Venom

23: The Mystery Room and the Agreement

Those who walk in fog expecting to get attacked fail to realize that when they find the unsuspecting figure in the fog, so sure are they to have snuck up on their attacker that at that moment, they have morphed into their worst nightmare as they fell upon the unsuspecting, unarmed and fearful wanderer.

So preoccupied some may be to protect themselves from the monster, to protect their homes and life that many forget that a monster can look and sound just like they do, having lived and broke bread with them in moments of peace, but when danger lurks on the other side of a door the knife that plunges into your back can be lacking maliciousness. A fearful soul will give anything they have, even if it is not theirs to give, to buy themselves the illusion of time. Time to run. Time to hide. Time to live on borrowed time that bled out to distract said monster.

The monster can be anyone and anything. What one does to hide and survive can easily change that label. What makes a monster? When do your choices stop being for survival and become monstrous? 

All that matters sometimes, is on what side of the door you are standing.

I shut the door softly, the click sounding louder than it should have because of the silence that took place down the halls. I looked at the door for a moment before turning around and walking away, headlining to Viper's guest room. I walked slowly, human pace slow, listening for Mykela to move from the position I had left her in but no sound but the fire cracking continued. I knew she was a person that worked things out within the confinement of her own mind, but sometimes I wished she could leave a clue for those of us who wished to know where her thoughts would lead her too.

I had been cruel in a sense there, but I found no actual guilt or pity within me for the words and questions I had asked. There was something about her that was just so direct and upfront, even in the moments of evasiveness where she played and toyed with her words, leading and taking from others statements what she needed, that she became someone else. I could not bring myself to toy with my own words. I couldn't tell if she was mimicking others or if those smiles and expressions she showed them, which she had so rarely shown me, were real moments she used to her advantage. Some of it was an act, but I did not know why it bothered me so much. No, that was a lie I could not swallow at once.

It was like she was alive here. In all of the years we had spent together, the smiles and laughs, the sad or flashes of controlled anger, were all stolen from decades of so much time spent together, and yet in the small amount of time we had spent here she was coming alive. Jelousy. Hurt and confusion left me clenching my hands. I was losing her and I knew not to what. I knew her less than I thought I did, I was still confident in saying I knew her essence better than perhaps she did, but there were parts of her I was seeing for the first time. My nerves made me act rashly, and push for more, and I could not bring myself to reign myself in. I did not want to. 

She really was under the impression there was nothing about us that could ever be similar. I was it in not only her expression but in the automatic stiffness that took over her body as my question stunned her mind. So different were we in her mind that anything could compare us was... I tasted bitterness although I had nothing in my mouth. We were similar even if she refused to see it. I frowned, but she was right in the instances when she pointed out our differences. I was not so stubborn as to pretend ignorance of those facts but even so, to see the genuine bewilderment was almost insulting.

"I'm farther behind than I thought." I realized with a sigh. I ruffled my hair for a moment. But this had to be good, this was a start to something at least.

It wasn't that I wasn't obvious to the wall she had and her reasons, but surely after so long, she knew she could trust me to open up by now? There were many things to think over.