A little unhappy one-shot. Started out as drabble…been having weird dreams lately, I guess. So here ya are.
-Shawshank
Lightning Eyes
These dreams have been following me everywhere, like coyotes on the scent. The pale vision of a face that chills my spine when I look in the water…
Two single hairs from a Wolfos' tail are wound around locks of my hair…I hope for good luck, but all I receive are more warning glances from the shadows and the gleaming of teeth waiting to bite.
I know it's almost here. Goddesses, I should know, being who I am…I have an inner hold on time, and I know it so well it's frightening. It's like I can almost see what will happen before it does…except that's someone else's job.
It's my job to hurt and bleed and die and somehow survive, always with the feeling that there's something I've forgotten, something I'm missing, something just beyond my field of vision that could mean everything and nothing all at once, and I can never quite see it, because every time I turn around it runs faster than my eyes can move…
I've seen the coattails of the devil himself and lived to tell the tale.
I know where I will end. The same place where I began. Where else?
I began when I saw the ocean. And someday, when I'm too old to know any better, too wise to think things through, and too pained to ever hope to walk under the weight of all my remorse and old hatred, I'll somehow walk in, but I'll never walk out.
Tomorrow, maybe.
For today, I can only dream of bright music boxes and ghosts haunting the edges of my vision…the boy with the lightning eyes, I hear them call me. The boy with the soul so dead and so icy that it can only conduct electricity from the goddesses.
And to think, I used to remember what it was like to love.
I'm so afraid of being bitten…sometimes I wonder if I already have been. I wouldn't be surprised. I see teeth sinking into me at night, and I see the grinning moon overhead, and I wonder if I haven't already begun to change into that mindless creature that I know lies in wait somewhere deep within my heart.
It was there, even before I noticed it. It seems as though it was grafted to me, and now I can't remove it without hurting myself in the process.
So I'll let it grow, like a tumor, until something unleashes it, lets it go. Then I can only wait for the blood in my eyes to leave so that I can breathe properly again.
Since when was my body my own to command? Nothing new, nothing old…
A deep-rooted insanity, floating on my mind. That's what this is. What else could it be? After that Wolfos bit me…it's almost been a month.
Now I'll have to wait and see if the rumors are true.
I wouldn't be surprised. Forests are dark…anything can happen.
I just can't wait to see myself floating face-down, the blood finally washing out of the lines on my hands and into the water around me, being pulled away gently by the tide and into a world where no one knows the meaning of shadow…
Sunlight. Yes, I remember sunlight. Shouldn't morning be happening soon?
The backs of my hands are furry. But when I look into the river, I can only see the lightning eyes I've always seen…
And in this mindless place of calm, I can only be afraid and wait for it to end.
I've been trapped here for so long, living the same days again and again, over and over, losing that same precious innocence. But who doesn't lose innocence every time they step out their front door?
And nobody else can remember. Nobody else saw the fear on their faces, and nobody else had to live through the words they screamed when they saw me walking down the street at noon.
They screamed that a dead thing was coming. And I wasn't even looking them in the eye…
Don't they ever get tired?
Maybe I'll go scream at the moon until it goes away. That'll solve all my problems.
Only thing is, I can't scream…but I can bark and howl and dig my claws into the ground until they become broken little fingers.
If they find me, it'll be in the water that smells like a home so ancient I can't quite recall.
And my lightning eyes will never have to see again. Never terrorize a child again…never stare in horror at the blood on my own hands.
I only wanted to see the ocean. I only wanted to hear something else screaming for once…the birds singing me to sleep as they slowly got closer…I never wanted to hurt anyone. And I didn't want to listen as someone spoke their last words, drew their last breath. I never wanted to have to tell someone else that a love of theirs was dead…
I never wanted to be a messenger of death. But that's what I've been all along.
I never wanted a lot of things. But just this once…
Do the goddesses punish anyone else for being just a little selfish? Do they send nightmare creatures to anyone else who dares to take just a little something for themselves?
Do they turn the soul that was trying to heal into a monster that lusts for blood in the dark corners of old rooms?
Do they send their lightning burning through anyone else's eyes?
I just wanted to see the ocean.
END
Tell me what you think…or don't. Hey, whatever. I just kinda have this thing for feedback…and I realized it's all right to be spontaneous.
Huh. Weird.
Oh, by the way…if you DIDN'T get it – very likely – Link went to see the ocean, saw Mikau die, and was bitten by a Wolfos, thus becoming a werewolf…and now he's nowhere in particular, thinking about what he wants for a change.
Wow. I would put that for the summary, if it wasn't so inadequate.
-Shawshank