It's dark.
It's not the normal dark - no, that'd be too easy. It's the soul consuming, death cowering, monster fleeing, dark. He doesn't remember what regular dark looks like.
He doesn't remember what anything looks like, actually.
He only remembers darkness and cold and hisses and evil, and even the faintest hint of falling. Everything else is an annoying whisper in his ear that he just can't shake. Well - he supposes it's more like screaming in his ear, but he's learned to ignore it and drown int out with the voices.
The voices.
They can be nice some times. They can be mean others. He's learned not to take the things the voices say to heart because so far his heart is still beating slowly in his chest and his brain is still working in his head (sort of), contrary to what they've said.
The voices never really follow through with their plans.
They say they'll rip his heart out, or his lungs, or his liver, or other various body parts. They say they'll break his body, just like they have with his mind, but he's not too worried.
His mind isn't broken, it's just not really working.
But it's working enough to understand the hisses of the voices when the mention something about someone coming.
Someone's coming? That sounds familiar. He thinks someone's coming, or should be coming, or is already here? He doesn't know. He's confused.
No one's coming, it hisses in his ear, through his brain. He wants to cower and clamp his hands over his ears so the voices can't talk to him anymore, but that never works. They always sneak into his brain, planting thoughts and temptations and desires, until now they're waiting calmly in the corner of his mind, a steady stream of words flowing from them. No one. They'll never come.
No? Why not?
They're all dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. That's what the voices say, and the voices can't be wrong because the voices are the only thing he knows now. The wouldn't lie to him, couldn't lie to him, because he's all they know too.
He thinks he should feel sad, or mad, but he doesn't remember how to. It's another thing the voices tell him he does 't need.
Stupid mortal emotions. Destroying everything and everyone.
But it's not stupid. He likes emotions, or he did, and he grows a little uneasy when the voices try and convince him that he doesn't (or didn't?).
Now, he knows that's not true.
No. No! NO! The voices sound angry. He recoils.
He recoils directly into something soft and squishy and warm.
It's foreign (too foreign!) and when he tries to pull away from it, his body refuses to cooperate.
Fingers are curling over his own calloused and scarred hands then. He recoils again, because it's nothing like he's felt in the longest time. It's too soft, too delicate, for the dark. The dark is cruel and cut and sharp. These hands are smooth and soft and beautiful, and they interest him. He hasn't felt anything like these, his fingers now only run across dark and cold. But not this.
He likes it.
His fingertips trace across the lines of a palm (that's what they're called, right? He doesn't really remember. His brain is so foggy he doesn't even remember his own name, much less hands.) and muscles twitch under the touch. It's strange. He's so used to being the only thing moving across the dark, but now he's suddenly not so alone.
He thinks he likes it, but he can't be sure because the voices (the voices, the voices, the voices) are telling him not to trust the pretty in his hand.
But that doesn't sound right. He wants the pretty. He enjoys the pretty. The voices have it wrong because the pretty is nice to him.
He ignores the voices this time.
Fingers lace with fingers, and he swears he can see gold.