-[The Fear Of Blood Tends To Create Fear For The Flesh]-
CHAPTER ONE: Fear Of The Blood
"The fear of blood tends to create fear of the flesh." That quote stuck out as something meaningful to me when I first read it. I couldn't understand why it didn't seem to mean anything to the people that I knew, and thinking back on it, I could understand why. Not being plagued by memories, not having seen the horrors that human kind could plunge into. And why should they know? The thought of even knowing the tiniest hints of what their own people, their own kin could do under the right circumstances would just tear them apart. I didn't know that at the time, but now I know that all too well. It wasn't even a physical revelation, just watching how peoples minds warped and twisted was a horror on it's own when one knew what to look for.
"The fear of blood tends to create fear of the flesh." It was written on the back of a video game I picked up in a small store in the main town of Karakura 100 miles from where I was living at the time. The game was of something that I had never played before, of something that had never gained my interest, or even ocured to me that was available. It was very much back dated at the time that I had picked it up off the shelf. The store that I had picked it up from was a used items store, containing second-hand furniture, clothes, cd's, and even video games. I had never really looked around in the store before that day, I always had other things to do, like meet up with a friend at the cinema on the other side of the shopping district, or I had to get some shopping done before I could focus on anything else. That day, was the day that all of my plans had crumbled to nothing, leaving me stranded in the town of Karakura for a total of ten hours.
The game had an authentic feel to it, the woman at the counter told me that they never been donated games of the like before. I could tell when she saw me pick it up that she didn't like me, and I could sort of understand why, for a girl of about 15 to pick up a game which was clearly a psychological horror over a game like 'Legend of Zelda' was something to be wary about. There was nothing about it that piqued my interest when I first looked at it, I was the type to pick something up if I felt something draw me to it. I then looked at the back cover and read the quote. That alone was what brought me to buy it, and that alone was what brought me to this phase of mind. And it was the fact of the woman looking at me in near horror that highlighted one fact that I had overlooked until that day - I was different.
I had shown the game to some of my friends, and all of whom had just laughed and told me that the quote was a scene-setter for the game. True, I knew that all too well, but it was something that clicked in me. I had a feeling that I didn't belong from the very beginning, when they would all start going out and buying clothes to show themselves off, I often went and read a book if I wasn't dragged with them, and when they went to parties, I often went to the park and wrote stories, something, anything to keep my mind off of that gaping hole that was the difference between the people I knew, and myself.
It was amazing to think about it, how when something goes wrong, that it can all turn into one hellish mess. And when I thought about it, it was exactly as everyone thought it not to be. The fear of blood tends to create fear of the flesh, it sounds just like the truth; If someone gets hurt, then they start fearing becoming hurt. And when they become hurt, they start fearing the cause of the hurt, where it's derived from. To think about things in that manner, it changed a lot of my perceptions. It was increasingly important to block out that gaping hole, to hide it from my consciousness, to fool myself into thinking that it was never there in the first place. It worked, if only for a little while.
I was sure at the time that I would have fooled myself, sooner or later, that the gaping chasm between myself and the reality that I knew was non-existent, that the quote that I had grown so knit to was nothing more than a scene-setter, but rather like all things, that had to fall.
I watched as the world I had was destroyed around me, and I could only find myself in one trap of intertwined intentions and outcomes. My original outlook on my problems was to look after myself, to ensure that I was within my mental sanity, but that was vastly different when I met the people that changed my life, made my life feel more, complete, like I had belonged at long last, and it was the one thing I had truly wanted since the start of my conscious life. Then came the next; to ensure the life of those that had made the last of my life fulfilled to a certain extent, it didn't matter any longer that I remained within sanity. Then came the third; To ensure the life of those that had changed me, it required the exchange of the one thing that I had initially sworn to myself that I would not forsake - it required the fee of handing over my own life.
In hindsight, I had done the right thing in sacrificing myself to ensure the wellbeing of those I hold dear, after such a long time watching the people around me tear themselves apart, turn themselves into monsters, I had been taken into a world where it was just as hard, but on me physically, my emotions were kept intact, and I felt truly at peace.
It was as I lay cold and unmoving under the chrystalis tree in the underground that was to be my grave, I had stumbled upon the real answer to why I found that string of words so meaningful to me. As I felt the last of my cold blood leave my body from the corner of my mouth, I closed my eyes to the answer; I feared the pain of who I held most dear, and in fearing that, I made myself fear the one that would cause my most dear the pain. That fear manifested itself into the fear of losing everything, and then, it brought upon 'my' demise. Not quite so close knit to what I had been believing, but I had known deep down inside of myself, that I was going to die, and that string of words voiced my mind perfectly; The fear of blood tends to create fear of the flesh: To fear a worse pain, to bring a worse fate than what was played out in front of one.
In spite of myself, I smile as I thought, seeing one last image of the one whom I hold most dear in my mind as my whole self fades to black.