break the { butterfly || (zoe)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to yet another chapter in the tale of a boy and his demons. For this part, though, I am the star of the show. The sun is in the sky and the breeze floats around us, messing up his hair in an attempt to wash me clean. I laugh, and he smiles up to the sky - squinting against the light in the sunshine. (We don't like the sunshine, I scold, so he absent-mindedly returns to glancing at his feet under the shelter of shade. Much better.) He can't hear me today, I don't think - not in his ears at least. His body is my puppetry, I the master of the stage.

Today's setting, ladies and gentlemen, is in the school yard. We were growing bored of the house, weren't we boy? Company - although in excess horrendous - is, unfortunately, a human need. I may not be made of flesh and blood but the body I have consumed is, so therefore we must act human and sound human and put on a mastered show for everybody else. That doesn't however mean that we must interact (I cannot risk that, risk having someone steal away the boy I have worked so hard to keep mine) - we can just observe. Laugh at the fools who don't know better, pick out the next we'll turn into blood and dust against the rubble of the roads at night and watch the cogs in your head turn, a boy and mastermind at one with each-other.

We He glances around the open space that paves around his body, eyes darting to and from with every drag of the cigarette that sizzles in-between his lips. If anybody gave a damn they could expel him, but kids run array and figures pass in blurred colours and it's as if he's invisible, the smoke that billows from his mouth creating a haze that blinds us him from the world. (You see, ladies and gentlemen, I am the master of illusion. I am invisible to everybody, sometimes even him.)

And yet he is not. His eyes land on the sun again, and I am so furiously anxious that I let myself slip into his vision. Get out of my head he screams as I writhe and shake, but his mental grip on reality is too strong and I plunge into his power, the ropes strung into his limbs disintegrating. The sun walks closer now, and as she moves towards him I slip, slowly, from his mind.

Walk away, boy I command, but he feels the fear in me as easily as if it were his own - and to my utter disgust he simply laughs and breathes in another lungful of smoke. I loose 4 minutes with you every time I light one of these up. But with her - she's the sun and light and burns my engraved existence from from his mind and by the time she's stopped in front of him my voice is only but a muffled echo in the back of his mind and I'm slippi-







I blink.

The world is incandescently alive. And so is she. It's been so long since I've been in the presence of anyone - even my own family. And if she were the sun then I'd be the moon, never meant to share the sky, dying every night to let her breathe. But instead, I feel as though I am the one who has awoken with pure lungs that scream to breathe in the outside world.

She's smiling - which is odd. The only person who's ever smiled at me has been my reflection. And then it's my turn to smile, even laugh - an amused yet slightly baffled reaction to "Hey, Damion. Do you think I'm a bitch?"

I press the cigarette into the palm of my hand, the final screams of protest from a demon I'm glad to be rid of fading from my mind as the heat scorches my skin. He'll be back, no doubt - he always is (I always am). A trick question or not, she has seemed to succumb the taunting in my head for now, so for that I owe her an answer.

"Sure I'm the right person to be answering that question, love? You'd be better off asking the mirror."

What an odd change this is. The light is not evil or damaging as I had been lead to believe. Light, in fact, has long blonde hair and bright blue eyes, struggling to create the right words her heart desires to hear. And I'm supposed to spin them for her, make her stop and think and hang onto every sentence I straggle out of smoke-stained lungs and bitter lips? If the devil were awake right now we'd laugh at her, at a silly little girl lost in her own fake world.

"Yes, but I want your opinion, if you want to give it, that is."

But why me? Why had she walked up to me, of all people, searching for an answer? As far as I was concerened my opinion has never mattered, nor ever will, to anyone. If anything I make sure I steer clear of people and that they steer clear of me for this precise reason. Anything but an arms length away from me and they're caught up in the dangers of my mind (save for my family, who are all broken and shattered so badly there's nothing else for me to break.) She's taking a risk talking to me, whether she knows it or not, and she ought to walk away.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you. I just feel like-" and there it is again, tripping over words and insecurity. For someone who walks so tall amongst the world, she sure takes uneasiness in her stride. Ash collects at the pit of my lungs and I let a little darkness spill from my eyes in the hopes she bolts away at the sight of the demon inside of my head.

