D. Gray-man
[many are the dead men, too silent to be real]
[31_days: may 18, 2007]
"How to Keep Immortal"
Written May 18, 2007
Ticky is a Noah first. It was only his first bored foray into the city alleys - then the dice houses and gamblers - then the cold, hard streets - then blazing fires in cans by the train tracks - that gave him his second life, that and his first deck of cards. Sure, the fires of the homeless are friendly, the card games are fun, the company good, but the friends themselves - they are humans. They are squishy, smiling, foolish, good-natured, mortal humans.
Ticky never forgets.
He is a Noah first.
* * * * *
Some humans are better than others, was the very first thing Ticky learned. And this human is loads worse than any of the useless rest, let alone his favorite human friends. He is loads worse than the time he's wasting should make him, he is so bad that it'd be a crime to let him live.
And even monsters aren't always criminals, Ticky reasons, thinking of how badly he desired that man's throat. Between his palms. Twisted and wrung out like a rag, like a good job.
"I win, fair and square," Ticky had said merely moments earlier, as he laid down his royal flush and looked pleased. "You owe me for the good game." He slapped the cards against each other idly, smiling. "How much did you bet again? 50 dollars? You drunkard."
"You cheated," grated out the man - the pig - in tatters that weren't tattered enough. Clothes make the man, Ticky had thought distastefully, but this one'll need more rags. "You cheated! I'm not paying you jack!"
"For once, I played honestly." Ticky's smile disappeared. It was true. He looked around and noticed the silence that had fallen over the other drinkers and gamblers; they were all watching intently, some beady-eyed with crooked smiles. They definitely looked amused.
Ticky was too. "Pay me or I'm leaving," he said with an exaggerated sigh, sounding put-upon. "The entire room can tell you've lost. Right now, you've got nothing more to lose than that fifty dollars."
It was then that his opponent fell silent, turning as red as a kettle. Ticky watched him, then burst into laughter, and then so did everyone else. The room trembled for the man's humiliation. And Ticky felt his was rather an artistic exit, as he slipped away in the midst of hooting and jeers, deriving from this the most spiteful of pleasures.
But now, the fault is this fool's, Ticky thinks some minutes later, he's made the mistake of stalking then assaulting me in an alley, isolating the two of us. I've won. He's made my night.
Ticky's hands find the man's throat, just the way he likes it.
* * * * *
He transforms this time without realizing it. Tonight he's in his element, pulling and rearranging ruthlessly and efficiently, basking in his delight without making a sound. His victim takes care of that. The alley is only full of screams for a little while, for as long as Ticky will allow, and once it's enough Ticky laughs just once, pulls his hand back from the man's body, and then plunges it into his vocal chords.
He experiments with the heart and lungs all the time, but never the throat. Never the voice, the source of all those delicious screams. I should do this more often, is his only thought, plucking them like one would an instrument.
When he is finished, he steps back from the corpse, satisfied, and only then does he notice the blackness of his skin, barely visible in the shadows of the buildings obstructing he and his game from view. It must be reflexive now, he muses, and feeling for a drink, he transforms again into his white form.
"Ticky?" says a voice from behind. Ticky freezes. He recognizes it; it's a familiar voice, one that drawls sarcastically, lowers itself when annoyed, particularly when its owner hasn't had enough to eat - it's a voice that makes the nicest sound laughing...
Ticky sees the witness before he has even fully turned around. He has visualized this day for the longest, trying to prepare, but if only he could remember now what it was he had ever planned to do...
The human - Joel, Ticky remembers against his better judgment - is stark white against the black, starless, moonless midnight. "Is that you, Ticky?"
No response. Ticky takes a step closer.
Joel scrambles back quicker than Ticky thought he could move. Even from a distance, he can see his shoulders shaking uncontrollably, the sweat beading on his face. "What the hell was that?"
"Joel, where did you come fro-"
"Ticky, what the hell was that?! Were you going to do that to us too?"
"Run, Joel-"
"What the hell are you!"
Another step closer, and then another, Ticky's waiting for that feeling of anticipation, the excitement that comes right before another kill - but this man's face, his name makes Ticky sick, sick of himself, sick of the Earl, and he's transforming again, this time deliberately, because he's just remembered and he can never go back...
"I am a Noah." Joel doesn't have to understand, and Ticky won't have to remember, because as his hands disappear into his chest, Ticky has changed, he is not that friend anymore, he never will be again because he remembers.
Ticky is a Noah first. He is finished with forgetting. He takes Joel's vocal chords before he takes his heart, because now his head is filled of that man's baritone laughter, when it should be full of nothing -
And then, instantly, it is. When he is through, when the corpse lies at his feet looking exactly like the rest, Ticky has forgotten that drink that he wanted. He has forgotten that he should be feeling pleasure. Yet he has forgotten how to change. He can never go back. In a way, he too is dead.
It was a long time coming.