My favirote Mika Shimotsuki and Sakuya Togane pairing for Horror month contest. I hope I win. Please review if you like the couple or story.
The skeleton is on fire."
"So?"
"Why is the skeleton on fire?"
It was a ridiculous question. A silly query that was very low on the list of questions for the man who keeps a ship in a bottle, whose wallpaper show such a ghastly aged print and where a creepy photo of himself with his mother is placed on the desk. After a meeting with the real Misako Togane, cruel shades and vicious poison dripping from every orifice, the visual of the smiling doting mother filled her with unease.
Laughter, cruel and mocking, froths forth from thin dry lips, manifesting out into the dry, tainted air for no reason that she could fathom. When his piercing stare met hers, her stomach twisted into knots. "Inspector," Dropping her designation in a cool silky drawl, "you need to learn to appreciate the macabre, especially the kind of beauty it can bring to a room." Mika's eyes discreetly dart across his cave, suddenly tense, feeling as if there was a sinister back-story associated with each item. Maybe once the court rack was used to bludgeon a victim to death. Or the wallpaper was so ugly because it was smeared with tears and blood.
"I was quite fascinated with the art at the mansion, very avant-garde."
Mika blinked, tongue fails uselessly in her mouth, so she simply stares at him, dumbfounded for several moments before swallowing imperceptibly and then, softly gasps, "What? You set a skeleton on fire because you liked what happened at the mansion."
Many words hung unsaid, but were emphasized through action, the slight trembling of her fingers, amber eyes wide and glossy in terror. Standing at the only companion to his dark and violent thoughts, she appears a small, fragile thing, desperately clinging to a weak show of bravado. 'The art at the politician's house - you thought it was artistic that live humans were twisted into parodies of animals and then set on fire."
It was foolish to be incredulous and would consider kicking herself later an appropriate action for underestimating the depth of his wickedness. He painted inspectors black for goodness sakes.
Then, a troubling thought enters her mind, an awful observation. A rigid lock of terror grips her chest and dawning horror threatens to overthrow the hold she had on her sanity. "Is that Akane's grandmother?" Blurted out, voice pitching high in horror.
"Are you suggesting that I skinned Akane's grandmother alive, set the body on fire for the purpose of replicating Kamui's ode to depravity." Words of silken lead, peppered with sick delight fall, all the while a smile dances on his lips.
The sneer continues to stretch, and stretch. The stretching of his abnormal smile knows no bounds until it curves beneath his darks eyes and she could see the incisors looking like fangs bared. His eyes, vividly animalistic, sharpen and stare unseemly.
Bile burns the back of the throat as memories shot painfully inside her. The smell of burning flesh assaults her nose, as is her mind overtaken by human faces horribly disfigured, flames ripping apart flesh, exposing the remaining vestiges of torment those poor souls suffered.
Casually he bridges the gap between them, and her body shrinks under his hard gaze. "My dear Mika, I value my time far too much to create mediocre work with poor materials such as human body parts." Sakuya can feel the madness clawing into his mind, recalling a lovely scene of a dead grandmother whose bones snap under pressure and flesh tears to spurt blood and ooze gore against hard knuckles.
The movies in their heads are sick, warped and perverse, causing very different reactions in each. It shows bare on their faces, their connection, he was practically gripping her hand in a vice as he drags her to the darkest pit of hell.
"It would be quite interesting experiment in painting Akane black. If she were to see her grandmother's corpse consumed in a fiery blaze," He actually seems to be considering such a feat with his brows knit together in thought. "Thank you for that encouragement." His ice gray eyes mocks her now, and it causes her to bow her head in shame, and utter a tiny scared sound, a little mewl for she has no way to defend her actions.
Her breathing is harsh and heavy filling out the close space between them as the toxic scent of his cologne, a rich spicy tang, pervades her nose and empties her head of rational thought except for the terror that is slowly drowning her.
"Unfortunately I am not as experienced as your friend Rikako Oryo, who was quite skilled with the blade." His eyes glint like shards of glass, and they carry a malicious quality that would make the devil proud.
