Dance in the Darkness

The lights go down.

The audience is silenced.

All is set in darkness.

Adelita feels calm within the darkness. Safe. She feels a security and warmth most only feel when they are within the womb, before consciousness robs them of it all.

But, the curtains rise, the lights flash on, and she is birthed upon the stage once more. 

Her dance is solitary to begin with. A gorgeous black dress lines her frame, the silver shimmering off of it being the only thing that separates her from the void of the stage. As she begins her dance on stage, the lights slowly raise on many mahogany mannequins surrounding her.

The rich brown of the wood is comparable to the bronze of her skin, and as she passes by each mannequin she caresses them warmly, emotionally, and mournfully. Then, each topples over into the darkness once more, leaving only a silver thread tied around her wrist.

Alone on the stage once more, her limbs are covered in the silver threads, flitting about in the light like wishes spoken into the uncaring night. But, they cannot be freeform forever…

The clock in that silent dining room ticked forward each second, as it had every day for the last two weeks.

“Adelita, please, you must eat.” An aunt chided.

“What is the point?” Even at that young age, she was far too thin. “When I'm full, I think of how I felt after papa’s cooking. When I'm hungry, I think only of joining them. At least the latter option would let me see them again, and my sisters and brothers too.”

“That is enough!” She slammed the table, and while Adelita could not muster the energy to look shocked, it surprised her when her aunt stomped over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“If you kill yourself, you will forever taint your soul! Do you lack such faith in God, in Jesus, in the Madonna!? Either you can live now and walk into the arms of your family with a life well lived, or give up now and damn yourself to Hell!” With a frustrated half-push to end the shaking of her shoulders, the aunt stomped off down the hall to cool her head.

The silver strings go taut along invisible rafters, and while she pauses for a second, Adelita dances once more. Her movements are just as fluid and graceful as before, an image of a dance flowing like water, but each step is a calculated arc, pressing ever forward at the precise, perfect angles.

To see her family again, she had lived a life perfectly. Perfect posture, perfect grades, perfect reputation, everything perfect. In these flowing, measured arcs she told the tale of a keenly analyzed life, each step taken with care and precision, to land her on the perfect path.

She starts from the back of the stage, and as the orchestra raises in tempo more and more she snakes her way across and forward, until she finally reaches the front-center of the stage. She holds her arm out, drenching all the threads in the stage light, revealing each minute cut and drop of blood the razor-sharp wires have caused her.

But, it was all worth it, as a golden slip of paper fell from the heavens into her hand. A certificate of a perfect adolescence, which her family would be proudest of. However, as it falls, the light lowers, showing her the long shadow cast across the rest of the stage. It is but one step on the path of her life, and so she prepares to begin again.

The next act begins.

Her dress becomes shorter, the sparkles fading to a shimmering sheen on the fabric, and she stands more poised with sharper makeup. Worn circles are painted onto the stage, as she keeps flitting between one corner and another. 

She is frantic, uncertain, listless in the open air of possibility. Structure is gone, and her desires only lead her as far as “a good life.” The strings are beginning to come loose around her limbs. Despite not having the taut perfection of her previous school life, she sloughs her way into an attempt at a graceful dance in the center of the stage.

Eventually, her dance seems to be picking up speed, and regains some of that composure she had before. However, she begins to go too fast, too hard, and is too ignorant of her body's own position. All it takes is an act of random fate, and a string fully slips, catching her heel and pulling it back, sending her flying forward.

"Woah!” A broad shouldered man caught Adelita as she nearly fell into a large puddle. He held her warmly and securely as her mind caught up with her body.

“Oh, oh my god I am so sorry! I…dear Madonna, I didn’t see you.” She shakingly stood up, trying to right her stability.

“It is no problem, but are you alright? If I didn’t know better I’d think you were sleepwalking.” He raised her to her feet gingerly, with the grace and gentleness of fine linen. He seemed like an older man, a wizened type.

“I…yes, I am going through college, through many hurdles, a Political Science degree. I…I want to be a politician.” She threaded out as he helped her walk to a covered bench nearby.

“An ambitious young woman, of a type you do not see often these days.” The leather of his gloves felt cold, but the wool of his peacoat drew her in. “Come, I know of a gentle cafe nearby where you can rest, and I can feed your thin body.”

She found herself easily persuaded by him. That, paired with her exhaustion, covered up the lack of breath, the odd twitch of his shadow, and the small peak of sharpened fang. Normally she would have refused. Taking others' kindness, especially that of a stranger, was a shame tantamount to sin in her own mind. Besides, she had work to do.

But she was not herself anymore.

“T-Thank you…but, w-who are you? Why are you here?”

“Why? You could call me a job recruiter of sorts. As for who?” He changed directions, and drew the girl tighter to his chest, in theory to stabilize her further and shield her from the cold. “Many people in many places give me many names. Tonight, my dear, call me Fausto.”

The devil appears on stage, catching the woman in a sweeping motion before she can fall. Each silver string is pulled more taut than before, blood escaping from where they squeeze and painting the curvature of her limbs, now not attached to unseen rafters, but the hands of the devil.

For a moment, both dancers are covered by his thick black cloak, the shroud of night he has made his home. His outfit is a deep violet, nearly black itself. There is no shimmering outline or sheen. The only thing setting him apart from the darkness of the stage is the cruel iron mask he wears, a twisted harlequin’s smile with proud fangs, baring on the young girl.

And now, they both begin to dance.

She renews her movements with renewed vigor, and he spins behind her, letting her move on her own beat, until she would go too far outside of his grasp, then the strings tighten and she is pulled back into sway. But, with enough leave that she thinks it her own actions still.

