was screaming. She felt air where she was vaguely aware that something just filled. She heard it hit the floor, sounding like metallic thunder in the small room.

Then there was silence.

Only the sounds of water trickling on to the floor tiles and her own rattling sobbing screams sounded in Doris's ears over her own thundering pulse. Her trembling legs could no longer support her and she slowly slid down the door, her body still pressing it shut. Then she heard the air fill with the sounds of wretched sobbing and Doris knew that it was coming from her. Her body heaved and wracked, but she couldn't stop crying, and she couldn't make herself move, but parts of her seemed to be twitching and moving by themselves; her feet, her legs, her fingers, all moving by the commands of a mind that did not belong to Doris. She felt her hand close around something and foggily remembered bringing something in to the bathroom with her and then she heard it again, that bouncing echo of a giggle. She heard a scream join it and the object dropped from her hand, her fists balling up. The giggle stopped and there was again silence tempered by the cacophony of Doris's pulse and ragged, bawling breath.

Again, her hand went to the object, though this time with a morbid curiosity. "Maybe this will be the end," Doris heard her words echo quietly through the bathroom, each syllable huffed out between a sob, the hot tears still staining her cheeks. The childish laughter filled the room, along with a soft voice, whispering in its ghost like tones. Doris surprised herself how focused she was as she turned the object over in her hand and got the first look at it.

"A way out," she said, some of the strength returning to her voice. Her breath caught raggedly in her throat as she breathed, but the tears stopped. "All I want is an end to it all." The thing in her hand was slightly longer and a little thinner than a pop can. The ends were a dark wood, the middle was made of dials like a combination lock, but they were etched with symbols that Doris only remembered ever seeing on this item. Her fingers moved of their own accord, the cherubic whispers seeming to guide them as she spun the dials. Doris could only guess that a word was being spelled out in some archaic language, but she neither knew nor cared what it was.

After only a few seconds, there was a loud click that echoed in the small room. Doris felt her heart beat slowly, seeming to feel it seconds before she actually heard it deep and strong in her ears. The room was silent. No crying, no noise from the house, not a single squeak or chirp from a single living creature. Icy panic gripped Doris again and she threw the item away from her, hurtling it against the far wall of the bathroom, watching in terror as it landed softly on a balled up towel in front of the far corner of the bathtub. The ends popped off the artifact and a pink vapor drifted lazily out of the opened container.

"Finally," Doris sighed, expecting this pink mist to be a cloud of poison, her eyes riveted to it as it seemed to drift lazily out of the container for a second, then with a distinct purpose and speed, directly toward her. "An end to it all," she said, her voice leaving her in a breathless whisper as she closed her eyes.