09-10-2021, 01:29 AM
YOU'RE WALKING IN THE SHADOWS OF YOUR FEAR AND YOU'RE HEADED
FOR THE GALLOWS, SIN AROUND YOUR THROAT AND NO ONE'S NEAR
FOR THE GALLOWS, SIN AROUND YOUR THROAT AND NO ONE'S NEAR
He has never spoken of what happened that day, but then again, no one has ever asked. Outside of his family there had been no one else he was close with, no one to notice what a drastic change the blue roan boy from Taiga had undergone. And even they had known better than to ask—it helped of course that he avoided them almost entirely, afraid for them to see the warped, almost demonic thing he had become.
He had grown up in the shadows, but he was nothing like his father.
Whatever curse had befallen him was not some granted wish to be like the rest of his family, and he had realized that immediately.
But she is watching him so intently, asking in her sweet, soft voice, and it burrows underneath his skin until it can slip between his ribs and cause his heart to twinge painfully in his chest. If anyone in the world deserved an explanation, it was her.
“There was this cave,” he begins his story, reluctantly returning to the night he had followed the fallen star that would lead him into this nightmare. “And from inside of it I heard my mother’s voice. Only once I was inside and I found her I started to realize that something was wrong. She kept telling me to follow her, but it didn’t sound like her, and the further we followed the maze of tunnels I kept hearing more voices, like my sister.” He doesn’t realize that his heart has started to beat faster, that with each memory that he had shoved down his pulse thrums harder, and he can’t look at Despoina anymore. “It wasn’t her. I don’t know what it was, but I killed it. And everywhere I went inside this underground maze everything kept getting worse.”
His jaw tightens, his shadowed brow twisted into a frown. “There was a room, and inside was my entire family. My mom again, my dad, all my siblings. I just remember them telling me what a disappointment I was, because I wasn’t born like them; normal shadow creatures, like Caelum and Racine,” there is a strange crack in his voice, to say their names—their children, those beautiful, perfect babies that she had raised, and he repays her by breaking her apart. “And when they walked into the mouth of the monster in the cave, I followed them. I followed them, because even if they hated me they were all I had, and I didn’t want to be alive without them.”
It is only when he has finished that he looks at her again, and he can’t explain it, but he doesn’t feel like the shadow-beast anymore. He feels like the broken blue roan boy he had been, the boy born from love that still felt like an outcast in a family of shadow manipulators. “I was spit back out like this. Changed. Like a shadow creature, but not, because this is something so much worse.” There is a weighted hesitation, because he is afraid of what he is about to tell her; the full depth of how treacherous he is. “I need negative emotions to survive. I crave them, and I feel weak without them. And if I can't find them, I can make someone feel them.”
His voice lowers, looking at her so closely, as if he stares at her hard enough she will believe what he tells her. “I don’t want to be like this to you. I would rather starve than keep hurting you.”
He had grown up in the shadows, but he was nothing like his father.
Whatever curse had befallen him was not some granted wish to be like the rest of his family, and he had realized that immediately.
But she is watching him so intently, asking in her sweet, soft voice, and it burrows underneath his skin until it can slip between his ribs and cause his heart to twinge painfully in his chest. If anyone in the world deserved an explanation, it was her.
“There was this cave,” he begins his story, reluctantly returning to the night he had followed the fallen star that would lead him into this nightmare. “And from inside of it I heard my mother’s voice. Only once I was inside and I found her I started to realize that something was wrong. She kept telling me to follow her, but it didn’t sound like her, and the further we followed the maze of tunnels I kept hearing more voices, like my sister.” He doesn’t realize that his heart has started to beat faster, that with each memory that he had shoved down his pulse thrums harder, and he can’t look at Despoina anymore. “It wasn’t her. I don’t know what it was, but I killed it. And everywhere I went inside this underground maze everything kept getting worse.”
His jaw tightens, his shadowed brow twisted into a frown. “There was a room, and inside was my entire family. My mom again, my dad, all my siblings. I just remember them telling me what a disappointment I was, because I wasn’t born like them; normal shadow creatures, like Caelum and Racine,” there is a strange crack in his voice, to say their names—their children, those beautiful, perfect babies that she had raised, and he repays her by breaking her apart. “And when they walked into the mouth of the monster in the cave, I followed them. I followed them, because even if they hated me they were all I had, and I didn’t want to be alive without them.”
It is only when he has finished that he looks at her again, and he can’t explain it, but he doesn’t feel like the shadow-beast anymore. He feels like the broken blue roan boy he had been, the boy born from love that still felt like an outcast in a family of shadow manipulators. “I was spit back out like this. Changed. Like a shadow creature, but not, because this is something so much worse.” There is a weighted hesitation, because he is afraid of what he is about to tell her; the full depth of how treacherous he is. “I need negative emotions to survive. I crave them, and I feel weak without them. And if I can't find them, I can make someone feel them.”
His voice lowers, looking at her so closely, as if he stares at her hard enough she will believe what he tells her. “I don’t want to be like this to you. I would rather starve than keep hurting you.”
T O R R Y N