Chapter Sixteen: Mata Kaze ga Tsuyoku Natta
I turn to the night sky: "Help me!"
XVII.
All goes dark again….
Dark….
Peaceful….
I wish….
I wish….
It could stay like that…
Forever….
That was….
Dark….
Peaceful…
Blood-tinted darkness….
The nothingness that is death…
Eyes staring blankly into the oblivion….
Open and yet completely unseeing….
A porcelain-like body….
Now charred….
Burnt black….
Falling endlessly through the nothingness….
Nothing can save her…
She lost her wings….
Her blackened wings…
A long time ago….
A light…
Infinitely shining in the abyss…
Dead….
Blood-colored eyes remain….
As they were….
The rest of her body…
Broken…
As is her mind….
Darkness….
Sheer….
Complete…
Eternal…
Enfolding darkness….
All around her…
Within her….
Suffocating her….
A child of purity and light….
Nothing like she seemed….
Eyes….
Betraying her true nature…
A fallen angel…
A demon from Hell's depths…..
Darkness.
Sheer….
Complete…
Eternal…
Never-ending darkness…
Inside the darkness….
There were eyes….
They were blank….
Colorless….
Emotionless….
Dead…..
His eyes…..
The demon's eyes….
A sunless sky…
They were like the sky during an eclipse….
Dark…
Dark blue….
A vague hint of the malevolent amethyst….
He was satiated.
That much she knew.
He was satiated with her.
He took her.
He took her innocence.
And he never wanted to give it back to her….
She knew this and it tore her up from the inside out, as if she deserved this punishment. It was as if she had done something wrong and she had the right to be punished. When the demon took her brother away from her, her friends, disappearing in front of her very eyes, she felt a hollowness grow inside her.
A hollowness that seemed to grow with every turn.
A hollowness that ate her insides, ate them in bite-size pieces, relishing ever morsel.
A hollowness that made her feel complete.
Complete.
Oh so complete.
He held her against him, feeling the arousal growing into full fruition. She knew his full intention in the pit of her stomach, and she knew that it couldn't be helped, nor would it be avoided.
I want my innocence back
I want my innocence back
I want my innocence back
(I want my innocence back)
That thought was all that was running through her mind at that particular moment. She didn't want this. She didn't want this.
She didn't.
She didn't.
Didn't she?
It was too much, too soon, too abrupt to tell.
She was a good girl, she knew she was.
She didn't break one rule as a child.
She tried her best to be everyone's golden girl, the one they could depend on to be good.
Good.
Good.
Did…she…want to be good forever?
No.
No she didn't.
She didn't want to be seen as a goody two-shoes anymore.
No.
She wanted to break the rules.
For now.
If she could, she would enjoy it.
Enjoy being deflowered.
Show the whole world that she didn't want to be pure anymore.
Show that she can be corrupted.
So she did.
She became corrupted.
She let him deflower her.
Let his long tongue slide on her pale neck.
She voiced her pleasure.
He growled in approval.
Deep, baritone, smooth, throaty growl…
Rich in tone akin to a cello…
Her voice was a violin….
There was a black symphony that strung itself in the air just then, filled with the strings of the cello and the violin melding into one song of hell.
It would be one song that would not cease its twists and turns, a never-ending cycle for the two of them.
Never-ending.
Never changing.
In the end, they would give in to their own warped, intertwined desires.
Innocence lost.
Desire gained.
It looks like roles do change after all.
She found herself walking down a long path, a road stretched out beyond her imagination. All she knew was that she was walking alongside a grassy field and above her was a beautiful sky.
A sapphire sky, probably the bluest she had ever seen, hung above her and with no cloud to dampen the soft shade of the ocean in the skies.
She stopped in her tracks when she thought she heard rustling, something behind her. She froze, almost afraid to turn around.
No, she knew that she was alone in this world.
She just knew it.
She had to turn around.
She looked over her shoulder to see what was behind her.
Nothing.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
There was nothing.
No threat.
Nothing.
She turned back to the road ahead and nearly had a heart attack at what she saw next.
Blood decorated the ground like rose petals, painting the steel walls now around her red vermillion. It was there she realized that she wasn't in her own world anymore.
She lifted her hands to her face and covered her mouth, smearing the blood upon her hands on her face.
On her face?
She yanked her hands away and stared at them, horrified, and then looked down at herself and saw that her clothes, legs, and her shoes had sprayed blood all over.
She couldn't breathe.
She swore that she couldn't breathe at that moment.
Her heart pounded in her ears and she felt dizzy, the world right in front of her spinning.
She thought she was going to faint right then and there.