Time passes, her dress changes once more. No longer the flowing innocence of childhood, or the exposed growth of young adulthood. Now it tightens around her form and flows outward, tights to take the appearance of professional slacks and blazers. But, it is no longer as dark as the stage, for she has made herself known.

The blood Adelita has spilled becomes her, and her dress is forever a bright crimson. Yet, her strings remain silver. But the devil has taken note. He believes her ready. He pulls her tighter and tighter, until her ballet becomes an intimate tango.

“I have need of you in my company. A powerful, inquisitive mind like yours cannot be wasted on the drivels and bureaucracy of mere district politics.”

“How could I refuse such an offer?”

“Do you have any next of kin? We must move to New York.”

“I do not, but why must we travel in such an odd fashion?”

“All answers in good time, mi sustenta.”

“We leave for California by the end of the week.”

“Again? We have barely made any political waves here!”

“On the contrary. I have made all the moves we need to. Now, your guiding hand shall be needed once more on the other coast.

“What about my moves? Mr. Hernandez, I honor your kindness but-”

“In. Good. Time. One day you will understand.”

“Fausto…that woman…what are you doing to her?”

“...Do you trust me, mi sustenta?”

“I…I shouldn’t but…yes.”

“Come, take my hand. The time for answers is upon us.”

In the dance of the play, the orchestra reaches a shrill, piercing crescendo. The silver mask is thrown off, and only the devils twisted and contorting mouth is seen, a sickeningly white gleam like the most haunted of moonlit nights.

As the highest notes are reached, Adelita finally speaks, letting out a scream to pierce the heavens, as she throws her head and free arm to the sky, watching as each silver thread that had been tied to her, the motivation of her family beyond the veil, falls.

She is cut from her dream in one foul Embrace, and each thread turns a disgustingly vibrant crimson. As red streaks from her eyes, and she falls to the floor with naught but one single, similarly red light falling upon her, she cannot enjoy the looseness of the strings for long.

The devil looms over her, and now cares not for the illusion. He forces her upright, her dress blooming into a stained crimson Traje de Flamenca.

From here on, she dances to every step of his. What else does she even have? She learns the truth of the vampiric world, the underlying damned to every city. She learns of Clan Lasombra, the power they hold, and the shadows they wield. She learns of the Camarilla, and the careful dance they both must step to, even while she is ensnared in his own.

But, after the misery of her loss fades, she sees what she has always seen, from that first evening.

An opportunity.

Her face steels, her sharp makeup becoming a golden mask of superiority, and she whips around on her partner, dancing in tune with his steps.

Within seconds, they do not know who is leading and who is following. Their goals align for quite some time. They gain power in their shadowy subsections through the West Coast, their businesses grow wealthier and wealthier. 

Even in this state, with the pragmatism of Clan Lasombra beaten into her, with the crimson threads she dances with cutting almost to the bone, she thinks of her greatest goal, and finds ways to help and push her influence for her people and community where she can.

But the dance cannot go on forever.

More and more they seek paths separate from one another, and for one that is a grave sin. The darkness of the stage is bathed in the red light of conflict as they push and pull, with only Adelita becoming wounded in the process as the crimson threads dig even deeper, grinding against the bone of her arms.

But finally, after what feels like a million arguments and acts of spite, the breaking point happens.

Those crimson threads snap.

The devil fades into the darkness of the stage, and Adelita is left limp and prone on the floor.

She has won her freedom. She has won her directionlessness. She has won the abandonment of the final thing she hadn’t yet lost.

But still, she cannot stop moving. She hasn’t so far, even when caught in Fausto’s web, and she cannot fathom what would come after.

So, even though she has to crawl, she crawls. When she has to undulate herself forward like a writhing worm, she wriggles. When she has to swing her arms like burdensome weights without the strings to pull them up, she launches herself. 

It becomes a facsimile of the dance itself, graceful and precise poses replaced by undignified grunting and leaping.

The dance continues, for who knows how long. She cannot stop her endless trek, and she is now more determined than ever to reclaim her spot among her family, for her strings to be taut silver once more.

Eventually, the orchestra has long since gone silent, the audience has stood up and left, and the lights have fallen. But the curtain has not set. Adelita is not allowed to stop moving. Her limbs are bruised and broken, bloody blues and blacks covering nearly every spot of her body.

But she cannot stop.

She is not allowed to stop.

If she stops now, she can never rise again.

Amidst the wet thumps of her movement, the sound of footsteps were drowned out.

“Ah, mi sustenta, what has become of you?” The devil takes the stage once more.

At first she can’t even notice his presence, as she continues on her infinite loop across the stage. But soon, the crimson threads that laid limp around her became animate once more, and she was brought into a soft embrace.

Her face was too swollen to speak, but a hand on his face said everything Fausto wanted to hear: “I am sorry, I made a mistake. Forgive me.”

He takes a deep sigh. “Come, Adelita, let us dance once more.”

Gently, softly, the devil binds her fully in his crimson threads, and leads her on a soft waltz, as her limbs raise and fall gently and smoothly once more.

Adelita dreamed that, perhaps this would be the beginning of something new, of something better. Perhaps they could try again, with her knowing her proper place. Perhaps…he could tell her how clever and astute she was once more.

But for the devil, for Fausto, the effort to rehabilitate this rebellious worm of a woman would be far too grand.

In their final dance, Adelita closes her eyes as the devil cranes his neck downwards, and he takes back what he gave her long ago. After a meal well enjoyed, her body crumbles to decomposed ash.

And the curtains are finally allowed to fall.

“Fin”.