Tears edged in blood,
No one......no one has ever loved me before
My prayers have been answered..
In scarlet indifference..
Whats the point of living?
The Darker Side of My Heart
The rose dropped from his fingers into the soft white foam of the gentle waves. The seashore was beautiful, the fine sand shone silver in the moonlight. The air was still and edged with a hint of frost. He watched it being tossed about..Its fragile dark crimson petals tearing off without much resistance as it was battered against the shore, then seductively pulled into the sea....to death.
~Bitter irony...I am that rose~
Memories floated softly through his consciousness..soft edged smiles, sunlight. Then disorder violently flooded his mind...The nights he had spent lamenting over her cruelty.
~Her passion.~
His loss. Tears laced with surges of overwhelming joy..Emotions like the small light sees of a dandelion, lost on the winds of seclusion and fate.
He walked. With no regard for the undaunting cool water that swirled up around his feet and receeded every few steps. Turning up the collar of his overcoat, he set his idle gaze on the unending ripples of sand steetched out before him, and foused inward..
~On the memories~
He saw again that night, the details carved into marble, untouched in their perfection. A whisper..or a moment of pure silence, it was both and the same, but in the frozen moment his eyes, in their blood red spendor, were called upon a lone figure. The sounds of the softly crashing waves dissapeared.
~She is so familiar..~
Beautiful, in flowing silks that covered almost her whole body, as if with a touch of modesty. Watching the ocean with mournful honey brown eyes. A black spiral bound book in one hand, held to her protectively.
And within that time..that space in reality when time loses meaning, that oblivion, was the woman suddenly urged to tears. She felt an overwhelming surge of pain as she glanced at him. An unspeakable sadness stirred within her,but not understanding it, she pushed its company away, let it observe in the threatening quiet of its existance.
Their glances touched, then shied. Both winced from the light after knowing darkness for so long.
As he fixated his gaze back on the ground, (and she on the ocean) He was suddenly struck. He realized with mixed emotions who the goddess with him this night on the shore was, and he looked at her again, this time not mindful of his instense stare.
~Lucrecia....~
She did not look back again.
....................................................................................................
He sighed. Something powerful interviened and connected the two people there on that fine silvery sand with an untouchable bond. Why? She was not the woman he let die at Nibelhiem. But how could she not be? Every detail the same. Except for her glasses, which were now replaced by dark shades. But it was behind those shades, in her eyes that he knew his truth was taunting him. Waiting for him to grasp what was jut beyond his reach..to unravel the mystery..He shook his mind from his present worries and turned again to that night...
Vincent was torn. Half of him wanted to run up to her and embrace her. To tell her how sorry he was. To tell her how much he still loved her, and how he was not going to repeat his mistake....But then his logic kicked in, and that part warned that Lucrecia was dead. Even if she really were alive, she could not look that young. Besides who are you to ask for her forgiveness? Monster. The cycle started again, this time at a speed which blurred his senses. So outwardly composed and cold, and fighting a raging war with his heart on the inside. Sometimes he himself wonderd how he kept his mask so flawlessly.
He decided not to think for a moment, then do whatever fate thought best.
After a full minute, he made a quick decisive goal,and he walked up to the woman.
"Lucrecia?"
The woman just looked at him. He was not prepared for silence, and looked away.
"Look, I just...Well, I thought you were..dead. "
That really was the surface question that might have been the most appropriate to ask.
"I am."
Vincent was taken aback by the comment. That, and the total lack of recognition in her face. It hurt him. Had he really changed so much?
~Monster. See her fear?~
He then turned over her comment. ..I am.. It made no sense, so he decided to put it aside.
~Do not trust him, he wants to hurt you~
"W-Who are you?"
In a blinding second he considered lying about himself. Inventing a name, a past, an excuse. She would never have to know that he was the same man who did not interviene in that horrible experiment, perhaps they could....
He looked over at her
"Vincent. Vincent Valentine..? You dont remember me?"
He expected her to remember. Everyone expected things of her. Sometimes she got so sick of it she wanted to scream.She had never seen this man before in her life. She was certain of it. Though something about him....
"no."
He looked down, sure that she was lying.
~ I should have known. She never could love someone like me. A killer. I should give up. But no, I can't live with more regret, I must somehow make her understand~
Suddenly, she spoke. Unexpected after the long silence that had stretched between the two..both lost in their own thoughts.
"I am Merlose. I do not know you...just go away."
She was suddenly afraid of the emotions his presence caused. She just wanted to remain alone and lost in a *familiar* place..instead of in a place where things waited, uncovered in the shadows.
