Disclaimer: I don't own Street Fighter or any of the characters. I also don't own the song "Just a Shadow"; that belongs to the artist King Diamond. This song comes from the album "House of God", for anybody interested.
Just a Shadow
An echoing roar rent the darkened sky; a thunderstorm reaching its height in the midnight hour. Liquid pattering resounded softly against the chilled marble steeple, trickling over looming, motionless saints of ivory whiteness, falling down their cold cheek like tears of sorrow. Perhaps the saints, encased in stone, sensed the horrors that had occurred slightly earlier that evening.
Beyond the solid oak portal, the sacred interior remained cloaked in velvety darkness, the crimson sable carpeting turned to silky black. More carven icons, many in the likeness of the Holy Catholic Mother of God and others of proudly winged angels, gazed unseeing and serene in the dark, sightless eyes vainly attempting to pierce the dimly luminescence of the rainbow of glass panes before them. Flickering sparks upon the candle wicks fought a losing war against the ebony shadows flowing down the altar and pulpit. Now and again, a rumbling flash would set the chapel ablaze with stark whiteness, before the burst succumbed to the reigning night.
Again I'm so alone
The wine is pouring down
No one to share with
No one to care with
The only light in my life
Comes from the candlelight
Black candles left behind
The church was filled with harsh sound, reverberating with the noisome wail of wood crashing against marble. A silhouette stood framed within the threshold by waterfalls of rain; a youth of indescribable beauty and nobility. With his halo of golden sunshine hair glittering with crystal drops, fair shimmering skin and summery blue eyes, the young man carried with him a breath of spring daylight, a steady luminous flame against the raging nocturnal storm. If not for his terrible state and the palpable instability throbbing within the blue orbs, this man could have rivaled the frozen angels within for comeliness. The pristine satin of his billowing shirt and the darker satin of his trousers were soaked in liquid crystal…and dripping scarlet. The strands of golden hair were flying loose and free, floating in all directions.
As I'm sitting through the night
I'm so cold and dark inside
Angel, your memory will haunt me till the day I die…
On weakened knees, the youth walked, brown leather loafers muffled on the ruby sable of the floor. Row after row of pews blurred before his eyes, melding into one line of deep wooden brown. Deep inside, the youth's soul felt hollow, empty and inconstant as a faltering shade.
Before the altar draped in royal violet, the angelic man fell, caught in the arms of a cool stiffened angel. Saline drops streamed down the fair cheeks as the youth heaved a sobbing scream, beholding the winged creature's frigid countenance. Those features he knew, had grown up beside each brilliant day of his life. Once they proved a true comfort when the one they had been modeled after was far away. Now, the onslaught of familiar images battered against his overwrought mind and his painfully beating heart. The friendly and sightless stares changed now to blind glares of accusation.
Just a shadow, a shadow of a man
I'm just a shadow, a shadow of a man
The eyes of statues standing along the nave
They seem to follow my every move…
Every tear I shed
It seemed like hours, I swirled round and round in the central aisle…a cry echoing in my mind and swelling in my throat as I saw her face in the Virgin Maria by the stair, the lady saint beside the christening font, the Archangel before the altar. Everywhere her face haunts me…the beautiful and faultless orbs shine in gleaming, terrible glory.
Oh, Mi Dios…I've committed the gravest of sins…
And I don't feel a shred of repentance for what I've done.
I am no longer of the living
But I am still not dead
I'm somewhere in between
I am of the unseen
The storm failed to abate outside the open doors, in spite of the lateness of the hour. Within the youth clung with desperation to the silken altar steps, seeking shelter from the storms raging inside his soul. The striking blue trapped within his eyes remained frozen as though in death, seeing as the stone likenesses around him saw the world. The fair flesh waxed pale as snow, lean muscles quivering for warmth beneath saturated cloth.
Must we have the other side
Just to feel alive?
Whoa, I wonder what would be
Had we not created me
It was then, in my darkest hour, my own season of Passion…that the Devil came to claim me for his own.
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Basking in the glare of a burning spotlight, a young man garbed in attire similar to that of a matador and encircled by entwined walls of steel, bowed before massive throngs who had ventured to view a vicious sport that evening. He smiled brilliantly, his striking beauty unmarred by the volumes of viscous blood staining his forearms, muscular chest and powerful thighs. Yet, despite the roar of applause, the sweetness of the night's kill, the waves of liquid life trailing down his body…he felt it was not enough. He needed more!
His prayers were answered as his frosty blue eyes, the hue of a frozen summer sea, caught sight of a large figure in red, shrouded by darkness in the highest box. Watching him. That lovely smile grew wider.
Just a shadow, a shadow of a man
I'm just a shadow, a shadow of a man
The eyes of statues standing along the nave
They seem to follow my every move…
They drive me insane!
It has been a long time since I'd returned to this place. The statues remain the same, standing in glory by the altar, the font, the pulpit. Everything is immaculate, the sun streams in multihued rays of sapphire, scarlet, saffron, crimson. I stand before the statue, the snowy statue of the Archangel; veins of pale gray remain still beneath her pale solid skin. Even the bouquet of lilies I carry cannot compare to its ivory fairness. This church…like an oasis in the dark desert of my thoughts. The truest beauty I have found, aside from myself.
Surrounded by darkness
In this cold church of thine
I try to remember
All that which was once mine
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"My lord?"
"Find this woman. I want her eliminated. She poses a dire threat to this entire organization."
Blue ice suddenly cleaved, allowing a thin ribbon of summery blue to seep through, captivated in an instant by a pair of warm cinnamon orbs, glancing back with a smile in a tiny photograph.
"Am I clear?" The deep brown was replaced, so soon, by wintry white.
"Of course, my lord. I will see to it."
I don't know what tomorrow will bring
But if life is so divine…
How come I suffer so in mine?
How come I suffer in mine?
Her distrustful eyes never left me. My body is tense, awaiting a sign. A subtle indication of where she will lunge. Those brown eyes, sparkling with fury…I feel an unusual sting at the hatred within them. All the same, I have to do this; I will not lose.
Oh, Dios…why won't these feelings go away?!
To the right!
The eyes of statues standing along the nave
They seem to follow my every move…
They drive me insane!
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Sky blue locked with bloodshot ice blue, as the moon peered cautiously from behind the clouds. Beneath the moon's silver rays was revealed a young woman, clad in a green leotard, pale blond hair twined in long twin braids. Her pretty, youthful face was etched with anger, sapphire eyes sparkling as she beheld the stunning creature before her. The golden blond male in her path was getting ready to strike once again, his chiseled body tense and pulsating with agitation.
I am no longer of the living
But I am still not dead
I'm somewhere in between
I am of the unseen
Volumes of blood poured freely upon the pavement as the gaunt youth staggered, the light of his deep blue eyes starting to gradually dim. Feeling gingerly with his slender fingers, he realized the truth with a mixture of grief and ire: the blond woman had inflicted a mortal wound with her last attack. He was now dying from the blood loss.
Maybe, had I known she would do this to me…I wouldn't have spared her so long ago.
Crimson splashes spattered on concrete as the young man coughed up some of the liquid seeping into his crushed lungs.
Still, I can't say I regret what I did that day. She was too beautiful to murder that way.
Of course I couldn't kill her. She is the likeness of the Archangel in every way.
She is…the image of my mother.
I lived a lifetime of sorrow and hate
Up until the other day
That's when I left this sick old world behind
Oh, how love can make you blind
With a final death rattle, Cammy White, eyes wide with morbid fascination, watched as the former Shadaloo Grandmaster named Balrog exhaled his last breath in the darkness of the alleyway.
END.
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