Silver Night
By: A Really Big Idiot
Present
For the first time in Silver Night's life, he was utterly befuddled.
As he looked into the bathroom mirror, he saw two small wounds throbbing near the nape of his neck.
What did this mean?
Silver could barely breathe.
Why was his master's fanged mark still on him?
Why?
Shouldn't such a thing have healed already? Yes.
Yes, that was the usual way. His master had drank his blood numerous times before, and the following night after such an event, he was always perfectly healed. So...why were the two small wounds still there?
Why? Why? Why?
Something about this worried Silver so deeply that he could barely think, let alone, breathe.
Then, without a single warning and as if the two mocking wounds were silently waiting for his awaken acknowledgement, Silver suddenly felt a terrifying emotion zoom through his entire panicked psyche.
The foreign emotion seemed to burn the inside of his veins. The alien emotion seemed to scorch his soul and sear his heart. This strange emotion felt so dark, so terrifying, so enormous that Silver was terrified by this unexpected emotional assault that was completely overwhelming his being.
By darkness, Silver had never been so petrified before.
Why? Why was it at this time did he feel such an completely alien yet scarily familiar sensation?
Until this moment, Silver's life had been one of untold pain, loneliness, and incompleteness. It was a life of a cursed shadow person. It was a life of one who was merely an illusion.
Silver had met men whose hearts seemed to be made of black coal. Silver had met women whose souls were blacker than midnight. He had encountered and courted and deceived so many. He had felt fear. He had suffered apprehension. He had experienced horror. He had been beaten, bloodied, and 'killed' numerous times. Silver had play their games, created new rules, and survived.
Silver had learned to fight and scheme, lie and destroy, and through it all he was always alone and never, ever safe.
So, few things could horrify him. Very few things indeed.
Yet, at this moment, Silver had never been so petrified.
And only one creature on this earth could make he feel so.
Yes, few things could unnerved him. Few things indeed.
But one of those few things was his true self's displeasure.
His true self suddenly felt so near to him at this moment, yet, in spite of this incredible event, ironically, Silver wanted to run so far away from him.
This sensation...
This emotion...
This feeling...
This internal fiery passion that was not Silver's but was still a deep inner part of him all the same, burned inside his sick heart like a fiery judgment.
It scalded his bones.
It charred his blood.
It scorched his mind.
It blistered his soul.
And suddenly, Silver knew the name of this terrible emotion that assailed him at this very painful moment. Thus, this terrible emotion was...
HATE.
It was a dark, raging, ferocious, uncontrollable, type of hatred.
And, without warning, Silver felt like he was being viciously ripped away from his horrifying new reality.
Chapter Fifty-Three: Apprehension
Present
Queen Yuki Kuran's bleeding heart felt so...tight.
Tight. Tight. Tight.
Squeeze. Squeeze. Squeeze.
She could hardly breathe.
It felt like an obese elephant was merrily dancing on her aching chest.
Tight. Tight. Tight.
Her back was rigid. Her shoulders were taut. Everything inside her felt so tight, so stretched, and so unyielding. Her pale red lips were harshly pressed together with the type of pressure that could grind stone into dead dust. Her ruby tongue felt tough, heavy, and fixed. Her dark-brown eyes burned, but she couldn't even summon the energy to blink them.
"If things had been different..."
Hurt. She was so hurt.
"If things had been different, I would have..."
Pain. Her pain was about to tear apart her sanity. She could feel it, and she couldn't stop it.
"If things had been different, I would have loved you forever." Her Zero had said as he laid dying.
CRACK.
The anguishing throbbing in her hot heart was simply making everything tighter.
Yuki held her sweating forehead between her shaking hands. She needed to do something. She needed to do something now. She needed to do something...anything at all...but she needed to do something...to stop her breaking!
Like a lost and mad dog. Her murderous husband said.
Hurt.
Crack.
Like a lost and mad dog. Her murderous husband said with a smirk.
Pain.
Crack. Crack.
Like a lost and mad dog. Her husband, her brother, her blood, had not felt any shame or guilt for the evil he had done.
Agony.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
That was it.
By darkness, Yuki felt the last few shreds of her sanity crack and -
No, Yuki.A small voice suddenly said into her.