Vincent was speechless, not an uncommon trait of his. His resolution crumbled, and he turned his gaze downwards, and turned around, determined to just leave her there. It took a lot of willpower not to do someting stupid and femine like shedding tears. ~Merlose, Merlose...Who are you?~
He got only a dozen steps away, when he heard light quick footsteps jog after him. He stopped, but did not turn around.
"I'm sorry, I didnt mean to say that."
She caught up with him, breathing a little heavier than normal though she only ran for a few moments, but it wasnt the physical exertion. She saw him walk away, and suddenly she couldnt let him just go and erase him from her memory. She was afriad she had hurt him. He seemed so fragile to her.
Vincent almost smiled. Today was for contadictions of thoughts. A moment ago he had his heart despairingly set on leaving..and before that, on not losing her a second time, and before that...
"Dont be sorry. It was my fault for wrongfully confronting you."
She said nothing, and just studied him for a long moment, filled with nervous quiet. She twisted a strand of her long browm hair, if for no reason than to do something other than nothing. He reminded her faintly of someone she used to know...she just couldnt place it...as she could not place many things in the broken puzzle of her existance.
"Its beautiful, isnt it?"
"..?"
"I mean the ocean..especially in the darkness"
He nodded slowly. It was beautiful that night. Wonderfully still and clear.
"Where do you live?"
She sounded so innocent asking it that Vincent did not question her motives as he usually would have done, as he gave her the intersecting streets.
"It's an apartment.."
He lived by himself, getting work wherever he could. Lately he was thinking of hiring out as an assassin. Times had been hard.
She took note of what he said casually, but took care to remember it. Why? She did not know, but somehow she felt as if she would need it.
"Merlose.."
~Lucrecia~
She looked at him questioningly.
He wanted to ask her many things. About her past. About the things she knew. The people. He settled on a question, and was about to ask her, when suddenly he was cut off.
"Who was..Lucrecia? Do I look like her?"
Vincent stopped mid-thought, and wondered what he should say to this. Another unexpected turn of conversation.
"Yes, you do. She was a woman I worked with. I.."
~I loved her~
She saw his sadness immediately, though he covered it so well. She knew pain, sadness. She wondered if he had loved the woman in question.
"Did you love her?"
"...."
Vincent chose not to answer, letting his silence assume the form of a 'yes'.
"Then I am not her. No one......no one has ever loved me"
With that she suddenly turned and walked away, leaving a light trail of footprints in the silver sand. The waves closed around them greedily, and soon the shore was smooth and unbroken again.
................................................................................................
Vincent sat by the window in his mundane apartment, in a bland square apartment complex. A book lie open on his lap, but he had given up reading it, after scanning pages upon pages and grasping nothing. His mind was too occupied with *her.* Answers hovered out of his grasp...intangible content. If she really was Lucrecia, why would she lie? It could only mean that she hated him and could not bring herself to renounce him openly. And if she was not? The pros almost outweighed this option, but then again, her voice was different. Within the echoes of her words, there trailed a sadness, a pain Lucrecia never quite carried.
~What had she suffered?~
But he could feel her presence, a pulling center in him, where there had been a void once. Its name was hope, and he embraced it.
Melose (which is what we will call her) wanders aimlessly. She has a place, but not a home. She never had a home. Or, perhaps she just does not remember. There is much lost to her. Memories painted in watercolor on fine silk, then worn, and washed so that the color only remained an empty shell of its brilliance and vibrant expression. Grey strands of her past wound around her and tripped her recovery. Recovery from..even now she could not really remember. Where was she going?
~It doesnt matter. Nothing matters. Why do I stay with my pain?~
She sat down on a curb dejectedly, and stared at the pavement. It was grey, undifinitive. Is that what she wanted? A life away from pain, away from descisions, and lies, and...No.
~No! Thats not what I want~
Pain...she wanted to feel. She wanted love, but if all she could have was hurt, so be it. She took out a small pocketknife. The rest came easy. The way her body tingled, and she grew dizzy.
~Red.~
He was wearing red. A bandanna, a red bandanna. She smiled. She could see blood on his face in her mind. She didnt know why she did, but something about her reminded her of blood. She closed the knife, and slipped it back into a small velvet purse she carried, then pulled down the sleeves of her long sling dress to hide the cuts, and the scars. She couldn't think straight. She couldnt remember where she lived. For some reason that man, Vincent, occupied her mind. For an instant, she thought of going to his house, and asking for directions..but then she knew how ludicrious that would sound, and stumbled on. Dawn was impatient.
.......................................................................................................................................
Vincent, contrary to common belief, did not live alone. Another occupied his small, inornate apartment along with him. Her name was Carroll...or was it really? Perhaps everything in her life was just illusion..
