Title: The Devil's Road
Author: Nataku
Rating: R
Pairings: None
Genre: Angst, Dark, Supernatural
Warning: Okay readers. This is one odd story. Pure insanity and rabid rambling, laced with a bit of
gore, and of course, mental torment.
Disclaimer: This poor tortured soul is my original creation.
Relevance to Bloody Roar: None really except I think this character is the one I use in the RPG
Summary: Yet again, I spew out another angst for you. This is a first person perspective of someone
going insane and seeing the dead. Mostly thoughts of a madman through the entire ordeal. Might be
a little odd to some people.
Author's Note: The character, is my own though I don't know, this story really doesn't say who. I'd
like to think of it as Marou, or just some poor anonymous soul I decided to torture ^_~. The terms
Savage Garden and Devil's Road come from the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, other than that
it's all mine. The idea and concept. I have never written in first person perspective before so I
decided to give it a try, and what better way to do it than to write from a mad man's point of view?
Hope you enjoy this story.
The Devil's Road
It was a throbbing inferno. I threw myself into the blazing heat of the moment, dancing with a
passion hotter than even the dance floor itself. I was being driven mad by my thoughts.
Death. Death danced around me even as I courted it. In every corner, every shadow it lurked,
waiting for the day it would claim me. Was I afraid of death? No. I was in pain from what it had
took. I was in agony for what I lost to the cruel game that death played. I cried out my pain, but it
was lost in the roaring of the music. So primal and feral that it would have scared lions.
The cross, the cries. I threw my head back and howled in agony. A throbbing was in my chest, some
pain I could not bear. No matter how much I clawed at my heart, it would not go away. I spun,
gyrated, and swayed in time to the beat, letting the pain bend me. Letting the music move my body.
The empty void was too much to bear, I cannot take it anymore! I must go, escape from this prison
of my soul!
Screaming, I bolted out the door and out into the streets. Collapsing, I dropped to my knees and
pressed my hands to my head, trying to get the awful silence to stop.
So callous it was! Tearing at my mind, ripping it to shreds like I do to so many others. Yet there was
no physical pain. Only that mocking, resonating silence. It was enough to drive one mad!
Yet no, I would not become mad. Or am I already so? The lines of sanity and insanity blended so
wonderfully, that I cannot tell.
What am I? Do I even exist? Tell me!!! Why am I even here? Why do I continue to walk and
breath?
Such useless questions. They will go unanswered I know. Throughout life that is all we do, look for
the meaning of why we exist. What was our purpose on these short few years that we were on this
earth? Yet all die without the answer. All.
Should I cry? Should I weep bitter tears for my fate? No, I haven't shed a tear since the day I died
and was born into Darkness.
That echoing Darkness, the deafening Silence. When will it end!? When will the torment end!? No
answer. Never will there be a answer. I looked at my hands, I was trembling. So uncontrollably from
my rage, grief, and pain that my teeth chattered.
My eyes, however, were wide open. I can see it so clearly, yet it was like a dream. A lucid,
inexplicable dream. I could see the ghosts of the deceased dancing in the streets. Weeping, laughing,
screaming. All of them translucent, yet wrought with exquisite detail.
The dead, ah, what a beautiful spectacle.
They waltzed around in a complex pattern, dizzying, whirling movements that I somehow knew
were a way of letting out their pain. The raw emotion in the movements made my earlier dance in
the club seem insignificant.
Their bodies were contorted by the agony, manipulated by it like marionettes by a expert puppeteer.
It was a macabre site to behold, like a gathering of demons.
But through the eyes of a demon, one that still walked this earth with blood flowing through his
veins, it was glorious. They danced to a beat that only they could hear. If I could, I was positive it
would be more primal than anything I could imagine. More raw and beautiful than any music that I
would ever hear. Their dancing, so passionate! So much agony and grief. It thickened the emotion in
the air and I could only watch in awe.
One threw back it's head and howled. Not the forlorn howl of a wolf, but one that was composed of
pure madness. One that only the most damned of souls could make. I thought it to be
insurmountably captivating. Was I mad to see this? Or are they all mad for being here? So many
questions that would never be answered. And I? I was sprawled on the ground like a drunken lout on
payday. Every time a pair would brush by me, I could feel them, like a gentle breeze upon my skin.
Icy tendrils crept up my spine, I should of felt fear. I should of been terrified. Fuck what I should of
been, the only thing that mattered was this chaotic melee before me.
