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sparkindarknessThis is driving me mad. Ever since I started this story (about 2-3 years ago) I've had 101 ideas, and have got 101 stories. But they all happen later, I need to get past the angst to write it! I'm GOOD at angst! Normally it's my strong point; so why is it so hard to hammer out an angsty story with Darren who is practically a walking angst magnet!
I think Rick is a bad influence on him.
My room is a mess. Quite an achievement considering how little there is in it to mess up. I lie huddled in
the middle of it. Naked. In agony. Surrounded by shards of glass, fighting back tears and the stench of burning flesh. Fighting back memories. Fighting not to think.
Like every fight, like everything that's important, I lost. The memories will not be silenced, like avenging shades they rise from my mind. Their accusing presence lies heavily in my mind - if I could do this, if I could commit such acts, I had no right to forget them afterwards.
I staggered in from the street, laden down with bottles. Running from that strange, tempting young man. Was he dead? Perhaps, perhaps he's someone else who should be added to the litany of my crimes... why does that bother me more than anything else I've done?
His face, his voice had plagued me all the way home. I barely waited until I slammed the door closed before opening the first bottle. I don't know what it was, still don't given that the bottle is a shattered ruin, scattered around the flat and embedded into my flesh. I was a fool, I drank more than any man could survive. I sought death, a death by overindulgence that even a coward like me couldn't avoid.
I overestimated my pitiful, broken courage. I remember dying, lying back, dazed from alcohol. Consciousness had swept away. I was free. For one beautiful, glorious moment I was free. And I was afraid. Offered salvation, I still clung to darkness, and the magic rose within me.
My clothes were ash, except the silk that had melted into my skin. The burns were nothing, a mere singeing of the skin compared to my chest and hands. Agony that still burns. The pentacle on my chest, one of my precious wards, my last hope for holding back my darkness is embedded into my flesh. The meat around it is black and charred, filling the flat with a sickly sweet miasma that lingers long after the amulet cooled. It had tried to stop me; to hold back my power. At least it was still whole. My hands twitch and scabs break, oozing puss covered in burnt scraps of flesh. A few last drops of silverly liquid run between my fingers. They land on the blackened floorboards that begin to smoke again. My other wards; they had spent their powers to the last, melting and running down my hands like quicksilver as they failed. As they all failed.
Only my tattoos had stayed strong. Ankle, wrist and neck, the spiritual chains still glowed with a sickly green light. The surrounding skin was swollen and cracked, rotten, ruptured and burst from the stress the wards had flogged me with, punished me with, fought me with. Fighting to hold back my power and torturing me with their strength. We had fought for hours, for most of the night and most of the next day. My wards against my darkness; against me.
I try to huddle further into a ball, rolling on the shattered glass, on the charred floor boards and wood splinters. Trying to look away. I had won. Hah! Finally I have won and know true defeat.
My neighbour lies opposite. She had heard my struggles. My screams. She was a kindly soul. She brought me home cooked food now and again. Helped me around this strange new city, and was always ready with a welcoming smile even for the strange foreign tenant.
Her little daughter was a sweet child around 5 who would sit and listen to my strange accent for hours. Her husband was a driven hard working man, labouring day and night to give his family everything he could, every chance they could get.
And now I had taken more from them than ever he could replace, no matter how hard he worked. The kind eyes were wide, sightless yet accusing. Miraculously untouched and pure, and still gentle despite how the end had twisted her face into an endless screaming rictus. The eyes asked why. After all she had done. Why? Why did she have to die? Why did she, did anyone have to die as she did? She had come in the door, run to him, fearing he was sick. This was how he repaid her kindness.
Yet, even with those wide accusing brown eyes staring at him, the face that flashed in his mind was Rick's. Blue eyes and ready smile, joy and life given flesh. Even faced by this poor woman, this poor victim, he still kept returning to Rick. Asking whether he killed him. Whether his face should be added to the litany of victims like hers. Why should his face bother me more than hers? Or more than the others? So many others!
I don't know, all I can do is lie in the glass, huddle round my wounds and cry out my hate and grief. And still all that passes through my thoughts is him. Again and again his words come back to me '"Let me help you!"'