~Its just an illusion~
The door opened, and thudded hollowly against the wall, before following efficient footsteps to a muffled slam. It was on past the smaller hours of morning, and through the gloomy, flickering light of a bared lightbulb, there was a promise of dawn. The apartment was modest, with two rooms a kitchen area, and a small cluttered space which could have been called a living room in better days which sported two dejected couches, sprawled at odd angles.
Upon one of the former, a girl with short, messy black hair and startling green eyes lounged carelessly. She was staring vacantly at the celing, a forgotten cigarette nearly in ash, being held by a pale, languid hand. She was startled mildly from her reverie when as door closed. Carroll tilted her head back over the arm of the couch, and scrutinized Vincent, upside-down.
"You're out later than usual, Vince"
Through her words was a kind of hazy lack of thought. Vincent noticed, and brushed of the comment. He could not confide in Carroll about the girl, who ever she was. She would make too much of it, as she alwys did. It amazed him how much she seemed to care...
She sighed. It was futile trying to pry answers out of him, if he was determined to leave them unsaid. Besides, she was accustomed to silence from him. It was his natural reaction to so much it seemed..
"Where were you?"
"Just the beach." Vincent paused, then walked to the door that marked his territory from the rest of the house. He swung it open and dissapeared inside, closing it softly behind him.
His room was nothing special. A plain wood chair with red cushions stationed by a small pictureglass window overlooking unnattractive streets, occasional glimpses of blue sky through the grey, and sometimes even light. Beside the window was a neat black desk, lined with folders and stacks of paper. A black coffin with red satin lining lay slightly ajar in a corner. The walls were a greyish black, painted that way by Vincent in a bout of depression. He walked over to the window, and slouched into the chair, convinced there was too much on his mind for sleep..
In the living room, Carroll was faced with the same problem, yet a different cause. Her mind was deviod of clear thoughts, plauged with sleeplessness. She wished she could grasp them - they lingered so tauntingly just beyond her blurred vision; focusing and unfocusing on a fault in the smooth, white ceiling.
She knew that hours ago she was trying everything just to forget. And she had. Her mind was scrambled, she just drifted aimlessly over faces and faint traces of events. She remembered the drugs..the loud, hot clubs and bars that reappeared throughout the broken chain of memories. SShe hated her life. If it were not for Vincent, she might have ended it a long time ago. As it was, he gave her a reason to go one living. With her mind on the raven-haired man in the next room, she finally drifted to sleep.
.......................................................
A week dragged by. Vincent fell back into his routine with no traces of the beautiful, mysterious Merlose. He started to question her existance..such visions had posessed him before. But it had seemed so real...
Vincent picked up the set of keys to the apartment and walked out. Carroll was out already, so he needed to deliver no explaination. The evening was chilly, but Vincent has never minded the cold. He wandered aimlessly down dark streets, finding his way and avoiding the worse streets without glancing up. Eventually he was forced to stop, and look up. In front of him were the tall, wrought iron gates of the cemetery. A small shiver stole its way through his body. This place always reminded him of hat he had left behind...
Tonight, though, something compelled him to step inside the gates. He had always avoided the inside of the graveyards - silent white headstones and solemn marble masolems. Strangely, walking through the slight mist that was forming, he felt at home here. It lost it's sence of foreboding as the scent of wilted flowers and age tinted the cold air.
Perched atop a smooth oblong grave marker, a stone angel behind her and lending her wings, was Merlose. She wore a long, plain black dress, with lace covering her arms, and black ribbons cascading from soft curls in her light brown hair. Her face was peaceful, and relaxed, yet tears glimmered on her cheeks, seemingly out of place.
Vincent caught his breath as he noticed her - a black angel shrouded in light mist. She turned and looked at him, vaugely confused at his presence.
"Vincent?"
He did not look away when she caught his eyes, and walked over to her. She smiled a little, and brushed away her tears quickly. The tall, dark stranger had been on her mind. She rested the peice of charcoal she was holding on the grave marker and picked up her sketchbook. It was bound in leather, and filled with sketches, rubbings and dried flower petals form this place. There was a plain cross stamped on the front. Merlose spent more timehere then she did anywhere else, and she was both dismayed and glad that Vincent had found it - her haven.
He glances down at her sketchbook. On the page it was opened to was a black rose, its thorny vines twisting around the shape of a heart, blood pooling beneath it. She snapped it closed and latched it.
"I've never seen you here before. Why did you come?"
Vincent did not know if it was suspicion or something else in her voice. It was casual, but there were darker undertones, a glimpse of untold secrets.
"...I'm not sure." Merlose just looked at him, as if waiting for him to elaborate, because the answer did not suit her. Vincent, never having been a good conversationalist, offered another comment.
"I usually stay away from cemetaries..tonight I felt like a change. Why are you here?"