A chorus of screams and shrieks soared up in the air and I was shocked when no one came out to
look. I was not mad. A sudden clarity like I never knew flooded my senses. I was not mad, it was
they! The people who could not see this spectacle! Those who could not witness the beauty, it was
enough to bring tears to a person's eyes. It was pure emotion that I was seeing, the anguish of all
these souls that were dancing.
But no, I would not cry. I haven't cried since the day I died and was born into the Darkness. Not
even for these phantoms I would not.
Like a child at a carnival I gaped, humbled immensely by these whirling wraiths. Completely taking
me by surprise, a female shade extended her hand, a invitation to this spectacular dance. Who was I
to refuse? I took her hand, and noticed how beautiful she was. Every one of the wraiths were lovely
in their own way. As soon as I was lead out, I started feeling a tingling in my limbs. A wonderful
sensation that was like pure ecstacy. My eyes slid closed in rapture as I tilted my head to the moon,
so wonderful! For the first time in years did I feel alive!
Suddenly, I could feel it. The music, the beat. It pulsed through my veins. I couldn't hear it, but I can
feel it thrumming through every fiber of my being. As if by magic, my body started moving in a
delightfully complex pattern, whirling and spinning in a dizzying fashion. All of my pain surged
outward, as if it were water from a broken dam. The agony, I could feel it playing my body, moving
it like a finely tuned instrument. It was exhilarating, the sensation. The corporal vessel that was my
body was twisted by my suffering more than even my changes into a beast did. My pain bent and
twisted my body into a dance that was just as raw and passionate as the dead around me.
Like the one before, I threw back my head and howled. The sound, instead of being created in my
throat, it seemed to rip it's way out of my soul. A wild, haunting sound that was desperate to be
freed. It rose up, even more soul shattering than the other. It pulsed through me, contorting me in the
flames of anguish and despair. Yet I felt so alive, like a purely euphoric state of being.
I was dancing on the moonbeams, as translucent as these wraiths were, yet I knew that I was one of
the living among these dead.
The music flooded my soul, cresting higher and higher with pure bliss. My anguish was released
through my movements and at that one, beautiful moment, it was all clear to me. More clear than
anything I could every imagine.
The world, it was a Savage Garden and the path that wound through it was the Devil's Road. One
could explore it and learn all one could, yet forever it would be shrouded in mystery. For to learn the
secrets of the Garden, would be to learn the meaning of life itself. Once you unraveled the mysteries
that made it up, it would mean nothing anymore. Meaningless.
The great gift that was shared among man, beast, and demon was the greatest that could be offered.
The Savage Garden. All three should love and cherish this gift with awe and reverence, explore it,
see it for all it had to offer.
What greater adventure could there possibly be than to roam the Devil's Road? To explore the
jungles of Africa and the cities of Europe. To feel the hot sun and the desert sands of Egypt and the
lush medieval forest of New Zealand. To climb the Great Wall and ride through the plains of
Mongolia. What greater joy could there be?
I shuddered in ecstacy at the thought. At this overwhelming knowledge. A soul would compose
prose after prose, song after song, but neither would be able to capture the true beauty of the Savage
Garden for it had the beauty that was elusive, yet rang out in your mind over and over like a mantra.
To see it for what it was, oh what a idea! The grandeur of it all!
Every living being, since the day they were born, traveled to find their answers. Why were they born,
why they existed? And through all those wanderings, they would encounter magnificent things.
Horrible things, beautiful things! They were all out there waiting. For those who cared not to take
the risk, what boring lives they must live! Those who would not dive head first into the stream of life
must be some unfortunate lazy assholes. Who could resist the Savage Garden?
Under the light of the moon I saw it. The Devil's Road and the path it wove through the glory that
was the Garden.
Then, like all good things, it faded. The startling clarity clouded until it was as it had always been.
This was strangely hollow to me. Compared to what I could see during the midnight waltz, it was
dull.
The dancers, the dead, they started to fade. Was it really fading? In my eyes, I saw them decompose.
Are maybe it was my madness speaking. No, I was not mad! I saw the skin slowly dry as the flesh
shrank and shriveled up. Their skin became grey as ash with the texture of leather. A sickeningly
sweet smell rose up. The smell of decay. Yet they still continued their macabre dance. Some of the
flesh sloughed off and fell on the streets, breaking down further and further until it was nothing more
than dust.
As they whirled around and around, their bones started clacking in horrid sound. I clutched my
hands to my ears, willing the sound to go away. It resonated in the night air along and seemed to
grow.
Each threw their head back and let out a unearthly scream. To my great surprise, one's head fell off!
It rolled on the ground, still shrieking even as the body groped blindly for it.