But she should not have to walk away. I should be the one running, screaming, tearing myself from the good in her that I will eventually destroy. There are no if's or perhaps' - it is inevitable that I shall be her downfall. I ought to stay away from her, Miss Brynna Bearegard and all her glorious light. Everything I touch, I poison with darkness. Why on earth can't she see that?

"I don't know.. I don't know how I feel, I guess."

The raging war between my desires and better judgement begins the moment she steps away. I am free (for now). I am a prisoner (and perhaps always will be.) I am battling with myself (and yet I have fought my entire life and lost every time). I am darkness (she is light). I am selfish (aren't we all?). I deserve this (but at who's cost?).

And she is walking away and taking my light with me, and the corners of my mind (the corners of my freedom) begin to fold in, blur black and blue at the edges of my eyes. So I grasp a hold of her hand and stop her, choking out a "Wait," before I know what I'm doing. She doesn't know who I am, and I get the feeling that nobody knows who she is, either - not even herself. Greed gives in and I cling to her, a little too tightly - but I refuse to let her go if it means I can live in peace for just a few more moments, hours, maybe even days.

"You're trapped," I stammer, the tables turned so now am the fool (maybe that's what I've always been: a foolish little boy.) The world without aid buried in my head is disorientatingly real."You're trapped and you feel like there's no way out."

If the devil was awake we'd smile together and send her running. I look around at the busy area, temporary faces so absorbed in their own atmosphere that we're worlds away from everyone else.

This time, when the corners of my mouth twitch towards the sky, it is all my own doing.

"So let's escape. You and me. Let's get out of here."

Funny. I never thought Brynna Beauregard would be one for breaking the rules. Then again I never thought she'd be one to acknowledge my existence, let alone allow me to steal her away for the day. Stranger sides are awfully dangerous but she seems to be up for the challenge of conquering her fears. (I, on the other hand, am afraid of holding her hand for too long - but I do it anyway.)

"Relax," I say, noticing her eyes dart behind us as our bodies create distance between where we're going and where we came from by the second. "Nobody saw us." Or even if they did, they didn't care enough to stop us from leaving. I'm awfully good at that, slipping in and out of the corners of eyes and turning almost invisible. No wonder it comes in handy from time to time.

Silence falls upon us. The world continues moving as we walk - though I like the lack of noise between us. No angry voices in my head are present to block out the way the leaves lazily dance across the road or how the wind carries them off again. Tonight I'll graze the streets with flesh and blood will spill against this very road as I engage in my nightly dance with the devil and the flying fists of idiotic boys who think they can defeat me, but the sun is still in the sky (and in my hand) and there's no need for night terrors in this moment. Unforgivable acts should not, and will not, be performed in the presence of such light.

Leading a stranger to a graveyard may seem awfully questionable to an outsider, but what lingers inside my newly cleansed mind is her. Her words fill me up and lead me to an eerily familiar place, guiding her towards a place where no living thing can feel enclosed. Those who fall asleep here never wake up, slumbering amongst the earth in wooden beds blanketed by mourner's whispers. (Funny, how death can seem so beautiful when paired with such wonderful words.) The world around me seems darker, more alluring to the monsters in my head, skeletal hands that I used to think were grappling for me from below my feet now tugging at the paranoia in my mind. (I squeeze her hand tighter as we enter, making sure she never lets go.)

In-between the tombstone memorials carved with names that will, in time, disintegrate into the ground, we walk silently. As always it is my voice that breaks the silence that distils around us, lost souls sewing our mouths shut with respect. "I come here often," I begin, making sure I leave my father's presence here out of the question. "If I'm feeling trapped. Think about all the poor sods who are six-feet under with no way out. Makes you think, you know?" (I dare to glance at her, light and all, for a few seconds before my eyes begin to scream. There's a reason we aren't supposed to look at the sun - because we don't deserve to marvel her for any longer than a mere moment.)

"About how we're not really trapped by anything, or anyone." To illustrate my point I bring a free finger to my temple and tap it twice. "Just in here."

A devil tries to scream for the dead to awaken in my head, but she still holds my hand. (If I am to die, I'd like it to be here. Not in the graveyard, but holding her fingertips in mine. Free, for a few moments, to look at the sun and all her glory.)