Merlose smiled. "I love it here, There is so much atmosphere.." She ran her charcoal tinted fingers across the name carved into the gravestone. "Besides, someone needs to remember these people. The graves are all so lonely."
Vincent nodded. Merlose slid to her feet, picking up the charcoal. He noticed black smudges on the marble where her fingers had touched. It was like she had left pieces of the darkness of her soul on the grave.
~What happened to you, Lucrecia?~
"Would you walk me home?"
The request, admittedly, took him a bit by surprise, but he consented, and they left the cemetery together. Merlose lived in a beautiful section of the sector. The street lamps were all functional, and there were trees, and neatly kept hedges. Houses, and and gardens lined themselves up behind sidewalks and fences. There was nothing dark or threatening on these streets.
They talked occasionally, in soft voices, as not to disturb the still night. Through the words were unanswered questions which neither asked for one reason or another. They eventually reached her house. It was older then the ones around it - classic, and a bit out of place. Wrought iron ringed the yard, in which there were one or two rosebushes, struggling to bloom though winter was looming ominously ahead. It was painted a light grey with white doors and shutters cvontrasting with black doorframes and highlights. It was one and a half stories, with an attic space.
She opened the gate, and walked up to her door. Vincent stopped a few yards from it. "Good night."
Merlose looked back at him, as if puzzled. She unlocked the door and opened it a little, then walked back to where he was standing.
"Leaving? I thought.."
Vincent had guessed her intentions. But that wasn't the type of person he was. He cut her off. "Yes, I think that would be best." He tried not to have the statement come across as cold, but it did, and he saw the hurt in Merlose's eyes before she turned away.
She did not understand why Vincent had turned her down. Red. That blood red color he wore..It was familiar. It complimented the cold feeling that had brushed against her heart. She jumped slightly, at a hand on her arm. A black fingerless glove.
"Wait, I didn't mean to upset you..."
Merlose covered his hand with her own, and turned to face him slowly. His midnight black hair fell over his shoulders and framed his pale skin. She moved his hand off her arm gently, looking up at him with soft brown eyes.
Vincent's heart was pounding. He had found her again - his second chance. It had to be her, every detail was painfully intact in his memory.
~You do not know him~
Merlose silenced the voice in her head as his lips touched hers. The cold feeling melted in that kiss - it was soft, and somewhat unsure. Exposure to emotion after having the feeling locked away for so long.
The moment had passed, and there was something new in the look that passed between them. Suddenly, something deep inside of Merlose snapped - an ancient injury that did not have the chance to heal.
~No! You cannot fall in love again~
She released his hand quickly and stumbled a few steps back.
"No. Stay away from me.."
She turned and ran up the front steps, into her house. The door slammed, and Vincent was left staring at the closed door with mixed emotions. Confusion, pain, anger. Love...
He decided to respect her wish for solitude and started back home.
.............................................
Three hours later, Carroll stumbled in the front door. Vincent awoke from a light sleep at the noise. He glanced at the clock skeptically, then got up, grabbing his cape off the back of a chair and draping it over his shoulders, leaving the buckles undone. Carroll even coming home at all this late meant she was in trouble.
Usually when she got really trashed at parties she would stay until morning, when she would slink in and pass out on the couch, or on her bedroom floor. She knew that Vincent did not approve of her behavior, but she was an adult, and he had no say in it.
He walked out to meet her in the living room. When she saw him she flinched, as if expecting a reprimand, then stumbled back into a wall, pressing against it for support. It was bad. There were dark bruises on her face and arms and her eyes were red, from crying, and god only knows what else.
She started to cry, softly at first. Vincent walked over, silent, and with empathy in his crimson eyes. Carroll let go of the wall and collapsed in his arms, hugging him tightly, desperately, and crying harder.
"I'm sorry Vince."
The world was blurry, dark, violent. She remembered the neon lights of the club, the bodies, the smoke in the air. The back room, with whispered promises and small, bright pills. She was flirting with a man with shoulder length blonde hair. His eyes were a pretty shade of blue, though unfocused, and his body was muscled. She hadn't meant for it to go as far as it did. Not tonight.
"What happened, Carroll?"
She struggled to hold back sobs, sounding weak and helpless against his calm voice and steady arms.
"Things got messy.."
Vincent traced a bruise on her arm gently, and narrowed his eyes. He knew what happened, and it wasn't the first time. If she would only listen to him..Women were too complex.
~Blackness, sleep~
Carroll was getting limp, losing feeling in her legs. Vincent picked her up easily and carried her into her room. She passed out soon after, and he put her on her bed, sitting beside her in the faint smoke-veiled moonlight, and stroking her hair out of her tear stained face.
~The angel Merlose~
He shook his head, but could not get the image of her out of it. He sighed and looked out the window in Carroll's room. Another sleepless night...