Black fluid oozed from their skin and how sunken in their faces were! Eyes bulging from their
sockets and leathery skin drawn taught. All of them, once so beautiful were now monstrosities. Their
hair, however, still streamed like liquid over their tattered clothing and foul flesh. Even that began to
decay.
What little remained of them, husks that resembled humans were what they were now yet they
continued their maddening dance. Horrible grinning skulls peered over each other's shoulders and
bones poked through grey, rotten flesh.
Quite gruesome, even to myself. Now, if it were any regular man or woman off the streets, they
would either run screaming the other direction, vomit, or drop in a dead faint. I was just ever so
slightly disturbed by these dancing corpses. Their bones rattled and grated as they spun and whirled.
The only thing about them that had any life now was their eyes. They burned and glowed from the
dark sockets of their faces. Noses were shriveled down to two holes in their faces and their lovely
hair lost it's luster, becoming stringy and disheveled. Yet still! In their ruined clothes and horrid
bodies they danced! Those wraiths still moved with the passion and elegance that I saw before,
however their bones sent up a chorus of unearthly rattles and creaks. I felt like screaming for the
noise was so dreadful!!! When would it end?!
Then, all of a sudden, it struck me again. The dance of life moved in the three beats of birth, living,
and death. All three in a endless waltz. But the dance, the dance of death would never end. It had no
understandable beat, no tune you could really hear until you joined. It stretched even longer than the
dance of life. Longer than the Devil's Road.
I looked at the phantoms and saw their gaunt figures spinning in the nightmarish melee. I felt a sort
of pity for their fate. And yet, would it be the fate of all? To forever dance, to release their pain in
this manner was it all they had? And so they shall dance until it all ended. Yet, it would never end.
Was I insane to think this? Were these the thoughts of a mad man? No, of course not. It was those
who never saw the dance of the dead and those who never witnessed it's glory who were mad. The
beautiful clarity of solving at least one of those endless questions prosed in the Savage Garden. How
could they call it insanity?
Author's Note: Okay, I know that was strange and had no plot what so ever. It probably didn't make
much sense and was just plain weird. Before you think I am writing this from a insane asylum, I just
want to say I have been out of inspiration for a long time and I finally got the faintest spark of an
idea. I wrote it, and lost that inspiration, so I turned it into the ranting of a madman. Please, no
flaming. Flames shall be used to roast muffins.
Author: Nataku
Rating: R
Pairings: None
Genre: Angst, Dark, Supernatural
Warning: Okay readers. This is one odd story. Pure insanity and rabid rambling, laced with a bit of
gore, and of course, mental torment.
Disclaimer: This poor tortured soul is my original creation.
Relevance to Bloody Roar: None really except I think this character is the one I use in the RPG
Summary: Yet again, I spew out another angst for you. This is a first person perspective of someone
going insane and seeing the dead. Mostly thoughts of a madman through the entire ordeal. Might be
a little odd to some people.
Author's Note: The character, is my own though I don't know, this story really doesn't say who. I'd
like to think of it as Marou, or just some poor anonymous soul I decided to torture ^_~. The terms
Savage Garden and Devil's Road come from the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, other than that
it's all mine. The idea and concept. I have never written in first person perspective before so I
decided to give it a try, and what better way to do it than to write from a mad man's point of view?
Hope you enjoy this story.
The Devil's Road
It was a throbbing inferno. I threw myself into the blazing heat of the moment, dancing with a
passion hotter than even the dance floor itself. I was being driven mad by my thoughts.
Death. Death danced around me even as I courted it. In every corner, every shadow it lurked,
waiting for the day it would claim me. Was I afraid of death? No. I was in pain from what it had
took. I was in agony for what I lost to the cruel game that death played. I cried out my pain, but it
was lost in the roaring of the music. So primal and feral that it would have scared lions.
The cross, the cries. I threw my head back and howled in agony. A throbbing was in my chest, some
pain I could not bear. No matter how much I clawed at my heart, it would not go away. I spun,
gyrated, and swayed in time to the beat, letting the pain bend me. Letting the music move my body.
The empty void was too much to bear, I cannot take it anymore! I must go, escape from this prison
of my soul!
Screaming, I bolted out the door and out into the streets. Collapsing, I dropped to my knees and
pressed my hands to my head, trying to get the awful silence to stop.
So callous it was! Tearing at my mind, ripping it to shreds like I do to so many others. Yet there was
no physical pain. Only that mocking, resonating silence. It was enough to drive one mad!
Yet no, I would not become mad. Or am I already so? The lines of sanity and insanity blended so
wonderfully, that I cannot tell.