Yuki felt the cracking stop. Something inside her awaken.
That small voice...that small, small voice...
The bitter tightness in her heart was still there. And the tightness was still so plainly and overwhelming there in her heart, but at those two little word the tightness in her heart...loosen a bit.
How long have she gone without hearing that small, small voice?
Do not let him win.
Do not let him win, Yuki.
Yuki felt a tiny piece of herself mend itself.
In the far, far past when Yuki had drifted between the twin shady worlds of sanity and insanity, she always had a small, small voice inside her that would encourage and comfort her from time to time whenever she lost her way.
It was something that she had kept a dark secret. Yuki had and was still too embarrass to give a truly accurate description of that terrible time in her life. However, during the lost five years of her madness, Yuki had heard voices.
Countless voices that assaulted her unbalanced senses and each voice was recognizable yet always so foreign to her weakening awareness on reality.
The voices were many, but they were universal in their mission to destroy her. Time and time again, the numerous alien-familiar voices in her head told her to do all sorts of cruel, evil, and insane things.
The voices talked and talked and talked and talked. Never did they stop. Shut up - she would mentally scream. Be quiet - she would beg. But the evil voices just wouldn't shut up. Wouldn't shut up or be quiet or stay silent. Yuki would be continuously assaulted with evil bits of advice until she simply did what the evil voices told her to do because she just wanted them to please shut up.
Nevertheless, there was always one voice that wasn't evil or crazy or rotten.
One voice that did not tell her do to evil, crazy, or rotten things.
Just one.
When she was in the inner midst of her madness, she had thought that this odd and rare voice was of her lost child or her lost Zero or someone that loved her for her. That one voice sometimes kept her from doing unspeakable things. However, it only came when she was on the edges of falling, falling, falling...
Yuki still didn't know where this voice came from or what it was or...anything...
In spite of that, she knew this one single voice was good.
Don't be afraid.
Don't be sad.
Don't worry.
That small voice always gave her gentle encouragement. That small voice always had soft statements to comforted her in her time of utter darkness. That small voice always had smooth words that she desperately needed to hear.
And Yuki, for the untold number of time, intensely listen to that small soft voice.
How will you face me in the afterlife if you let him win, Yuki? How will you be my hammer of justice if you let Kaname have everything?
Yuki's dark-brown eyes flashed open. The tenseness in all her four limbs slowly ebbed away.
You can win, Yuki.
Yuki's aching heart still felt terribly tight...but the pain of that tightness was slightly loosening...
Win, Yuki.
Win, Yuki.
Win, Yuki.
A goal and a dreadful hope was suddenly presented before her and she reached towards it with inconsolably needy hands.
Win, Yuki. The small voice kept repeatedly saying.
Yuki's heart opened. Okay, then. She instantly decided that she would win at that very moment.
The small, small voice seemed satisfied, and it immediately stopped its chanting encouragement.
Soon, a strange calmness descended over her at that moment. There was a peaceful silence in her mind and soul.
However, it was one thing to prevent Kaname from winning, it was quite another for her to figure out how to win.
But she would.
She had promised it.
Meanwhile...
Silver felt like his understanding of his place in the world was being ripped to tiny shreds.
He didn't understand what to feel at this moment.
Panic. Pain. Fear.
Dread. Horror. Alarm.
Silver was filled with such an awful mixture of emotions that he didn't know what to really honestly feel at this moment in his unpredictable life.
He was back in that strange dream he had a few weeks ago. The same dream that revealed to him the existence of the third waxed self and the small clue behind the reason of his true self's tormented state.
He was back here in this awful three room dream doors and Silver was quite unsettled.
The golden first door was tightly locked.
The silver second door was wide open.
The bronze third door was still closed.
Silver eyed the bronze door for a brief second, but the golden door quickly took over his immediate attention.
Silver had seen his trapped true self many times when he was healing from his numerous brushes with death over the long decades. After he refused the first black door of death, he would have to climb countless steps to heal himself and reclaim his right to life. The climb up those many steps was always so hard, but when he would finally reach the top he would always be completely healed.
However, at the top of those steps he would be confronted with two doors. The silver door was the hallmark entrance port back into his accursed life, but the other golden door was slightly transparent, and thus he could catch a glimpse at his true self.