She fought to appear unaffected, let the remnants of the sick emotions from grief to self-hatred that threatened to cloud her hue wash over her without any change on her face, but her efforts seemed to small avail. Mika felt her skin twist into a pitiful expression, a ghost haunted by anguish, and shadows of reminiscent pain darken under her eyes.
"Such a memorable piece if I recall parts of the case correctly," Lips easily warp into sharp blades of cruelty, and his eyes are full of unspeakable things. Her legs tremble, finding it difficult to support her weight, if only the floor would swallow her up and save her from burdensome memories.
"She carved up your friends into quite pretty statues- twisted their limbs around and gave them a halo of lovely flowers. Their new forms were spectacular, exceeding expectations. A breathtaking sight, you can almost forget the girls names."
A heartfelt cry, heavy in its sorrow cut him off. Pleasure seems to drape his face when she looks at him with glistening eyes. 'Please stop.." Whimpers pitifully, anguish reshaping her face. It is obvious she is suppressing the urge to break into vociferous sobs.
"Oh, have I upset you?" Sounding far from apologetic and closer to satisfaction. Fingers curl around her chin, and their gazes hold for a few seconds. The temperature in the room dips, and it is far too cold. Shivers rack her spine, sending painful spasms through her body and every muscle screams at her to run.
Too late. His mouth sinks over hers, iciness seeps into her mouth, freezing cold sweeps across her skin. He looks like a human, all physical signs indicate it, but he kisses like a demon and smells of death mixed with brutality… He's horror embodied.
She stood there, panic, disgust and helplessness trembling through her body in echoing tremors, building up until all she could hear was her own difficult breathing, and she had to grit her teeth to stop them from chattering. Fingers rake through her hair, lightly tugging at the strands.
"You are doing well," Murmurs softly, and offers up an approving smile tainted with malice. There lingers an inkling of desire to corrupt and tarnish the pretty inspector a beautiful black, and Mika was just ripe, teetering on the edge..no, not yet.
Fingers trace down her cheek, and brush against her chin before they crawl around her neck. Wherever his mouth and hands touch her; they leave a white hot burning sensation. Writhing in torment of her own making, she has only herself to blame, for continuing this obscene partnership when she should just reveal…no, she couldn't. Sybil would be angry. So she's trapped, tethered to this awful, terrible monster who paints inspectors black and picks at people's sanity with finely tuned claws. When Mika's tiny whimper escaped against his lips, he deepened it further.
Fed ravenously upon her fear, on her panic and on the regret written clear on her face. "I have already set the plan in motion," Her lips are swollen and quivering; the despair weighing down leaves her exhausted.
His wicked grinning rictus hovers over her lips; his hot breath burns her cheek, and against her ear, whispers scald her skin, poisonous and dark. "It won't be long now for Akane to be painted black." Gently nudges her chin so her face moves towards to the terrible sight, the empty sunken eyes of the skeleton whose depths are alight with red and orange flames. Locking her eyes into a hellish nightmare of burning bones and disembodied structure that reminds her of death and decay. "Was not her reaction beautiful…A perfect simulation of someone on the brink of madness." The sound of blood pulsates at a deafening level in time to his words, and a strange numbness settles on her body. He gives a low chuckle, and felt the venomous lust course through him, stronger, heated, relishing the terror and despair his fingertips sense on the young inspector. "The inspector will end up like this art piece here, after the darkening of her precious lily white hue, the flesh will be stripped from her bones, her body broken into a shell of her former self and whatever remains will burn till there is nothing left."
Profane mirth and warped thoughts, vapid hate and broken sentiment, all swirled and danced in the throat of the speaker until they made his voice sound chilling and fierce. Her calm composure evaporated as if it were dipped in strong acid, and she chokes piteously, "I can't…I can't." Letting out a high, thin sound, too weak to call ascream. His hands wrap around her shoulders, mimicking an iron maiden imprisoning its victims in its sharp pointed teeth, wet with the taste of blood and gore. "You will!" He made the final push, and skewered her hopes, dreams and any strength she might have left to refuse. His usually secretive, complacent gaze was brimming with unconcealed fervor.