What am I? Do I even exist? Tell me!!! Why am I even here? Why do I continue to walk and
breath?
Such useless questions. They will go unanswered I know. Throughout life that is all we do, look for
the meaning of why we exist. What was our purpose on these short few years that we were on this
earth? Yet all die without the answer. All.
Should I cry? Should I weep bitter tears for my fate? No, I haven't shed a tear since the day I died
and was born into Darkness.
That echoing Darkness, the deafening Silence. When will it end!? When will the torment end!? No
answer. Never will there be a answer. I looked at my hands, I was trembling. So uncontrollably from
my rage, grief, and pain that my teeth chattered.
My eyes, however, were wide open. I can see it so clearly, yet it was like a dream. A lucid,
inexplicable dream. I could see the ghosts of the deceased dancing in the streets. Weeping, laughing,
screaming. All of them translucent, yet wrought with exquisite detail.
The dead, ah, what a beautiful spectacle.
They waltzed around in a complex pattern, dizzying, whirling movements that I somehow knew
were a way of letting out their pain. The raw emotion in the movements made my earlier dance in
the club seem insignificant.
Their bodies were contorted by the agony, manipulated by it like marionettes by a expert puppeteer.
It was a macabre site to behold, like a gathering of demons.
But through the eyes of a demon, one that still walked this earth with blood flowing through his
veins, it was glorious. They danced to a beat that only they could hear. If I could, I was positive it
would be more primal than anything I could imagine. More raw and beautiful than any music that I
would ever hear. Their dancing, so passionate! So much agony and grief. It thickened the emotion in
the air and I could only watch in awe.
One threw back it's head and howled. Not the forlorn howl of a wolf, but one that was composed of
pure madness. One that only the most damned of souls could make. I thought it to be
insurmountably captivating. Was I mad to see this? Or are they all mad for being here? So many
questions that would never be answered. And I? I was sprawled on the ground like a drunken lout on
payday. Every time a pair would brush by me, I could feel them, like a gentle breeze upon my skin.
Icy tendrils crept up my spine, I should of felt fear. I should of been terrified. Fuck what I should of
been, the only thing that mattered was this chaotic melee before me.
A chorus of screams and shrieks soared up in the air and I was shocked when no one came out to
look. I was not mad. A sudden clarity like I never knew flooded my senses. I was not mad, it was
they! The people who could not see this spectacle! Those who could not witness the beauty, it was
enough to bring tears to a person's eyes. It was pure emotion that I was seeing, the anguish of all
these souls that were dancing.
But no, I would not cry. I haven't cried since the day I died and was born into the Darkness. Not
even for these phantoms I would not.
Like a child at a carnival I gaped, humbled immensely by these whirling wraiths. Completely taking
me by surprise, a female shade extended her hand, a invitation to this spectacular dance. Who was I
to refuse? I took her hand, and noticed how beautiful she was. Every one of the wraiths were lovely
in their own way. As soon as I was lead out, I started feeling a tingling in my limbs. A wonderful
sensation that was like pure ecstacy. My eyes slid closed in rapture as I tilted my head to the moon,
so wonderful! For the first time in years did I feel alive!
Suddenly, I could feel it. The music, the beat. It pulsed through my veins. I couldn't hear it, but I can
feel it thrumming through every fiber of my being. As if by magic, my body started moving in a
delightfully complex pattern, whirling and spinning in a dizzying fashion. All of my pain surged
outward, as if it were water from a broken dam. The agony, I could feel it playing my body, moving
it like a finely tuned instrument. It was exhilarating, the sensation. The corporal vessel that was my
body was twisted by my suffering more than even my changes into a beast did. My pain bent and
twisted my body into a dance that was just as raw and passionate as the dead around me.
Like the one before, I threw back my head and howled. The sound, instead of being created in my
throat, it seemed to rip it's way out of my soul. A wild, haunting sound that was desperate to be
freed. It rose up, even more soul shattering than the other. It pulsed through me, contorting me in the
flames of anguish and despair. Yet I felt so alive, like a purely euphoric state of being.
I was dancing on the moonbeams, as translucent as these wraiths were, yet I knew that I was one of
the living among these dead.
The music flooded my soul, cresting higher and higher with pure bliss. My anguish was released
through my movements and at that one, beautiful moment, it was all clear to me. More clear than
anything I could every imagine.
The world, it was a Savage Garden and the path that wound through it was the Devil's Road. One
could explore it and learn all one could, yet forever it would be shrouded in mystery. For to learn the
secrets of the Garden, would be to learn the meaning of life itself. Once you unraveled the mysteries
that made it up, it would mean nothing anymore. Meaningless.
