Darkness Everlasting

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Day 37
Dear Diary,

Last night I dreamed of you.
It was a nightmare.
We fought each other with those little knives Chloe loved.
You were empty.
Hollow.
Homicidal.

Enthralling.
I never noticed how beautiful you were in motion.
When we fought side by side it was always out of instinct.
The plan was laid out, but even when it wasn't, we knew out of hand, what the other was doing...
What the other was thinking.
Beautiful.

The flow of movement, the rhythm of strikes.
The incessant chatter of steel on steel.
The glint of sunlight off a bared blade.
You stabbed me again and again.
Always in the same arm.
Always as I raised it to block a fatal blow.
I never cried out.
And you left those blades there, hanging in my arm.
A fresh knife always ready.

Eventually we stopped.
Or rather, I stopped
Pulled away.
My arm hurt.
Flexing muscles could feel each blade distinctly.
I plucked them from my body.
One at a time, every removal drawing a gasp or a cringe.
The pain.
So intense.
So blessedly sweet.
So real.

I collapsed, blood pooling beneath me.
It was then that you came to me, weapon held high, secure in your victory.
I cried.
You held me.
Embraced me, soothed me.
You pressed the flat of your blade into my back, reminding me of its presence.
The feeling was unnerving, maddening.
Hauntingly familiar.
I wept.

I woke.
Alone.
Cold.
Hungry.
Nightmare?
Perhaps not.
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The sun was just barely reaching the peak of its journey. Kirika sighed. She had never written anything in the morning before, but today the words had leapt at her, forced her to her pen upon waking. The dream still burnt freshly in her mind. So real... In a way, was it... better? No. Mireille would come back, and they would have something to share again. Kirika wiped the sweat from her forehead with a wrist. The words had consumed her; she was tired again, and still hungry.

Beyond the window, birds flapped around lazily in the early summer warmth, oblivious to the turmoil of the lonely girl within.

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