Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The sound of my heart beating faster, and faster fills my ears over the sound of panting and footfalls beneath my feet. Adrenaline floods my body, endorphins at height are the only things pushing my cramped body to keep moving. Keep it pushing through the fear of knowing if I get caught, I won't be going back home to a normal life, or as normal as my life can get. Part of me doesn't think that's a bad thing, but the other is fueled by the fight or flight instinct in this moment of time.
There's a monster behind me, a terrifying cruel monster that scares me beyond belief. Although, the thing is, the thing i'm really scared of is something you wouldn't suspect. My thoughts are what give me chills, what i've done with full knowledge of the impact I would cause. I've compromised my morals, and everything I was taught. I was taught to believe everything in the world is black and white; there is good and evil, and the monster behind me is evil in all sense of the world. It has no remorse, no hesitation. I have to face the facts though, the monster behind me is not a literal monster.
It is a man.
A living, breathing, red- blooded man that I found myself to be absolutely in love with. A man who does many bad things, but a man nonetheless. A man that loves me more that the air in his lungs, and would do anything in his power to keep me by his side.
He isn't really what scares me, it's what he does, and what I overlook because that's what love is. You care for someone so deeply and so wholly that you know if you give yourself to them, there's no chance of coming back to your old self. I know if I turn around and lock eyes with him, I'll stop running. I'll give into him, into my own internal monster- entirely different yet the same as what he embodies, my physical monster.
I question myself on rather or not I really want to escape, but what does it really mean to escape something you really don't want to? The answer is that you're not actually becoming invisible to it, you are only delaying the inevitable. You are delaying the submission you will give to the monster. If I escape, if he allows me to get away, I know I will never truly be free of him. I would still love him with every fibre of my being and him me. To truly be free I would have to rip him from my mind's memories, and i'm not willing to give up the best thing that has happened in my life.
With this thought, my heart beat slows, my adrenaline leaves my body entirely, and my thoughts clear.
I stop.
Only a foot behind me I can hear his breathing, not even a bit heavy from keeping up with my strides. I'm afraid to turn around, but I know I have to.
"Will you accept me, my girl?" I heard his low baritone ask beside my ear, his body heat mingling with mine we were so close, making my body tense.
I turned my head, meeting his obsidian eyes as I felt my curls caress my face like a phantom hand without his callouses. "I'll never run from you again."
Does that make me the true monster? When I'm willing to accept a man who has killed for reason as well as none? When I would do anything for this man?
I guess it does.
We're one in the same, monsters through and through.