Disclaimer: The Harry Potter series is owned by J.K. Rowling. This fiction is for the sole purpose of my own personal enjoyment and does not fiscally benefit me.
I appreciate all your guys' reviews, and I am glad that you guys enjoy what I write. I always try to update as soon as possible, but there are days where I stare at a blank page for hours, and no progress would be made. It feels like a job now. It's not very enjoyable. I've also been struggling with familial problems that makes me feel so alone and depressed. I'm living with someone who makes me immensely miserable and I can't bear with it most of the time. Anyway, please enjoy this chapter.
Chapter 3: Like the Sun
Fear and panic in the air...
I want to be free from desolation and despair.
…
When will loneliness be over?
...
With one last surge of magic, it came to an end. The man subsequently released his grip on the child's hands, and collapsed unceremoniously to the feculent floor.
His aqua eyes turned hazy as he drifted into the world of unconsciousness, blearily hearing the distressed cries of the beautiful child. His child.
"...please...d...ep..."
"...so...sorry..."
"Please don't leave me!"
.
It was so cold.
.
Empty.
.
Hollow.
.
The grime underneath his chipped nails grounded against his knees as he tightly gripped his pale, thin legs underneath his head, shivering vehemently as the air around him gradually grew even colder.
This bitterness...this cold, unrelenting reality he was forced to endure...
It was the only thing he knew.
Years of hopelessness...of decaying, pungent flesh that slowly shifted, morphing into quiet shadows and echoing whispers...
It lingered, fading into his memories as he grew to learn of the many forms of death...
Death was supposed to be unforgiving. It was supposed to take him away to rot, alone and afraid—the same way that his friends and family did. Death was unkind.
He understood that fact. That was just the way it was.
So he watched the brutality—the crazed, ravenous hunger that was so prevalent in the duelist's eyes— the satisfaction reflected in such eyes as he rapaciously, gracefully tore through his former ally with monstrous fervor. He watched as the man's livid blue orbs held a sort of immense, manic glee as the bright, fiery blood splattered across the walls of the dungeon, the viscous liquid clinging vibrantly on the walls, painting a picture of lunacy and desperation. He watched as the sallow, horrified man opened his mouth for a soundless scream as his bones shattered, vivaciously splintering into a rain of blood and chipped bones. The malefic debris danced around his murderer— a strange, euphemistic depiction of fire and snow that left him breathless—wonderment reflected in his green eyes.
This man had the face of a kind, peaceful man, but the countenance of a belligerent demon.
Footsteps echoed as it scraped along the chipped, dusky bricks of the dungeon floor, filth staining the hem of the man's intricate robes as the aristocrat neared the cell.
His cell.
The boy shivered, his breath misting as the frost and bitter cold nipped at his pale, luminous skin.
Gripping his legs tighter, knuckles white from his grip, the boy trembled, closing his eyes.
.
He has found me.
.
Oh, and such warmth does he bring.
.
Calloused palms cradled his sordid face; and with his long, blood-stained fingers, the man brushed against his rough, crusted skin with such acute gentility that he felt something within him burst—reacting violently to a man he thought would show him the mercy of death. It coiled within the pit of his stomach, clawing at his soul, lashing at the oblivious man that released the emotions that were once tightly locked behind thick walls of endless suffering and despair.
Guilt. Shame. Loneliness. Hope.
Love.
He remembered love; it was felled by the inevitable. Everything did.
But this man...
'Such kindness.' His lips trembled, his long, dark lashes glistened with shed tears as he took the man's hand into his own. 'Such wanting.'
He closed his eyes, reveling in the taste of tenderness as he tightened his grasp on the man. He leaned closer to the warmth, nuzzling into skin, taking in the heady scent of iron and rainfall. Dry lips parted, as if to sate a severe thirst that has been precipitously awakened.
He burned with such wanting, with the need to feel—the need to have this man show him love again. To be loved.
As if they heard him, his shadows wrapped around his body in a soothing embrace. It comforted him, quelling his rampaging emotions, before whispering one unsettling promise in his ear.
.
"...and he'll be yours..."
"...for as long as he lives..."
.
Panic gripped the boy as he heard such words. The darkness shrouded the man, paralyzing him as it seeped within him, coiling around a pitch-black mark that wholly contrasted with his pale skin.
'No! Please, don't hurt this man! I didn't know, I didn't know,' he choked, tears clearing a path on his grimy cheeks, his hands still tightly clutched to the man.
'Let him go, he's different! He's not one of them!'
The voices invaded his mind in a flurry of whispers, voices fluctuating into a myriad of eerie groans and screams.
"...child...wants to leave..."
Slowly, agonizingly,the boy watched as the man collapsed in front of him, his silk robes fluttering as his face morphed into shock.
"No! No, please, don't sleep!"
He shook the man, desperately trying to make him stay awake.
The boy broke into sobs, his tears staining the man's robes.
"I'm so sorry..."
It was his fault.
"Please don't leave me!"
Everything was.
The warmth that he did not deserve, the emotions he was allowed to feel for such a fleeting moment...he had destroyed it, just as he always did.
Knowing this, the boy still could not help but to burn.
Emerald eyes, wide and dilated, disbelievingly stared at his trembling, nail-chipped hands. His hands, discolored by the years of split skin and rotting matter, shook with a ferocity that belied his capitulating thoughts.
It burns.
He released a raw, heart-wrenching scream that shook the walls and pierced the slivers of shadows that enveloped his body. Tears flowed down his face as he screamed, his eyes blood-shot and desperate as he tightly gripped his head.
There was so much pain.
The ravaging flames licked at his insides, singeing his core with a malicious darkness that desecrated, no, destroyed the foundation of his facade of understanding and acceptance with absolute conviction. It was ascending, crawling it's way to his turbulent mind; it was consuming him as he coughed violently, his chest heaving with scorching breaths; horror and fear burned through his rationality as he suffocated from the ashes of denial and confusion.
In the place of the bitter frost was the flames that consumed him, wrath apparent in its furious pathway to his heart.
As if knowing his affliction, the shadows enveloped him, almost constricting him as the moans echoed and sighed in the resonating cell.
.
"Do you fear death, child?"
.
"No!" He sobbed.
The slivers of moonlight flickered and gently shone upon the boy's face, as if reassuring him, the suffering moans abating.
.
Then there was silence.
.
"Then, do you fear the light?"
.
He shakily gripped the aristocrat's silken robes, gravel cutting into his pale, knobby knees as he leaned further into the man's warmth.
The back of his throat burned as he sought to voice his conviction.
"No," he swallowed.
"What I fear is loss. I fear that if I accept this man...if I were to grasp the tangible thread of love that had been sewn within the fabric of my memories..."
His grip was white, trembling as he gripped the man's robes with increasing force as the weight of his words forced him to face the stark reality that had otherwise been ignored.
"Once again, I feel that I would lose everything that had been cherished..."
His voice trailed off, hoarse and broken as he continued into sobs, burying himself into the man's soft robes.
"What do I have now, except the cold and shadows that had been nursing the void of my heart?"
"What have I now, except the pain and suffocating memories that threaten to consume my very soul?"
.
The mark on the aristocrat's forearm emitted a sparse, yet ethereal light that made the boy's breath hitch with anticipation and disbelief.
.
"Oh, child...you have purpose."