No one......no one has ever loved me before
My prayers have been answered..
In scarlet indifference..
Whats the point of living?
The Darker Side of My Heart
The rose dropped from his fingers into the soft white foam of the gentle waves. The seashore was beautiful, the fine sand shone silver in the moonlight. The air was still and edged with a hint of frost. He watched it being tossed about..Its fragile dark crimson petals tearing off without much resistance as it was battered against the shore, then seductively pulled into the sea....to death.
~Bitter irony...I am that rose~
Memories floated softly through his consciousness..soft edged smiles, sunlight. Then disorder violently flooded his mind...The nights he had spent lamenting over her cruelty.
~Her passion.~
His loss. Tears laced with surges of overwhelming joy..Emotions like the small light sees of a dandelion, lost on the winds of seclusion and fate.
He walked. With no regard for the undaunting cool water that swirled up around his feet and receeded every few steps. Turning up the collar of his overcoat, he set his idle gaze on the unending ripples of sand steetched out before him, and foused inward..
~On the memories~
He saw again that night, the details carved into marble, untouched in their perfection. A whisper..or a moment of pure silence, it was both and the same, but in the frozen moment his eyes, in their blood red spendor, were called upon a lone figure. The sounds of the softly crashing waves dissapeared.
~She is so familiar..~
Beautiful, in flowing silks that covered almost her whole body, as if with a touch of modesty. Watching the ocean with mournful honey brown eyes. A black spiral bound book in one hand, held to her protectively.
And within that time..that space in reality when time loses meaning, that oblivion, was the woman suddenly urged to tears. She felt an overwhelming surge of pain as she glanced at him. An unspeakable sadness stirred within her,but not understanding it, she pushed its company away, let it observe in the threatening quiet of its existance.
Their glances touched, then shied. Both winced from the light after knowing darkness for so long.
As he fixated his gaze back on the ground, (and she on the ocean) He was suddenly struck. He realized with mixed emotions who the goddess with him this night on the shore was, and he looked at her again, this time not mindful of his instense stare.
~Lucrecia....~
She did not look back again.
....................................................................................................
He sighed. Something powerful interviened and connected the two people there on that fine silvery sand with an untouchable bond. Why? She was not the woman he let die at Nibelhiem. But how could she not be? Every detail the same. Except for her glasses, which were now replaced by dark shades. But it was behind those shades, in her eyes that he knew his truth was taunting him. Waiting for him to grasp what was jut beyond his reach..to unravel the mystery..He shook his mind from his present worries and turned again to that night...
Vincent was torn. Half of him wanted to run up to her and embrace her. To tell her how sorry he was. To tell her how much he still loved her, and how he was not going to repeat his mistake....But then his logic kicked in, and that part warned that Lucrecia was dead. Even if she really were alive, she could not look that young. Besides who are you to ask for her forgiveness? Monster. The cycle started again, this time at a speed which blurred his senses. So outwardly composed and cold, and fighting a raging war with his heart on the inside. Sometimes he himself wonderd how he kept his mask so flawlessly.
He decided not to think for a moment, then do whatever fate thought best.
After a full minute, he made a quick decisive goal,and he walked up to the woman.
"Lucrecia?"
The woman just looked at him. He was not prepared for silence, and looked away.
"Look, I just...Well, I thought you were..dead. "
That really was the surface question that might have been the most appropriate to ask.
"I am."
Vincent was taken aback by the comment. That, and the total lack of recognition in her face. It hurt him. Had he really changed so much?
~Monster. See her fear?~
He then turned over her comment. ..I am.. It made no sense, so he decided to put it aside.
~Do not trust him, he wants to hurt you~
"W-Who are you?"
In a blinding second he considered lying about himself. Inventing a name, a past, an excuse. She would never have to know that he was the same man who did not interviene in that horrible experiment, perhaps they could....
He looked over at her
"Vincent. Vincent Valentine..? You dont remember me?"
He expected her to remember. Everyone expected things of her. Sometimes she got so sick of it she wanted to scream.She had never seen this man before in her life. She was certain of it. Though something about him....
"no."
He looked down, sure that she was lying.
~ I should have known. She never could love someone like me. A killer. I should give up. But no, I can't live with more regret, I must somehow make her understand~
Suddenly, she spoke. Unexpected after the long silence that had stretched between the two..both lost in their own thoughts.
"I am Merlose. I do not know you...just go away."
She was suddenly afraid of the emotions his presence caused. She just wanted to remain alone and lost in a *familiar* place..instead of in a place where things waited, uncovered in the shadows.
