Checkmate

Night begins to fall. Slowly, slowly, the sun sets, in a blaze of brilliant light.

A lonely girl falls asleep on a mattress on the floor, shivering under her thick down comforter, silently crying herself to sleep.

The sobs cease, and for several long moments silence reigns.

And there is movement, quiet scurrying, rustles, voices.

“Tonight!” the voices say, “Tonight we will win our freedom!”

Slowly, timidly, a phalanx of metal chess pieces makes its ways across the wood floor. The Queen leads the attack party, surrounded by knights and rooks, which in turn are guarded by pawns. Behind her comes the King with his bishops to guard him, again surrounded by infantry. Slowly, slowly, they climb over the mountains and valleys off the coverlet, until finally they see a hand, lying palm down above the blanket.

The chess pieces cheer faintly.

“Who would like to go first?” the queen asks, a note of vengeful triumph in her voice.

“The honour is yours by right, Majesty,” a knight said, bowing, “You are our Queen.”
She smiled, drew a long, slim, wickedly pointed sword, and sliced across the hand, spilling droplets of blood onto the beige comforter.

Another cheer, louder this time, and suddenly all the chessmen are hacking at the hand. Another appendage is spotted, and a handful of knights and rooks go with a bishop and several pawns to investigate. Soon they too are slicing away.

They soon disappear, leaving the girl to her dreams.

When she awakes, she is astonished to find that her hands are crisscrossed by thin cuts, which sting constantly. Shrugging, attributing the wounds to her cat’s razor sharp claws, she shoves the pain to a corner of her mind, and puts a large bookshelf in front of it, effectively shutting it out.

The next night, the same thing happens, but this time the chessmen manage to lift her hand, and the Queen manages two slashes on her wrist, following the line of the blue veins so near to the surface. They bleed more severely than any of the other cuts have, the Queen of the Stuardi—for that is what they are—is fascinated. She leans in closer and closer, touches her cold mouth to the warm blood.

Suddenly, heat floods her body. Pewter flesh turns to living tissue, metal clothes turn to fabric. The Queen is truly alive, as she has never been before. Seeing this, the rest of the Stuardi drink, they too are transformed.

But, within the hour, the magic has faded, leaving them metal once more, standing in their alloted places in their homeland, the Wasteland of Opposites, for the landscape, when seen from high above, is comprised solely of black and white squares.

The girl notices nothing that day, but she over the next week she begins to grow pale, lethargic. She is diagnosed with anemia, but allowed to remain in her home, as it is not yet severe.

However, she grows only worse.

One night, the Queen grows tired of her plaything. She orders all her army to assist her, and begins to slit the girl’s throat. There is soon a rent in the pale skin, from which blood flows freely. The Stuardi kneel and drink deeply, for their thirst for blood is not easily sated. The blood keeps coming, bathing the Stuardi, and as dawn breaks they return to the Wasteland of Opposites, happy.

The next morning, the girl’s brother screams as he discovers his sister’s bloodless corpse, her neck mangled and tiny bloody footprints on the floor.

Exactly a year later, a group of bloodstained chess pieces are found outside of an abandoned house, and taken home by a little girl. The Queen of the Stuardi smiled, and said to herself, There will be blood tonight!