She had come to help me. She had paid the price... if he hadn't already, I could not let him pay the same.
I think Rick is a bad influence on him.
My room is a mess. Quite an achievement considering how little there is in it to mess up. I lie huddled in
the middle of it. Naked. In agony. Surrounded by shards of glass, fighting back tears and the stench of burning flesh. Fighting back memories. Fighting not to think.
Like every fight, like everything that's important, I lost. The memories will not be silenced, like avenging shades they rise from my mind. Their accusing presence lies heavily in my mind - if I could do this, if I could commit such acts, I had no right to forget them afterwards.
I staggered in from the street, laden down with bottles. Running from that strange, tempting young man. Was he dead? Perhaps, perhaps he's someone else who should be added to the litany of my crimes... why does that bother me more than anything else I've done?
His face, his voice had plagued me all the way home. I barely waited until I slammed the door closed before opening the first bottle. I don't know what it was, still don't given that the bottle is a shattered ruin, scattered around the flat and embedded into my flesh. I was a fool, I drank more than any man could survive. I sought death, a death by overindulgence that even a coward like me couldn't avoid.
I overestimated my pitiful, broken courage. I remember dying, lying back, dazed from alcohol. Consciousness had swept away. I was free. For one beautiful, glorious moment I was free. And I was afraid. Offered salvation, I still clung to darkness, and the magic rose within me.
My clothes were ash, except the silk that had melted into my skin. The burns were nothing, a mere singeing of the skin compared to my chest and hands. Agony that still burns. The pentacle on my chest, one of my precious wards, my last hope for holding back my darkness is embedded into my flesh. The meat around it is black and charred, filling the flat with a sickly sweet miasma that lingers long after the amulet cooled. It had tried to stop me; to hold back my power. At least it was still whole. My hands twitch and scabs break, oozing puss covered in burnt scraps of flesh. A few last drops of silverly liquid run between my fingers. They land on the blackened floorboards that begin to smoke again. My other wards; they had spent their powers to the last, melting and running down my hands like quicksilver as they failed. As they all failed.
Only my tattoos had stayed strong. Ankle, wrist and neck, the spiritual chains still glowed with a sickly green light. The surrounding skin was swollen and cracked, rotten, ruptured and burst from the stress the wards had flogged me with, punished me with, fought me with. Fighting to hold back my power and torturing me with their strength. We had fought for hours, for most of the night and most of the next day. My wards against my darkness; against me.
I try to huddle further into a ball, rolling on the shattered glass, on the charred floor boards and wood splinters. Trying to look away. I had won. Hah! Finally I have won and know true defeat.
My neighbour lies opposite. She had heard my struggles. My screams. She was a kindly soul. She brought me home cooked food now and again. Helped me around this strange new city, and was always ready with a welcoming smile even for the strange foreign tenant.
Her little daughter was a sweet child around 5 who would sit and listen to my strange accent for hours. Her husband was a driven hard working man, labouring day and night to give his family everything he could, every chance they could get.
And now I had taken more from them than ever he could replace, no matter how hard he worked. The kind eyes were wide, sightless yet accusing. Miraculously untouched and pure, and still gentle despite how the end had twisted her face into an endless screaming rictus. The eyes asked why. After all she had done. Why? Why did she have to die? Why did she, did anyone have to die as she did? She had come in the door, run to him, fearing he was sick. This was how he repaid her kindness.
Yet, even with those wide accusing brown eyes staring at him, the face that flashed in his mind was Rick's. Blue eyes and ready smile, joy and life given flesh. Even faced by this poor woman, this poor victim, he still kept returning to Rick. Asking whether he killed him. Whether his face should be added to the litany of victims like hers. Why should his face bother me more than hers? Or more than the others? So many others!
I don't know, all I can do is lie in the glass, huddle round my wounds and cry out my hate and grief. And still all that passes through my thoughts is him. Again and again his words come back to me '"Let me help you!"'
She had come to help me. She had paid the price... if he hadn't already, I could not let him pay the same.