Vincent was speechless, not an uncommon trait of his. His resolution crumbled, and he turned his gaze downwards, and turned around, determined to just leave her there. It took a lot of willpower not to do someting stupid and femine like shedding tears. ~Merlose, Merlose...Who are you?~
He got only a dozen steps away, when he heard light quick footsteps jog after him. He stopped, but did not turn around.
"I'm sorry, I didnt mean to say that."
She caught up with him, breathing a little heavier than normal though she only ran for a few moments, but it wasnt the physical exertion. She saw him walk away, and suddenly she couldnt let him just go and erase him from her memory. She was afriad she had hurt him. He seemed so fragile to her.
Vincent almost smiled. Today was for contadictions of thoughts. A moment ago he had his heart despairingly set on leaving..and before that, on not losing her a second time, and before that...
"Dont be sorry. It was my fault for wrongfully confronting you."
She said nothing, and just studied him for a long moment, filled with nervous quiet. She twisted a strand of her long browm hair, if for no reason than to do something other than nothing. He reminded her faintly of someone she used to know...she just couldnt place it...as she could not place many things in the broken puzzle of her existance.
"Its beautiful, isnt it?"
"..?"
"I mean the ocean..especially in the darkness"
He nodded slowly. It was beautiful that night. Wonderfully still and clear.
"Where do you live?"
She sounded so innocent asking it that Vincent did not question her motives as he usually would have done, as he gave her the intersecting streets.
"It's an apartment.."
He lived by himself, getting work wherever he could. Lately he was thinking of hiring out as an assassin. Times had been hard.
She took note of what he said casually, but took care to remember it. Why? She did not know, but somehow she felt as if she would need it.
"Merlose.."
~Lucrecia~
She looked at him questioningly.
He wanted to ask her many things. About her past. About the things she knew. The people. He settled on a question, and was about to ask her, when suddenly he was cut off.
"Who was..Lucrecia? Do I look like her?"
Vincent stopped mid-thought, and wondered what he should say to this. Another unexpected turn of conversation.
"Yes, you do. She was a woman I worked with. I.."
~I loved her~
She saw his sadness immediately, though he covered it so well. She knew pain, sadness. She wondered if he had loved the woman in question.
"Did you love her?"
"...."
Vincent chose not to answer, letting his silence assume the form of a 'yes'.
"Then I am not her. No one......no one has ever loved me"
With that she suddenly turned and walked away, leaving a light trail of footprints in the silver sand. The waves closed around them greedily, and soon the shore was smooth and unbroken again.
................................................................................................
Vincent sat by the window in his mundane apartment, in a bland square apartment complex. A book lie open on his lap, but he had given up reading it, after scanning pages upon pages and grasping nothing. His mind was too occupied with *her.* Answers hovered out of his grasp...intangible content. If she really was Lucrecia, why would she lie? It could only mean that she hated him and could not bring herself to renounce him openly. And if she was not? The pros almost outweighed this option, but then again, her voice was different. Within the echoes of her words, there trailed a sadness, a pain Lucrecia never quite carried.
~What had she suffered?~
But he could feel her presence, a pulling center in him, where there had been a void once. Its name was hope, and he embraced it.
Melose (which is what we will call her) wanders aimlessly. She has a place, but not a home. She never had a home. Or, perhaps she just does not remember. There is much lost to her. Memories painted in watercolor on fine silk, then worn, and washed so that the color only remained an empty shell of its brilliance and vibrant expression. Grey strands of her past wound around her and tripped her recovery. Recovery from..even now she could not really remember. Where was she going?
~It doesnt matter. Nothing matters. Why do I stay with my pain?~
She sat down on a curb dejectedly, and stared at the pavement. It was grey, undifinitive. Is that what she wanted? A life away from pain, away from descisions, and lies, and...No.
~No! Thats not what I want~
Pain...she wanted to feel. She wanted love, but if all she could have was hurt, so be it. She took out a small pocketknife. The rest came easy. The way her body tingled, and she grew dizzy.
~Red.~
He was wearing red. A bandanna, a red bandanna. She smiled. She could see blood on his face in her mind. She didnt know why she did, but something about her reminded her of blood. She closed the knife, and slipped it back into a small velvet purse she carried, then pulled down the sleeves of her long sling dress to hide the cuts, and the scars. She couldn't think straight. She couldnt remember where she lived. For some reason that man, Vincent, occupied her mind. For an instant, she thought of going to his house, and asking for directions..but then she knew how ludicrious that would sound, and stumbled on. Dawn was impatient.
.......................................................................................................................................
Vincent, contrary to common belief, did not live alone. Another occupied his small, inornate apartment along with him. Her name was Carroll...or was it really? Perhaps everything in her life was just illusion..
