A Sea of Darkness

The world swam like a sloshing void of black. A raging sea of darkness. Barren. Deformed. Gaping, like the depthless maw of an empty eye socket. It pressed against his sightless vision like senseless waves crashing upon rocks that were deemed too weak to bear them, giving no face to feeling, no body to touch, and no heart to the surroundings that evaded him. Amidst the blindness, Ciel was truly alone.

"S-Sebastian?" He stammered pitifully, the name escaping from him in a fruitless waver, a waver that no ears could possibly detect, a waver that no ears could possibly hear at all. The sound disappeared as quickly as it arose, entering an existence that Ciel could no longer see, so eager to be rid of him that it barely persisted a second. It simply faded, not heard, not acknowledged, never to be answered, and Ciel could only feel his frantic heart worsen.

He was sitting in a chair. He knew that much. He could feel the chill of the leather caressing upon his writhing skin and the ice of the wood stabbing into his quavering spine. But exactly where this chair resided, he did not know. He'd been sitting in it so long that he'd lost all memory. He'd thought he was in his study, yet as he'd reached forward to brush his fingers upon the crisp willow of his desk, his hands had grasped nothing. He'd tried reaching out in all directions, yet had equally grasped nothing. It was as though he was stranded upon a remote island within an ocean of malice and deceit, too afraid to swim, too afraid to flee, for sharks delved in these murky, blood-riddled waters, and surely, if the sharks didn't kill him first, than his blindness would most certainly drown him instead.

He shuddered, a flush of cold dousing his veins, turning his blood to sludge. He could feel frigid tongues licking at him from all sides, as brittle as sandpaper against his fragile flesh, making him squirm. His heart was seizing, ringing out like pure thunder within his ears. A clock chimed amidst the roaring silence, counting the seconds, sullying the minutes with each passing dong, proof that time was moving, if not slowly, as though staggering through a gurgling pit of tar. His mind was simply playing tricks, but how could he possibly know? He could not see...

Fingers crawled upwards to the diseased eyepatch that he could feel spreading across the right of his features, concealing the mark that was the very cause of all his plight and misery. It was the very reminder of his salvation, and yet also his curse, and his certain demise. It had become the very bearer of his shame, his hate, his love, and now his eternal suffering. Not only had it ripped his soul from his own rightful clutches, but had served to deny his sight from him as well, as though it hadn't taken enough already...

"S-Sebastian, where are you?" Came the pathetic squeak again, louder, grating, like a wounded creature, petrified of the timely death that was certain to greet it if it dared remain silent any longer.

"Right here, my Lord," A voice, with cool breath that touched eerily upon the shell of his ear, spoke to the stillness of the din, so unfeeling and motionless that it caused shivers of utter discomfort to rack his withering frame. "You mustn't fret, sir. Simply call my name, and I shall be by your side immediately."

"I did, but you didn't come!" Ciel wailed to the lonely voice, lashing his head in the direction in which he had felt it approach, a manic terror to his cry that made it sound almost animalistic in its rawness.

"Did you now?" Pondered the reply, a concoction of mockery and genuineness that Ciel could never possibly hope to decipher. "That's odd. I don't believe I heard it. I apologise, my Lord. I'll make sure to keep my ears pricked for nonexistent sounds from now on."

Ciel felt a new dread pool within him, his Butler's words the perfect kiss of corruption he needed to spiral further downwards into disarray. He couldn't possibly be losing his hearing now too! He couldn't possibly be stealing that away from him as well! What more did he want?! Did his soul not satisfy his hunger? Did his eyes not satisfy his greed? He supposed not.

"J-just take me...t-take m-me...t-t-to my...room," Ciel whimpered, feeling so vulnerable, so helpless... He'd been so abruptly thrust into a world of darkness that he had flailed like a baby bird who knew not how to fly, reaching out and clinging to the only thing that had been willing to cling back...the very epiphany of darkness itself...the monster that had been the very reason that he'd been thrust into the darkness in the first place... And yet he could not let go, for if he did, he would surely fall, fall into the bottomless pit that was his shallow life, alone, unable to fend for himself, so hopeless that he would surely be paralysed by it.

"Sorry, my Lord. What was that?"

A fraying thread within Ciel's control suddenly snapped and with his broken figure convulsing, he bellowed out a scream so harsh that his throat was almost torn to pieces by it. "JUST TAKE ME TO MY ROOM! THAT'S AN ORDER! AN ORDER!"

The voice taunting the air was immediately murdered by this, an obvious sign of submission as Ciel felt large, fabric-cloyed hands curl around his frail, spasm-riddled body and dragged him free from his imprisonment on the chair, yet entered him almost instantly into an new prison, a prison of wretched arms, arms that he had welcomed, arms that he had willingly given himself to. They carried him into the blackness, over the ocean that he had so earnestly feared, and yet now he knew he had been wrong before. The shark was never in the water, but breathing upon his ear, its fangs growing ever nearer, until now, in which they had pierced him, snagging him in a vice that he could never hope of to escape again.

And as the emptiness swarmed him, festering upon his useless eyes, he could only long for this to end soon. For what did revenge matter, if he never was to see it?...

XXX

Hey guys!

This was just a piece that I wrote for my own amusement and curiosity. Basically, I just considered what it would be like if Ciel's contract mark had gradually turned him completely blind. It's quite vague, so you can interpret it in whichever way you want to.

I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to check out my other Black Butler fanfics!

HeartElyse