Dark Kiss
iI do not understand.
Smiling is a mere false show;
Crying, the product of the eyes' foul itch;
Anger, the worthless pretence of self-justification;
Gladness, the putrid writhe of chemicals in the gut;
Happiness, the dirty concoction that poisons with despair;
Love, a weak blood organ waiting to burst.
I do not understand these idle things, empty concepts as they are.
Void, I feel nothing, and nothing is what is necessary.
I do not understand./i
The black night was pierced by the pallid glow of the white moon streaming through the barred windows of the vast edifice. Hanging frozen within the dark abyss, it was like a pendulum with whose string it had never once been connected. Its eternal presence seemed to mock the black wretches that crawled beneath its false light.
The colossal white palace of Las Noches was icy in its cavernous silence. It was as if no life had ever dared breathed within its walls. Not even echoes of the wind whispering in the wasteland surrounding the fortress dared make their presence known here.
iClack./i
A single footstep announced itself to the dead hush from a newly-open door, snapping in cold echoes along the long colourless corridor. But that was where the courtesy of sound ended, as the footsteps proceeded along the white marble in firm, dignified vibrations that coldly tore the silence apart.
As abruptly as the noise had begun, it stopped dead. The footsteps died along with the movement that brought them into being.
Silence.
A single white hand lifted to the surface of the door before it, reflected icily in its metallic sheen.
The pale fingertips connected with the cold solid mass separating him. Dividing him. Barring him.
Without a sound, the hand pressed forward and pushed the door open.
It swung cleanly to one side, guided by the hand that held its vertical edge, submitting to its will and leaving the carefully preserved silence undisturbed.
The figure advanced into the grainy black haze, punctured and dyed by the sudden penetration of light from the outside.
Instantly her shape presented itself to his sights. Her perfect curved shape, lying still in the soft midst of sleep along the couch in the centre of the room in which she was captive, illuminated by the light to resemble a higher being so complete and pure as to make his empty existence all the more agonisingly void of everything she emanated from her wretched, blessed body.
Ulquiorra Shiffer clenched his teeth, and silently approached the sleeping girl.
Standing before her, the Quarto Espada found his eyes instantly stricken, unable to tear themselves away. Enraptured, yet simultaneously repulsed by this bitter form of absoluteness so desolately isolated from his being.
She was the pinnacle of everything he desired—the desire smothered in savage logic enclosed in a mind dead to what had so tormented it, now ripping apart the gaping wound bored through his body and making it bleed afresh.
He dug his black fingernails in the cold flesh of his palms.
iDamned woman.../i
Compelled by a wild impulse to destroy the source of his renewed agony, Ulquiorra stretched out a hand and curled his fingers around her soft white throat.
He could crush her breath in a nanosecond. No thought needed to be applied to the task. And yet, Ulquiorra found his crystallised orbs he called eyes turning to look at the sleeping girl's face.
Perfectly defined and smooth as gossamer; even now in unconscious dreams innocently venturing to soften his sharp, cold marble features. Her supple eyelashes, each one individually encapsulated in his eyes and without a hint of discord between them, gracefully hiding those benign grey windows that poured out the very essence of her untainted soul. Her cheeks carried the faint peach hue practically glowing from her countenance, and her balmy lips were slightly parted to allow each calm, soft breath to animate her body.
Standing before her, Ulquiorra felt the most depraved creature that ever walked the earth. She was the light, and he was the darkness that despised and adored her shimmering radiance.
His fingers gripped tighter, and their victim shifted uneasily in its slumber under them.
iBreak her,/i Ulquiorra urged silently, eyes glowing like two green moons in the shadow, iDestroy the light. Snuff it out. It hurts. It hurts.../i
It was here. He could feel it. He would feel it worming its way into his brain and devouring his thoughts. Her heart beating. Steady and constant. Peaceful. Life, putrid life in all its alluring wonder, mocking his dead life, his bitter purgatory of pain from which he could never escape. With that heart she felt what he could not, and revelled in the senses he took for granted. She felt with an organ. A mere organ! Possible? No. But...
He did not understand. He did not iunderstand it!.../i
But while every particle of his body revolted at the notion, his mind was craving for it. Lusting for it. It was somewhere. Somewhere. Here, now, it was here. Right here. The thing that she clung to to save her from the despair that had conquered him.
He wanted it. He needed it.
Ravaged by his inner conflict, Ulquiorra dropped to his knees and at once planted his cold black lips on her warm, living ones.
He tasted it. The sweet, consuming allure of life the human felt and thus thrived, so utterly foreign to his perfunctory senses yet throwing them into a frenzy of confusion and hunger. But when he pulled back, undetected, the sensation was lost upon his lifeless senses. The Hollow stared, every fathom of his being encapsulated with the abnormal paradox he had flung himself into. He knew that what he sought would not be gained with this simple breaching action.
It was a temporary torture, mocking his desires with its fleeting indulgence on his starved mind and body. This alone would never satisfy him. He needed more...
But how?
The instant this thought entered Ulquiorra's disturbed mind he violently shoved it to the dark recesses of his mind to fester and rot. He would not allow himself to succumb to the senseless trials of searching and searching, eventually losing all sense of what he was searching for but unable to abandon the cause he knew, somewhere, he had to fulfil.
That was what hope was; the catalyst of despair.
So terrifying...
And dark.
Unable to stand the chaos of emotions writhing through his body, Ulquiorra turned on his heel and without a sound exited the woman's prison cell.
Stopping a little beyond the threshold, the Espada turned and gazed unflinchingly at the sleeping woman, bathed in the artificial light of the corridor, yet seeming to radiate with an inner light so utterly inconceivable, maddening and fascinating to him all at the same time.
Reaching out, he grasped the cold edge of the doorframe.
Ominous green eyes blazed as they watched the darkness creep over the girl's soundless sleeping form as he closed the door upon the chamber and the hope imprisoned within it. By his hand, despair conquered the light, and Ulquiorra's world returned to its black misery.
Turning away, Ulquiorra Shiffer made his solitary journey back down the corridor of perpetual loneliness, his footsteps sounding harsh and isolated in the silence that otherwise ruled Las Noches.
She would still be there again tomorrow while he languished in his silent torture. Her and her wretched wholeness, him with his bittersweet void.
An endless journey without a destination, a search without a cause, a hole without a heart.
End.