~Its just an illusion~
The door opened, and thudded hollowly against the wall, before following efficient footsteps to a muffled slam. It was on past the smaller hours of morning, and through the gloomy, flickering light of a bared lightbulb, there was a promise of dawn. The apartment was modest, with two rooms a kitchen area, and a small cluttered space which could have been called a living room in better days which sported two dejected couches, sprawled at odd angles.
Upon one of the former, a girl with short, messy black hair and startling green eyes lounged carelessly. She was staring vacantly at the celing, a forgotten cigarette nearly in ash, being held by a pale, languid hand. She was startled mildly from her reverie when as door closed. Carroll tilted her head back over the arm of the couch, and scrutinized Vincent, upside-down.
"You're out later than usual, Vince"
Through her words was a kind of hazy lack of thought. Vincent noticed, and brushed of the comment. He could not confide in Carroll about the girl, who ever she was. She would make too much of it, as she alwys did. It amazed him how much she seemed to care...
She sighed. It was futile trying to pry answers out of him, if he was determined to leave them unsaid. Besides, she was accustomed to silence from him. It was his natural reaction to so much it seemed..
"Where were you?"
"Just the beach." Vincent paused, then walked to the door that marked his territory from the rest of the house. He swung it open and dissapeared inside, closing it softly behind him.
His room was nothing special. A plain wood chair with red cushions stationed by a small pictureglass window overlooking unnattractive streets, occasional glimpses of blue sky through the grey, and sometimes even light. Beside the window was a neat black desk, lined with folders and stacks of paper. A black coffin with red satin lining lay slightly ajar in a corner. The walls were a greyish black, painted that way by Vincent in a bout of depression. He walked over to the window, and slouched into the chair, convinced there was too much on his mind for sleep..
In the living room, Carroll was faced with the same problem, yet a different cause. Her mind was deviod of clear thoughts, plauged with sleeplessness. She wished she could grasp them - they lingered so tauntingly just beyond her blurred vision; focusing and unfocusing on a fault in the smooth, white ceiling.
She knew that hours ago she was trying everything just to forget. And she had. Her mind was scrambled, she just drifted aimlessly over faces and faint traces of events. She remembered the drugs..the loud, hot clubs and bars that reappeared throughout the broken chain of memories. SShe hated her life. If it were not for Vincent, she might have ended it a long time ago. As it was, he gave her a reason to go one living. With her mind on the raven-haired man in the next room, she finally drifted to sleep.
.......................................................
A week dragged by. Vincent fell back into his routine with no traces of the beautiful, mysterious Merlose. He started to question her existance..such visions had posessed him before. But it had seemed so real...
Vincent picked up the set of keys to the apartment and walked out. Carroll was out already, so he needed to deliver no explaination. The evening was chilly, but Vincent has never minded the cold. He wandered aimlessly down dark streets, finding his way and avoiding the worse streets without glancing up. Eventually he was forced to stop, and look up. In front of him were the tall, wrought iron gates of the cemetery. A small shiver stole its way through his body. This place always reminded him of hat he had left behind...
Tonight, though, something compelled him to step inside the gates. He had always avoided the inside of the graveyards - silent white headstones and solemn marble masolems. Strangely, walking through the slight mist that was forming, he felt at home here. It lost it's sence of foreboding as the scent of wilted flowers and age tinted the cold air.
Perched atop a smooth oblong grave marker, a stone angel behind her and lending her wings, was Merlose. She wore a long, plain black dress, with lace covering her arms, and black ribbons cascading from soft curls in her light brown hair. Her face was peaceful, and relaxed, yet tears glimmered on her cheeks, seemingly out of place.
Vincent caught his breath as he noticed her - a black angel shrouded in light mist. She turned and looked at him, vaugely confused at his presence.
"Vincent?"
He did not look away when she caught his eyes, and walked over to her. She smiled a little, and brushed away her tears quickly. The tall, dark stranger had been on her mind. She rested the peice of charcoal she was holding on the grave marker and picked up her sketchbook. It was bound in leather, and filled with sketches, rubbings and dried flower petals form this place. There was a plain cross stamped on the front. Merlose spent more timehere then she did anywhere else, and she was both dismayed and glad that Vincent had found it - her haven.
He glances down at her sketchbook. On the page it was opened to was a black rose, its thorny vines twisting around the shape of a heart, blood pooling beneath it. She snapped it closed and latched it.
"I've never seen you here before. Why did you come?"
Vincent did not know if it was suspicion or something else in her voice. It was casual, but there were darker undertones, a glimpse of untold secrets.
"...I'm not sure." Merlose just looked at him, as if waiting for him to elaborate, because the answer did not suit her. Vincent, never having been a good conversationalist, offered another comment.
"I usually stay away from cemetaries..tonight I felt like a change. Why are you here?"