And whenever he did so, his true self was always suffering.
The man looked exactly like himself, except for the fact that he had short silver hair and a slight tattoo on the right side of his face. Chain-like thorns would repeatedly cut into his tender flesh and trap him in place. At his pale throat was a decorative silver collar engraved with the number zero on it. But despite the terrible pain, his true self never utter a single word of complaint. Even while his red blood would continuously drip down his trembling flesh, torn clothes, and bruised pale skin.
Sometimes, when Silver looked at his true self, he desperately tried to save him. Other times, when Silver looked at his true self, he threw his bitter rage at the jailed man because he was the only other person Silver could truly trustingly talk to.
Yet, the suffering man would always say the same thing over and over to him whenever he answered his bitter and sad questions.
"Until my punishment is complete." His true self would responded.
But in that last dream, Silver had met the unknown third self. The third self that called itself the waxed self and it was the first time Silver had interacted with a creature that knew exactly what he was and his desperately hopeless situation.
The waxed self had given him an answer to his always-repeated question, even though the answer was far from satisfying.
"For breaking." His waxed self had responded.
Silver still didn't know what to make of that answer.
However, Silver had suddenly realized something. The moment he had learned about the waxed child self, Silver had no longer seen or heard from his true self.
One step forward, two steps back.
If Silver had a mind to do so, he would viciously curse his two other selves.
Unfortunately, the chaotic mixture of emotion behind that locked golden door alarmed Silver so terribly that he could not think of anything else.
Silver had never once felt such a dreadfully concentrated emotional flood from his true self. Never.
And he was utterly frightened.
HATE.
That massive dark feeling of intense hatred that Silver felt deep in his soul was coming from behind that golden door of his true self. Silver had no idea of how to response.
Why this rage? Silver was truly terrified. Why this black hatred?
Silver had no idea why such a thing was happening now!
His true self never seemed to response to him whenever they were together, but this dark hatred...
Why?
Was it because of him? Silver's lungs suddenly squeezed out all of his air at the thought. Was it because of Silver?
If so, why? What had he done to deserve this dark hatred?
Then, out of the blue, the bronze door of the waxed child self slammed open with a earsplitting bang.
Silver nearly jumped.
Like a livid angry wolf, the waxed self child, who really was no child at all, tore into the dream room like a furious beast.
While Silver wasn't a coward by any stretch of the imagination, even he took a small step away from the deceptively weak child. The first time Silver had meet this person, the child had the clearest lavender eyes he had ever seen. But now, those rich color eyes were gone, and they were replaced with a violent crimson pair.
The waxed self wasted no time on pliant greetings. The deceivingly small child pinned Silver with a terrible dark glare. "How dare you?" The waxed child self hissed. "How dare you try to form a love bond?"
A love bond? Once again, Silver was shocked speechless. However, Silver would never had dared to do such a thing! In order for Silver to even form such a thing he would have to be allowed to bite his master in return and speak the words of love's bond.
Shared blood drinking between vampires was such an intimately intense and private thing. However, for a mere Doll to drink from a Master was an unheard of event. It had never ever happened before, and probably never will.
Then there was the fact that as an enslaved Doll, Silver's natural need for blood wasn't present. It was one of the few things that was a plus to being a Doll. Dolls did not have that insistent instinctive need to drink blood to survive like the majority of members of his race.
Besides, the Doll Spells prevented such a thing to even last. Love bonds and Doll Spells were two completely different forms of ancient vampire powers. Thus, due to the fact that if both types of powers were present on a creature, the clash would destroy the poor soul who would foolishly allow such a thing to happen.
And Silver Night would forever be an accursed Doll. Therefore, he would have never ever have tried to form such a precious but stupid thing.
"I did not try to form one, waxed self." Silver wearily said in his defense. That if anything was true! Silver would never have tried such a death-certain thing!
But the child self continued to angrily glare at him. "You're right, shadow self. You didn't. This new master of yours tried it."
Silver felt as if his blood had turned into ice.
Master Kaname...
Master Kaname had tried to do what now?
Silver could only stare.
But the waxed child self was far from done. "And you would have stupidly allowed that if you had the chance, I see." The child darkly snarled. "Then I will make sure you never ever have the chance to form such a bond."
