Hopes of the Idealist - by Harukami
It feels as though I'm floating, not falling.
I am soaked, wet, rain stinging me lightly as I float downwards. My skirt, my shirt and corset, my sleeves; anything not covered by my armour is soaked by rain and blood.
I am too wet to tell if I'm crying, but for now, I doubt it. My heart bleeds, it bleeds, it bleeds, but I do not cry.
How is it that I can feel the sting of the rain, the sting of my wet hair whipping at my cheeks, but not the pain from the knife in my stomach?
I thought I would do anything for him. I thought he would do anything for me.
I should at least be surprised. Why am I not surprised?
But I knew back then, didn't I? I shut my ears and opened my heart, but it was my heart that lied, not Sydney's words. A sheep. My saviour a demon.
Demons. I heard voices in my childhood. The walls would speak to me of all those who had passed by before, and I would cover my ears and scream and scream. I suppose I am lucky that my parents did not have me burnt. Instead, they sent me to the church.
And in the church, I learned to stop listening. What matter if voices spoke in the walls if I could not hear them? He taught me that lesson. His arms around me, his words overriding the voices, "It is nothing, Samantha. Nothing."
He taught me to use sorcery.
"Is this not wrong, Romeo?"
"Power is power. This is used in God's name. Call you that 'wrong'?"
And yet my sleep was haunted, Romeo. The voices I could not hear during the day any longer I heard instead in my dreams, wailing around me.
"It is nothing, Samantha."
Nothing and nothing and nothing. We watch a pagan die in Lea Monde, forced to wander the earth ever after.
"...Will the same happen to me?"
"You will not die."
So why this, Romeo? Why a kiss and a knife, so deep in my flesh that I can taste both with every breath?
"Our cause needs a martyr."
I knew, Sydney. I knew what he was, what he must be.
I learned not to listen. Not to feel his hand cutting across my cheek, not to hear the names the other knights would call me, because I would spread my legs for him.
But it was quiet in his arms. Perhaps I was not free from the voices; yet they were quiet when he was there.
"I love you, Samantha. As God is my witness."
And then there is pain, I can hear the crunch of my own bones as I impact part of the roof below. I struggle for breath a moment, stunned, cannot draw any.
I hear, I hear, I hear my heart fail.
And I float again.
Am I free? Am I free at last?
I open my eyes onto Darkness that presses in around me, faces, voices, mouths reaching to bite at my flesh.
/Mine, mine, mine,/ the Dark whispers.
I feel the hopes of freedom sleep away.
/Yours/, I whisper without breathing, giving in yet again.
And the Dark moves in.
It feels as though I'm floating, not falling.
I am soaked, wet, rain stinging me lightly as I float downwards. My skirt, my shirt and corset, my sleeves; anything not covered by my armour is soaked by rain and blood.
I am too wet to tell if I'm crying, but for now, I doubt it. My heart bleeds, it bleeds, it bleeds, but I do not cry.
How is it that I can feel the sting of the rain, the sting of my wet hair whipping at my cheeks, but not the pain from the knife in my stomach?
I thought I would do anything for him. I thought he would do anything for me.
I should at least be surprised. Why am I not surprised?
But I knew back then, didn't I? I shut my ears and opened my heart, but it was my heart that lied, not Sydney's words. A sheep. My saviour a demon.
Demons. I heard voices in my childhood. The walls would speak to me of all those who had passed by before, and I would cover my ears and scream and scream. I suppose I am lucky that my parents did not have me burnt. Instead, they sent me to the church.
And in the church, I learned to stop listening. What matter if voices spoke in the walls if I could not hear them? He taught me that lesson. His arms around me, his words overriding the voices, "It is nothing, Samantha. Nothing."
He taught me to use sorcery.
"Is this not wrong, Romeo?"
"Power is power. This is used in God's name. Call you that 'wrong'?"
And yet my sleep was haunted, Romeo. The voices I could not hear during the day any longer I heard instead in my dreams, wailing around me.
"It is nothing, Samantha."
Nothing and nothing and nothing. We watch a pagan die in Lea Monde, forced to wander the earth ever after.
"...Will the same happen to me?"
"You will not die."
So why this, Romeo? Why a kiss and a knife, so deep in my flesh that I can taste both with every breath?
"Our cause needs a martyr."
I knew, Sydney. I knew what he was, what he must be.
I learned not to listen. Not to feel his hand cutting across my cheek, not to hear the names the other knights would call me, because I would spread my legs for him.
But it was quiet in his arms. Perhaps I was not free from the voices; yet they were quiet when he was there.
"I love you, Samantha. As God is my witness."
And then there is pain, I can hear the crunch of my own bones as I impact part of the roof below. I struggle for breath a moment, stunned, cannot draw any.
I hear, I hear, I hear my heart fail.
And I float again.
Am I free? Am I free at last?
I open my eyes onto Darkness that presses in around me, faces, voices, mouths reaching to bite at my flesh.
/Mine, mine, mine,/ the Dark whispers.
I feel the hopes of freedom sleep away.
/Yours/, I whisper without breathing, giving in yet again.
And the Dark moves in.