Give Me Your Heart

So seamless in its creation that not even moonlight penetrated through, the maboroshi shielded the two figures and illuminated them with eeie artificial light. Manufactured shadows ghosted through a torrent of swirling petals.

Its creator caught one petal by plucking it from the air. "Gozonji desu ka?" He smiled, a minimally restrained feral smile, knowing the answer before the question was spoken.

Perhaps the child standing innocently before him would know the tale, the legend, the scary story told to frighten small children, but the innocent eyes reflected only curiosity; perhaps he did not. He decided to tell it again, in its simple form, in the repetitive prose that everyone knew.

Beauty requires pain. Human blood. Sacrifice. Loss of innocence. The petals are pink because the tree sucks blood from the victims below.

The child's eyes widened in horror and guilt because, yes, he enjoyed their beauty. He then spoke a small question of his own, with the insight only children have. The people under the tree, don't they suffer?

He laughed at that, under the hollow light, eyes glittering with dark promise. "It's nice to see such beauty in the world," he said ambiguously. "Don't you think the petals are pretty?" The boy hesitantly nodded, shuffling black hair across his brow. "Their beauty is deserving of the pain they require, isn't it?"

No, the boy's eyes wailed.

"But would you rather have their deaths wasted toward some frivolous end?" He smirked. "All of us, you included, will perish when that day comes." And there will be only the perfect beauty of silence in the world.

No, the boy conceded.

He did enjoy toying with prey, especially ones this uncommonly pretty. He knelt close to the child, resting a hand on a little shoulder. "Give me your heart," he whispered into a sensitive ear. He didn't wait for a response: he knew the answer before he asked.

And so he struck, and the warm crimson ran between his fingers to the soil where it was absorbed greedily.

The boy went rigid, shock of being struck registering in his muscles before his nerves and mind. He pulled away, withdrawing the hand from torn flesh. There was surprise written on his features, but no pain. He scrambled to ask a question, why, but lungs could no longer channel air past his throat. A little blood trickled over his chin instead. Vital organs mangled beyond repair, suffocation through blood loss would take place in minutes, but he would answer the child's question.

"Why? Because you're beautiful." And was so much more beautiful now.

He watched the eyes glaze, the muscles droop, the panic recede. He snatched another single petal from the breeze and used it to wipe the trail of blood from his petite mouth. It was not enough - it smeared. He kissed it then, clensing taint with his tongue to restore the face to its previous symmetry.

Blood fresh on his lips, he kissed a chubby pale cheek, leaving intimate stains in a parody of lipstick. The child was then quickly absorbed, consumed, by the living wood of the tree, the sakura with sap of blood. He hadn't seen a trace of pain in the boy's eyes. Shock, and distress perhaps, but no pain – that signal of danger is useless in traumatic death.

He chuckled, speaking to the memory of the boy. "Tell me, do you suffer?"

The sakura petals fell noiselessly. He took the silence as a no.