phoenix || d4

There's a demon at your heels and skeletons in your closet. You're drenched with blood and sweat but so's the rest of the world. Traumatic backstories are a dime a dozen, tragedy is woven into the very fabric of this society. Everybody's suffering, you're not special. That's kind of the point, isn't it? There's smooth porcelain where skin should be, velvet ribbon knotted at the base of your skull. It carries the weight of this game you play, it was built for luxury not practicality. Surely there's some greater meaning wrapped up within that little simile but, frankly, the irony is lost on you.

You wear a mask because you have a lot to hide. Simple as that. The haunt of her expression, cherry red lips turned down into a permanent pout and the rush of blood beneath your skin replaced by a dusting of pink pastels, it's beautiful. And maybe you chose her because that was a thing you've never been and some part of you hopes that she is everything you don't think you're strong enough to be.

You take to the streets when the rest of Four has gone to bed. When the orange glow of dusk becomes a hollow grey and the shadows come to life. You'd been blind to it before Phoenix found you. Blissfully ignorant like they'd wanted you to be. Now that you've found this poison oasis, though, there's no going back. It's not like you'd been sleeping well anyway.

You've witnessed a lot of terrible things, but none so agonizing as the snapshots you stumbled across early in your adventures beneath this mask. The underbelly takes advantage of sad things and small things, things you'd been once upon a time. It had been shameful, maybe, to admit that you were broken. But you don't feel that way anymore.

You tried to help them where you could, wearing a voice and a confidence that were not yours. The first few times you got bruises and scrapes that you'd thrilled in hiding beneath the crisp white of expensive dress shirts. They were dirty little secrets that only you could have. Treasures that made the smile you have to wear just a bit more bearable.

Reckless abandon has been your only companion for many nights, now. Perhaps it's become some kind of vice, the prickle of adrenaline that creeps so sweetly up the base of your spine. The fear of eyes catching upon your loose ends is as fun as it is terribly dangerous. You keep telling yourself this'll stop. That you're merely sticking your toes in the surface of a shallow pond even as waves crest over your head.

If you close your eyes you can't feel the building pressure of the deep end, right? You can stop any time you want. Promise.

The first time the peacekeepers caught sight of you, you were sure it was over. There were tears in your eyes, the real ones beneath the fine mesh that paints spider webs in your peripheries. You ran and you ran until you forgot how to breathe and your legs hurt and terrible memories started to burn up the back of your throat.

The docks had stunk of seaweed and fear - a concoction you won't soon forget - as their footsteps thundered above you. You clapped a hand over your mouth, holding back breaths your body screamed for as you tried to catch a trace of something within their gruff shouting. A name. Your name.

The velvet knot at the base of your skull had gone just a bit slack, but Phoenix held firm. That's who you are, after all, the nights you choose to bear her face. The peacekeepers recede like low tide and you laugh. Loud and larger than life. When the danger had passed everything stopped mattering. They can't touch you when you're pretending to be her. And now, you know that.