i could die :: [rook/onyx - HDM]
Apr 2, 2013 11:06:42 GMT -5
Post by rook on Apr 2, 2013 11:06:42 GMT -5
RENE RALLIS
we're gonna separate ourselves tonight
we're always running scared
but holding knives
but there's a black chandelier
it's casting shadows and lies
[/i][/right]we're always running scared
but holding knives
but there's a black chandelier
it's casting shadows and lies
On a cloud, I am. Drifting through a hazy orange sky, my eyes tired and by body sore. I take my shovel in my blistered palms and continue to hack away at the soft surface of the sky giant, shoveling away at the pink nothing of cloud. I dig a grave on this drifter, this lonely giant, it is a grave for myself. The pallet is candyfloss colors of evening that tell me night will soon fall. I will close my eyes and rest at last. So tired. My back aches from the repetitive motions of digging up this strange, fluffy surface. I do not retire, not until the grave is dug. The task is impossible, the ground is not solid and keeps replenishing whatever deficit is created. Again and again I dig, yet it is pointless, it is not possible. The grave must be dug, it must be finished. Only then can I sleep.[/blockquote][/color]
None of this is real, none of it. My eyes blink open and my neck twists. My eyes were never closed, I am certain. The orange haze is gone and now black purple descends on me. Clouds are gone and concrete truth is beneath my feet. The solidarity of fact gives me comfort, but I know that this is not right. I am not dreaming, no, this is reality for sure... But not my reality. I look to my hands, still blistered and bleeding from the grave I have dug myself. I look in front of me, to the alleyway. There is no grave there, but I know that it is there I will die. Stumbling desperately forwards, my hands reach in front of me to steady against the brick wall. Where is my cloud? My escape? I want to be drifting and digging a grave that will never be dug, an immortal existence. A fool's vision, no one can live forever, except Gods, and I am no God. I am a Godkiller.
Blood footprints lead into the alleyway, me at the end of the continuing trail. Drip, Drip, Drip. My hand drags along the harsh stone wall, blood now smeared across it in an ugly crimson streak. My left hand droops at my side, swaying like there is no life in it. A dead arm? I feel the cuts that run across my bicep, for sure. My vision is as hazy as that tropical evening sky that I envisioned not a moment ago. My hands tremble, my body becomes unstable as I shift into the dark, musky alleyway. A cat hisses at me, before scarpering away. I'm not that much of a mess, surely. My swaying, lifeless arm grips tightly around the firm hilt of my precious blade. My hand has to have some feeling in it to be able to grip my knife, my dagger, my life. It has to be alive to clutch onto the most valuable thing I have ever owned.
My fingers twitch as the shadows of the looming buildings engulf me from both sides, swallowing me up into the damp alleyway. My pupils expand in a hunger for light, desperately looking for something to get a bearing on. I fall to my knees and stumble through the musky corridor that screams disease. Searing pain blisters down my back in red fire, my face screws up in reaction and I start to tell myself that I only need to get through this momentary spasm and I’ll be fine. Lying to myself isn’t going to solve anything, but what else can I do? There will be many more moments of mad pain.
The two red fingers cut down my back in brilliant bright crimson, cutting through the dark navy fabric of my shirt and easily slicing my tender, young skin. The blood leaks out, dripping down my back and down my legs. I leave a slug trail of red as I crawl through the jaws of death, these two towers that loom over me, judging me with windowsill eyes and tangled curtain frowns. This is where I die. Where is my cloud? I am supposed to be Godkiller, Aeshattr, the immortal. The grave being dug for me is one of replenishing space, unfilled and constant. I cannot die, not here, not yet.
You would be undefeated. The bastard may have slashed at my back twice, but the rules of the fight were the first to slash the other’s back three times. No one has ever slashed me twice, few have managed to slice me at all. No wonder I’m bleeding out, I’m not used to bleeding. I crash to my knees, splatting down into a muddy patch of dirt that cakes my trousers. My hand fumbles into my pocket and scratches away at the cylindrical plastic container. I pull it out in a swift motion and stare into the tube through wide, starving eyes. I need the truth. I see them, the four fingers, the ones I took from the guy who I defeated in combat. My prize. Yet what do I get in reality? Blood loss and fits of searing pain. I feel close to passing out.
I wish I dug myself a real grave. I stare down at my hand again, blistered and bruised. How? I never dug that grave, it was my imagination. A vision of some weird fantasy of immortality. I remember the harsh, coarse feeling of that wooden handle as I ploughed that queer cloud, digging myself a hole that could never be dug. Oh how it burned, how my hands ached and screamed. That’s the price you pay to live forever, you suffer for just as long. A phantasm, nothing more. It wasn’t real, and yet the evidence that it was is carved into my hands with bright red blisters and bruised palms. Impossible.
I’m back where I started: In the gutter. It’s where it all began, isn’t it? A little runt of a boy who held his father’s hand as they stepped onto that train. From the glamor of District Two to the slums of Eight. Haven to torment, glitter to gutter. How my father thought I’d stay safe out here I will never know. It’s safer in Two, away from the poverty and the hungry. Hungry people tend to be more carnivorous over here, I’ve found. And here I am now, face down, crawling through the dirt and the blood. The two deep gashes on my back scream out as they point upwards at the blackened sky.
My eyes trail left to the looming building, derelict and broken. Like me. It is a ruin, not a place where anyone would live.
"Door..." I mutter to myself as I push at the half-hinged door with my shaking hand and fall through the frame. Crawling, crawling through the dust and the brick I pull myself onto a large slab of concrete. I lie there for a while, like it’s a bed. So soft that I could just drift away. Drift to sleep.
And who are you, said the man with the knife, his eyes gleamed with malice. I told him who I was, and that he should fear me. He did not believe that this boy before him was the Godkiller. A boy of eighteen with his hair bedraggled and his eyes lined with black, never closing, never sleeping. I repeated my name, and my intentions. His knife was large, it had many edges and points for slicing, stabbing and wounding. Mine was simple and small. Cold handle with a grip of rope, the blade average and dull. I slouched how I always did, my back arched and my face plain with boredom. He was seething with energy and anticipation, they always are, and so I let him hop around me, I let him assess me.
He knew I was small, he knew I was scrawny, he knew I was complacent. He circled me twice, eying me up, his knife in hand. What he did not know, is that I am Subtle. All it took was a blink and I had slashed him in the back, tearing his shirt and slicing his skin. He yelped as I slashed a second, so close to a third and finishing the contest before it had began, but the man was quick too. Oh, and what strength he possessed to throw me with his spare arm. Whilst I was grounded he slashed me twice, and here I am now bleeding for it. I cut him a third time, I don’t remember how. All I know is that I have his fingers in a jar. That’s the price you pay when you play the game.I stare down at my ten digits and know that they are proof I have never lost, yet my back screams in a reminded of what I have lost.
I roll over onto my front, the red streaks bared on my back. I lie on my slab and decide to sleep. Just for a little while. Just until morning. I yawn, and return to my cloud.
i know i shouldn't laugh
but i know i'm a failure in your eyes
i know it's daft, but i guess i know it deep inside
it feels like we're ready to crack these days
you and i
[/i][/right]but i know i'm a failure in your eyes
i know it's daft, but i guess i know it deep inside
it feels like we're ready to crack these days
you and i
narrating
emphasizing
questioning
taking
listening
lyrics: Biffy Clyro - "Black Chandelier"
graphics: by Onyx.
theme: "Slice and Dice" by Rook.
notes: none.