Another bathtub scene.
A mixture of water, dirt, tears and blood dripped down from the tips of his hair, and splattered into the bathtub. Strangely, they drummed with a steady rhythm. Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop.
Basking in the lukewarm water, his naked body was gorgeous. If the Victim were a female, if Gerard's diet did not consist of mainly human blood, and if the Victim was not Gerard's primary means of playful torture, then The Victim may have even loved him.
Groaning, The Victim leaned back, and fell into his wooden chair. The remaining joints in his body ached, his muscles terribly sore, his eyes burning with fatigue. Pain shot through every nerve. The thick chains in which he was bound to swished and clanked together. The air was damp and dense. The splinters of the wood dug and scraped at his already bruised skin.
At least Gerard had offered him a chair... After hours of suffering, fake and glaring smiles, resistance, screaming, and cackles of amusement. Rubbing his remaining eye with a weak and trembling thumb (therefore smudging his eyelids with the drying blood on his cracked and ashening fingernail), the Victim continued to observe his captor.
There was another moment of silence, where the Victim could literally hear the clock loudly tick. It was an uncomfortable silence, but the two were used to discomfort.
He spoke up.
"She was so pure..." Those words were so softly spoken; to The Victim, that mellow voice almost seemed strange. He had never heard Gerard talk like that- in this context, at least.
Gerard sighed, diving into those still-fresh memories. It was as if their first kiss happened yesterday. A hand slid its way up to his cheekbone (water dripping down in the process), then to that place where her lips had initially landed. He ran his thumb there, rubbing faint circles, tracing a vague outline. With great pain, he recalled that her lips had been warm and delicate. Now, no matter how hard he tried to feel, to relive that memory, all that came with each attempt was an unsettling, melancholy unease.
His lips brushed together, trying to revive the taste of her tongue. Helena... He drew in a silent but quivering breath, almost mouthing out her name in a strange way. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. She was a goddess. He would spark a battle for her. He would wage war against every other living thing if she asked him to...
"We both were pure in the beginning, I guess." He released a slight chuckle, though it was suppressed soon after.
"But that virgin purity was contaminated too soon. Plagued by war, plagued by the deaths of too many." His tone became serious now, back to its crushing, menacing heaviness. Oh, how much he wished this was all just a delusion, a nightmare, and not a miserable trick played by fate.
"We were both too naïve."
And who was to blame? Those Draculoids, or whomever designed his destiny? For now, the only ones he could credit fault to would be those damned Draculoids. He was so useless, so powerless- too miniscule of a being to go against the god or deity that planned out all his decisions, and all decisions of others.
Perhaps a bit tragically, too long ago had he lost faith in the Phoenix Witch, and too long ago had he realized that prayers were no use.
He hated it. It was an absolute hatred, a hatred of passionate, burning fire. Just like a match, striking to incinerate. Slowly bursting ablaze inside his heart, slowly killing him alive, like a ticking bomb.
But for now, he was still breathing, his heart and vital organs still functioning. (Or malfunctioning. He threw up often.) And though he had an ever-growing despise towards himself and how much he has swayed from his anti-violence ways, he did not want to die yet. Not until he had his revenge.
He turned to The Victim, staring wide-eyed into its empty eye socket. Those eerie yet lovely crimsons glimmered with something beautiful, but something jabbing at the same time. Both piercing eyes shone bright with raw, untamed misery.
Through Gerard's now-blurring windows, the Victim could see the countless slits on his heart. They were red, puffy, swelling- cut by all the bullet holes he had suffered. And the Victim knew those scars could not be sewn back together, as those gaping wounds were just too large to stitch.
Liquid brimmed his eyelids, spiraling up to and wetting his eyelashes. "She, she died in my arms... She-" his voice cracked, and as he recovered, he sucked in a deep breath of air. "She was crying..."
"What did I ever do to deserve this!? To endure watching her death, to endure holding her limp corpse, to endure losing her!? Tell me, you fool, WHAT!?" He pounded his chest, loud and relentless, then at the bathtub.
"… I don't know."
"LIAR! YOU KNOW! STOP LYING TO ME!"
The water rippled around, spilling out over the rim. Droplets trickled down the outside of the tub; droplets trickled down his skin, his cheeks, his lips, his chin, his nose.
He was drenched in it- drenched, drowning, inside his own misery, inside his own self-loathing. As he cried, a twisted, evil smile grew on his face. His chest heaved as his lungs worked desperately for air. Harshly, that vile smile multiplied in size, until it was stretching ear to ear. He cackled. Smirking, snorting at his own foolishness, his own cruel, ill fate.
Between gasps of breath, he spewed out, "P-p-please, my pretty, d-don't lie to me."
The haunting laughter sent a shiver down the Victim's spine.
