We Devour
Disclaimer: I do not own anything. Not Seraph of the End. Nada. Nothing.
Mika
This is where it began.
Here, in a dirty alleyway where angels fear to tread. Up a set of crumbling steps, to a nondescript wooden door. The place that we used to call home. Our family, our life. You and me. All of it sacred...
...and all of it ripped away like so much gossamer thread. Ephemeral, inconsequential.
I walk down this dark, dirty path often. I could find my way back here with my eyes closed. I know every brick, every step. Every crooked gap in the stone.
Once, I actually went up to the door. I knocked and a little boy answered. A girl, maybe his older sister, came and pulled him away. I could see the fear in her eyes, the animal terror. She knew what I was, and the loathing washed off of her like so much run-off from a storm drain. I turned and walked away. It's true what they say, you can't go home again. At least it's true for me. There's no going back from where I am.
From what I am.
I walk along the dimly lit streets of the underground citadel, away from the door to my past, and an unbearable pain dogs my every step. The hunger-it gets so bad sometimes that my mind has trouble shutting it out. Only thoughts of you, of seeing you again, quells it. And sometimes even that is not enough.
Sometimes I want to devour the entire city…
You don't know what it's like, this wretched need to deny your very nature. You are far too open, too easy to read. You wear your good-naturedness, your affections, your loyalty, like a color. Your thoughts and emotions shine out from you like a diamond. But not me. I've always played certain things close to the chest. Always plotting, scheming. I used to think my ability to deceive was a virtue. Now I'm not so sure.
It's getting harder and harder for me to deny my true nature.
Sometimes I feel myself slipping, and I want so much to let go. To just give in to their taunts of, "Take some blood, it's only here on the battlefield that we are allowed to drink directly from the source." And I want to so much. To just give in to it. But then I think of you, and the expression on your face, and I say no. I walk on by. I keep walking, because if I don't, the horror of it will catch up to me. The dark, ruby red truth of it. And if I slip up even once, there will be no going back. I know this. Because there are some things you can't come back from.
Help me. Save me from myself.
I say to myself that I want to save you. And on the calm, flat, unwavering surface of my mind this is true. But deep down beneath, where the waters are not so calm and the darkness swells, thickly churning, there is something more. Something more that I desire, and it is this: I want you to save me. Save me from this sad charade of a life, surrounded by those I hate. From this agonizing hunger. From this beast which lurks within me. Give me solace. Give me love. Give me mercy.
Give me death.
I live for you. Only you. For four long years I have resisted and clawed against this unbearable urge, fighting tooth and nail, just so I could glimpse your face once again. And I did. It finally happened. I finally saw you, out on the inhuman wreckage of the battlefield. For the first time in such a long time, I saw you. You-in all your beauty, your fierceness. In all your luminous, ethereal glory. And you stuck a knife in my heart. Almost quite literally. The irony of it was not lost on me.
Sometimes I wish you had cursed me that day.
But if you had, then I would not have this chance. The chance to see you again. I will find you. As I walk through these desolate streets where no sun can reach, all my thoughts are fixated on you. I want you. I love you. And if I am honest-
-I want to devour you.
The thought stops me in my tracks. I try to shake this unspeakable notion, but it's there, its red eyes glowing in the darkness, waiting to pounce. I don't want to acknowledge it, but that doesn't make it any less real. My hunger and my desire are ruthlessly intertwined. I cannot part them. I say to myself that I would never allow this ugliness to touch you, but this is illusion, delusion, futility. This is madness. I don't want to, I repeat to myself, I don't want to…
Stop.
Listen.
To the dark...
To the truth...
The truth: I do want to. More than anything. The moment I saw you on that battlefield I decided. My mind was made up. That's why I tried to steal you away. I told you I did it because it wasn't safe. What a joke. As if going with me would be safe. I am so far from safe it is ridiculous. Laughable, even. I tried to steal you away like a thief in the night, like the precious jewel you are, but you resisted. No, you said. You had to go back to your friends. You had to save them. You rejected me. You fled from my embrace, which was probably the smartest thing you could ever do. It hardly matters though. Because I will not give up on you. On us. I will find you again. I will not be denied-not a second time. And heaven help anyone who gets in my way, because I will cut them down like the inconsequential weeds they are.
You see-my love for you knows no bounds.
There's moonlight ahead. I'm coming to the exit, to the way out. I walk forward a few steps and I emerge from this metal and concrete tomb, this holding cell, into a different kind of darkness. Human darkness. The sky above is alive with a million twinkling stars, alive and pulsing, like the blood in your veins. I look at it and wonder: Did it always look like this? Was it always so intensely beautiful? I've been underground for so long it's hard to remember. I look at the stars and I think of your face. Your face-more beautiful than any star up in the sky. I think of your face, and I whisper to myself, "I'm coming for you." And I march forward, denying both the truth and the lies. I deny it all, and simply move forward.
Here…
Now...
Yu, I am coming for you...
(To be continued)
Next up: Yu