By the Light by Erica Sharlette

She lay there in the rain, desperately gasping at the last breaths from her violated body. Bleeding all over from the many lacerations her demonic executioner had inflicted, with all the speed and efficiency of one familiar with robbing strips of life through puncture wounds. Stealing intimate moments from a future deserved with each forceful blow.

“Why?” She questioned as moments of her future ebbed away in the storm. The brightness of the moon was the only thing visible in the pitch black of night, so she continued to look at it in her last few moments. As she focused on the imperfections of yesterday, she thought of the children inside her and cried for their future. They would never see its beauty, it would never light the night for them as they sat on a fence and watched, the way it had done for her. She would never be their Mother, and yet, she already felt that she was.

“We…loved you.” She choked out as he came to stand over her and blocked her vision. The only light visible now was the reflection from the blade he had been using to cut apples underneath a tree, as he raised it above his head to strike them one final time and obliterate the last shred of his humanity.

Erica Sharlette is a young writer of West Indian and Asian descent.

London-born, Sharlette turned to writing professionally with the commencement of her first novel, ‘A Character’s Life’, only five years ago. The semi-autobiographical tome is told from a fictional character’s perspective, recounting pain and triumph in their various forms.