The great gift that was shared among man, beast, and demon was the greatest that could be offered.
The Savage Garden. All three should love and cherish this gift with awe and reverence, explore it,
see it for all it had to offer.
What greater adventure could there possibly be than to roam the Devil's Road? To explore the
jungles of Africa and the cities of Europe. To feel the hot sun and the desert sands of Egypt and the
lush medieval forest of New Zealand. To climb the Great Wall and ride through the plains of
Mongolia. What greater joy could there be?
I shuddered in ecstacy at the thought. At this overwhelming knowledge. A soul would compose
prose after prose, song after song, but neither would be able to capture the true beauty of the Savage
Garden for it had the beauty that was elusive, yet rang out in your mind over and over like a mantra.
To see it for what it was, oh what a idea! The grandeur of it all!
Every living being, since the day they were born, traveled to find their answers. Why were they born,
why they existed? And through all those wanderings, they would encounter magnificent things.
Horrible things, beautiful things! They were all out there waiting. For those who cared not to take
the risk, what boring lives they must live! Those who would not dive head first into the stream of life
must be some unfortunate lazy assholes. Who could resist the Savage Garden?
Under the light of the moon I saw it. The Devil's Road and the path it wove through the glory that
was the Garden.
Then, like all good things, it faded. The startling clarity clouded until it was as it had always been.
This was strangely hollow to me. Compared to what I could see during the midnight waltz, it was
dull.
The dancers, the dead, they started to fade. Was it really fading? In my eyes, I saw them decompose.
Are maybe it was my madness speaking. No, I was not mad! I saw the skin slowly dry as the flesh
shrank and shriveled up. Their skin became grey as ash with the texture of leather. A sickeningly
sweet smell rose up. The smell of decay. Yet they still continued their macabre dance. Some of the
flesh sloughed off and fell on the streets, breaking down further and further until it was nothing more
than dust.
As they whirled around and around, their bones started clacking in horrid sound. I clutched my
hands to my ears, willing the sound to go away. It resonated in the night air along and seemed to
grow.
Each threw their head back and let out a unearthly scream. To my great surprise, one's head fell off!
It rolled on the ground, still shrieking even as the body groped blindly for it.
Black fluid oozed from their skin and how sunken in their faces were! Eyes bulging from their
sockets and leathery skin drawn taught. All of them, once so beautiful were now monstrosities. Their
hair, however, still streamed like liquid over their tattered clothing and foul flesh. Even that began to
decay.
What little remained of them, husks that resembled humans were what they were now yet they
continued their maddening dance. Horrible grinning skulls peered over each other's shoulders and
bones poked through grey, rotten flesh.
Quite gruesome, even to myself. Now, if it were any regular man or woman off the streets, they
would either run screaming the other direction, vomit, or drop in a dead faint. I was just ever so
slightly disturbed by these dancing corpses. Their bones rattled and grated as they spun and whirled.
The only thing about them that had any life now was their eyes. They burned and glowed from the
dark sockets of their faces. Noses were shriveled down to two holes in their faces and their lovely
hair lost it's luster, becoming stringy and disheveled. Yet still! In their ruined clothes and horrid
bodies they danced! Those wraiths still moved with the passion and elegance that I saw before,
however their bones sent up a chorus of unearthly rattles and creaks. I felt like screaming for the
noise was so dreadful!!! When would it end?!
Then, all of a sudden, it struck me again. The dance of life moved in the three beats of birth, living,
and death. All three in a endless waltz. But the dance, the dance of death would never end. It had no
understandable beat, no tune you could really hear until you joined. It stretched even longer than the
dance of life. Longer than the Devil's Road.
I looked at the phantoms and saw their gaunt figures spinning in the nightmarish melee. I felt a sort
of pity for their fate. And yet, would it be the fate of all? To forever dance, to release their pain in
this manner was it all they had? And so they shall dance until it all ended. Yet, it would never end.
Was I insane to think this? Were these the thoughts of a mad man? No, of course not. It was those
who never saw the dance of the dead and those who never witnessed it's glory who were mad. The
beautiful clarity of solving at least one of those endless questions prosed in the Savage Garden. How
could they call it insanity?
Author's Note: Okay, I know that was strange and had no plot what so ever. It probably didn't make
much sense and was just plain weird. Before you think I am writing this from a insane asylum, I just
want to say I have been out of inspiration for a long time and I finally got the faintest spark of an
idea. I wrote it, and lost that inspiration, so I turned it into the ranting of a madman. Please, no
flaming. Flames shall be used to roast muffins.