Her legs felt weak, wobbly and they couldn't keep her standing any longer.
Before she knew it, she felt herself falling backwards, the world still spinning.
Just before she thought she was going to feel the ground beneath her, two strong arms wrapped around her waist, and her form felt something solid behind her, supporting her, and keeping her on her feet.
A sinister chuckle reverberated around her.
She knew that voice too well.
All too well.
Something she couldn't get out of her head.
"Silly Serenity-pretty…"
Her heart froze, almost skipping a heartbeat.
She felt one of her hands travel up to her chest, where his clawed fingers began caressing the outline of her breast through her bloodied shirt, shivering underneath.
"Your world is no longer years, my dear. The place that was yours is mine now, where you will never be alone ever again. Face it, Serenity, even in your imagination; I'll be there, no matter how much you want me to disappear."
As the monster said these things, the hand around her waist crept down to the front of her vermillion-stained shorts, where he tucked his hand in her shorts, in her undergarment, and felt her seize up in that one touch.
'No, this couldn't be happening.'
"I'll find you wherever you will venture, wherever you will run off to. I'm here for you….forever…" He uttered into her ear softly as he pressed his lips to the outer shell of her ear.
The hand that was on her breast left as soon as he finished those words and that was when she felt something cold and metallic upon her throat, the sharp end near her jugular.
She shuddered, almost breathless at the feel of the cold metal on her neck. Her eyes caught the glint of the golden object nearly piercing her skin.
"Forever…"
One flick of a wrist and….
Searing pain….
Red coated her vision.
A deep-throated chuckle broke the silence in the middle of her bloody demise.
She saw….
In her dream…
A flower…
A beautiful flower…
Gracing itself upon a land of rock and rubble…
A lonely flower…
She remembered…
Smiling…
In that presence…
Flowers were a reminder…
That even when the world seemed ruined…
Nature still ran its course…
And that the Earth still lived….
Sometimes….
It took a tragedy…
To make you realize how beautiful the world really is.
Barren…
Desolate…
Lifeless…
Such was the island….
A dimension….
A dimension not of the living or the dead..
But of the damned…
The cursed….
Those placed under eternal sleep.
And never awaken.
The island that held the glorious Duel Tower was now a wasteland full of ruined terrain, broken glass, broken dreams, and rubble upon rubble.
Her eyes fluttered intermittently.
They twitched open.
She twitched.
Once.
Once more.
Twice.
Her hand shook.
The lids of her orbs opened finally, aching to be closed again and sleep in the black darkness once more, the darkness that was welcoming and soothing to her finally dispersed.
She blinked a few times before she opened them wide and lifted herself up from the terrain of the island.
Except that she wasn't on the island from what she knew.
She was on the island, yes, but she was somewhere else upon the land mass, almost inside the island.
The place she was in, dark and cavernous, and in front of her was a path that could go on for miles on end.
The darkness was complete and never-ending.
Darkness that was so black that it was as though the sun had died and left the labyrinth in the darkest abyss itself.
The darkness was so complete, so ephemeral, and so limitless that it would make even night itself seem as though it was the day.
It was a cave, a cave that was almost like a labyrinth, stretching out the path of black and heading toward many directions that could lead to almost any entry or entrance, where it could lead to either salvation or certain doom for one who was brave enough to venture the treacherous maze.
She lifted herself from the ground, dusting herself off of the small rocks that clung to her when she was asleep moments before.
She narrowed her eyes and noticed that there were lights flickering beyond in the seemingly impenetrable darkness; lights that were pitch black and yet were many shades lighter than the imposing death-like shadows would ever hope to be.
Serenity felt sick to the bottom of her stomach, the thought of walking through everlasting blackness tightening the coil that was to snap at any moment now.
But she had to.
She had to walk in the labyrinth.
So she will find a way out of this hellhole.
So she would find a way back home.
"Serenity…."
Her train of thought was shattered.
That voice…
Was that…
Was it….
"…Joey?"
Just then, the wind became strong again…
XVII.
(A.N: What? Three chapters in a row? It must be the end of the world here. As you can tell, some interesting things happen here, and the repetition of some passages was on purpose as to illustrate the deafening of sanity that has occurred and what will occur in the chapters to come, and there are only three chapters left. Wow – time really does fly.)
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Soundtrack:
"Utau Oka ~Salavec rhaplanca.～" Akiko Shikata
"Nocturne -Rain Song-" Buck-Tick
"Utau Oka ~ HARMONICS FRELIA ~" Akiko Shikata
"Nowhere (Male Version)" FictionJunctionYUUKA
"Neuron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)" Muse