Merlose smiled. "I love it here, There is so much atmosphere.." She ran her charcoal tinted fingers across the name carved into the gravestone. "Besides, someone needs to remember these people. The graves are all so lonely."
Vincent nodded. Merlose slid to her feet, picking up the charcoal. He noticed black smudges on the marble where her fingers had touched. It was like she had left pieces of the darkness of her soul on the grave.
~What happened to you, Lucrecia?~
"Would you walk me home?"
The request, admittedly, took him a bit by surprise, but he consented, and they left the cemetery together. Merlose lived in a beautiful section of the sector. The street lamps were all functional, and there were trees, and neatly kept hedges. Houses, and and gardens lined themselves up behind sidewalks and fences. There was nothing dark or threatening on these streets.
They talked occasionally, in soft voices, as not to disturb the still night. Through the words were unanswered questions which neither asked for one reason or another. They eventually reached her house. It was older then the ones around it - classic, and a bit out of place. Wrought iron ringed the yard, in which there were one or two rosebushes, struggling to bloom though winter was looming ominously ahead. It was painted a light grey with white doors and shutters cvontrasting with black doorframes and highlights. It was one and a half stories, with an attic space.
She opened the gate, and walked up to her door. Vincent stopped a few yards from it. "Good night."
Merlose looked back at him, as if puzzled. She unlocked the door and opened it a little, then walked back to where he was standing.
"Leaving? I thought.."
Vincent had guessed her intentions. But that wasn't the type of person he was. He cut her off. "Yes, I think that would be best." He tried not to have the statement come across as cold, but it did, and he saw the hurt in Merlose's eyes before she turned away.
She did not understand why Vincent had turned her down. Red. That blood red color he wore..It was familiar. It complimented the cold feeling that had brushed against her heart. She jumped slightly, at a hand on her arm. A black fingerless glove.
"Wait, I didn't mean to upset you..."
Merlose covered his hand with her own, and turned to face him slowly. His midnight black hair fell over his shoulders and framed his pale skin. She moved his hand off her arm gently, looking up at him with soft brown eyes.
Vincent's heart was pounding. He had found her again - his second chance. It had to be her, every detail was painfully intact in his memory.
~You do not know him~
Merlose silenced the voice in her head as his lips touched hers. The cold feeling melted in that kiss - it was soft, and somewhat unsure. Exposure to emotion after having the feeling locked away for so long.
The moment had passed, and there was something new in the look that passed between them. Suddenly, something deep inside of Merlose snapped - an ancient injury that did not have the chance to heal.
~No! You cannot fall in love again~
She released his hand quickly and stumbled a few steps back.
"No. Stay away from me.."
She turned and ran up the front steps, into her house. The door slammed, and Vincent was left staring at the closed door with mixed emotions. Confusion, pain, anger. Love...
He decided to respect her wish for solitude and started back home.
.............................................
Three hours later, Carroll stumbled in the front door. Vincent awoke from a light sleep at the noise. He glanced at the clock skeptically, then got up, grabbing his cape off the back of a chair and draping it over his shoulders, leaving the buckles undone. Carroll even coming home at all this late meant she was in trouble.
Usually when she got really trashed at parties she would stay until morning, when she would slink in and pass out on the couch, or on her bedroom floor. She knew that Vincent did not approve of her behavior, but she was an adult, and he had no say in it.
He walked out to meet her in the living room. When she saw him she flinched, as if expecting a reprimand, then stumbled back into a wall, pressing against it for support. It was bad. There were dark bruises on her face and arms and her eyes were red, from crying, and god only knows what else.
She started to cry, softly at first. Vincent walked over, silent, and with empathy in his crimson eyes. Carroll let go of the wall and collapsed in his arms, hugging him tightly, desperately, and crying harder.
"I'm sorry Vince."
The world was blurry, dark, violent. She remembered the neon lights of the club, the bodies, the smoke in the air. The back room, with whispered promises and small, bright pills. She was flirting with a man with shoulder length blonde hair. His eyes were a pretty shade of blue, though unfocused, and his body was muscled. She hadn't meant for it to go as far as it did. Not tonight.
"What happened, Carroll?"
She struggled to hold back sobs, sounding weak and helpless against his calm voice and steady arms.
"Things got messy.."
Vincent traced a bruise on her arm gently, and narrowed his eyes. He knew what happened, and it wasn't the first time. If she would only listen to him..Women were too complex.
~Blackness, sleep~
Carroll was getting limp, losing feeling in her legs. Vincent picked her up easily and carried her into her room. She passed out soon after, and he put her on her bed, sitting beside her in the faint smoke-veiled moonlight, and stroking her hair out of her tear stained face.
~The angel Merlose~
He shook his head, but could not get the image of her out of it. He sighed and looked out the window in Carroll's room. Another sleepless night...