After a bit of thinking, I realised something I've known since I began writing: I suck at writing actions. I can only do thoughts without ruining a story, and I can still slaughter a potentiallly deep thought scene without draining myself of all else.
So here's another thought-ramble-fic. Hope you enjoy. Review. And review the people I like reviewing. Most of us do communicate. I do know a few of them, even.
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Darkness. I can see nothing, except the overwhelming darkness. Then the light came, and I could see everything. The light was almost firelike. I was in a hall, much like a theatre, and there were jeering, beautiful faces penetrating me. All of them looked all too familiar, though I did not know their names.
Frail. I felt frail. A terror like nothing else swept over me, and I found that I could not move. There was no escape. I was lying on my back, defenseless, mortified. I was falling... Pain.
My own screams forced me out of my sleep. Darren was staring at me, concerned. He knew all too well about the nightmares, though he could not possibly imagine the depth of the agony they brought with them. It was too familiar, too real. And Desmond knew too. That was what kept Darren and myself moving. I could find out who I was, if only we could survive in the wretched place where Desmond had abandonned us.
The possibility of my memory returning was the most wonderful and disasterous thing I could have imagined. What if I decided that Darren was my enemy? What if I could not handle the things I had endured as a human? Why did I really need my mind back? Would it matter in the end?
Death. I had died before I had become Harkat. Who had I been? And what was death? What was it like? I had died before, certainly, but I had no memory of it. Was it painful? Did the victim realise that his life was escaping his grasp, did he fight it, or could he simply sit and smile in his own oblivion?
I knew little about the experience of dying. I knew that I could die, that I would if I so much as took the mask away from my mouth and breathed in the earthly air for a day. And I could not lie and say that I had not considered doing just that. But the regret I would have had when I felt myself wasting away would have been pure idiocy.
And what of regret, and sorrow? I had heard everyone say that it was only human to feel such things. But where did that leave me? I was far from human, and yet I felt such things, did I not? Was my regret, my sorrow, my anger, my pain, my love, the same as theirs, or did we share nothing at all? Desmond, my creator, had told me that such things were impossible, and yet I felt them, and I knew them.
I knew that I wanted to help the vampires, even if I died doing it. I knew that I would have done anything to keep Darren alive. I knew the feeling resembling that of a knife plunging through my chest when Larten had gone to face eternity. And I knew the fire that raged inside of me, the acid blood that ran through my veins when Desmond came near me. Was that not enough to prove that I had a soul?
And what was the purpose of life? To see how much a man could bear before he chose to end the agony? A playground for a twisted man wearing a heartshaped watch? A battle with our own minds and souls? Some phase that turned into cold oblivion once it was over?
"Make it go away!" I hissed to myself. I saw my reflection in the water in which my soul, my identity, lurked. There were those hideous scars and colourless skin and lidless eyes and a gaping hole for a mouth. I cringed. What a pathetic creature I was. I knew my mind and heart, but I looked worse than even the smallest shard of a human being. No wonder the others would stare so intently, so fearfully.
Kurda Smahlt. I was the vampire traitor. I had met my other identity. I felt a certain bitterness toward my actions -how many innocent men had been killed because of my idiocy!- but I understood, and I felt a certain amount of sympathy for my former self. And I understood why I was still roaming the Earth. To help the vampires.
I was staying until the battle was done. I would do what I'd meant to do. I would fix the things I'd ruined, if it took twenty lifetimes. It was my duty. I wanted to do it more than anything. And then Desmond would realise his mistakes. He would lose his own game, and that alone would be worth every problem I had ever faced and more.
Home. To the Cirque Du Freak at last. No more nightmares, and I could rest. I knew in the back of my mind that the worst was yet to come, that we were fighting the ultimate battle, that the largest anguish was yet to come, but there was hope. There was a light in the darkness, and it would lead me until the dawn came.