Silver felt like his incomplete heart was ripped to shreds at his waxed self's cruel words.
A love bond...
His master had tried to from a love bond with him...
If Silver had been able to finished the other half of such a thing, he would have, wouldn't he?
Because only complete and happy people could form love bonds, couldn't they?
And Silver desperately wished to be a complete and happy person.
All logic and rationality had gone out of Silver's stunned mind. "Why can't I bond to someone?" Silver suddenly hissed at his waxed self. "Why can't I bond? What is so wrong with something so pure and good?" Silver felt a heavy bump in the back of his throat. No! He would not cry! He would not show this wretched person such weakness! "I want to bond! I want happiness and love and kindness as well!"
The angry waxed child self rapidly blinked his red eyes at the sudden display of Silver's held back emotions.
The two stared at each other for one long moment.
Then the waxed child self heavily sighed "It would be too...cruel...for you to form a bond, shadow self. It would be too cruel."
The third self looked at Silver with...strange pity. "And only the true self can form love bonds, shadow self. Only the true self can." The waxed self sighed again. He looked at the golden door quickly, and seemingly without thinking about it, the waxed self added, "And the true self does not desire to ever form a true love bond ever again."
Silver suddenly felt like he was hit was a heavy metal hammer.
Ever again?
Ever again?
Ever again?
Didn't that mean that...
" I – we - the true self...had once formed a true-love bond?" Silver's deep voice asked in shocked amazement. His purple-gray eyes watered with an emotion he couldn't understand.
A...true-love bond.
Of all the rarest of treasures he once supposedly had...
He – they – had once formed a true-love bond with someone?
Silver's heart suddenly exploded with emotions.
He...he had formed a true-love bond with someone? Silver's quick mind raced like a prized derby horse. He – they – his true self – had formed a true-love bond?
That was it! That was the key! That was the key to the solution of his cursed life!
With a voice that barely sounded like his own, Silver hurried asked. "When was that true love-bond formed? Who was that love-bond formed with? I must know! I must know now!"
Silver had finally found out the key! He had finally figured it out and now he could -
But the waxed child self looked horrified at his slip of the tongue. "You must forget this, shadow self." The waxed self quickly said. "You must forget what I have just said."
Silver was suddenly enraged. "NO!" Silver yelled back defiantly "If I cannot have love, kindness, or happiness, I demand to know this one thing at least."
The waxed self's crimson eyes flashed. "You do not need to know." The waxed self darkly said. "No...you do not want to know. You do not, shadow self. You. Do. Not."
"Don't you dare tell me what I want from what I don't want, you impetuous little twit." Silver uncharacteristically insultingly hissed. "I must know who that person I – we – true-love bonded with!"
Suddenly, a memory of one of his past interactions with his true self blazed to his remembrance.
She's like the woman I failed.
And just as abruptly, Silver felt like he didn't want to know what he just longingly asked for.
Still, the waxed child self glared at him, and Silver suddenly felt like he was being forced back into the world of reality. "This conversation will not ever happen again, shadow self."
A rebellious feeling crept into Silver. No. Even if the truth was hard, Silver still wanted to learn it! "I refuse! Tell me!"
Another silence came between them.
"If you refuse...then I will destroy you, shadow one." The waxed self threaten. "I will destroy you for not fulfilling the true self's wish."
Silver's purple-gray eyes widen in shaken apprehension. "You can't do that!" He argued. But for some strange reason when Silver looked back at that child, he had the feeling that the odd child wasn't lying.
"I have done it many times before, shadow one. I have done it many times before." The child stepped closer to Silver, but Silver took an unsure step back. The silver-haired child's red eyes glowed with a deadly promised. "You only exist to fulfill the true self's one wish. I exist to ensure that his wish is accomplished."
There was another silence between them
And all of a sudden, Silver felt so tired.
He suddenly felt so depressingly tired, painfully sad, and knowingly empty.
"And what is the true self's one wish then?" He despairingly asked. He hoped the answer was different. He really, really hoped the answer was different this time...but...
Silver Night felt the beginning of his shadow heart die a slow and painful death.
"Survive." Was the waxed self's last word before he disappeared, and Silver was pulled back into reality once more.
To Be Continued
