Madness At Noon {COMPLETED}

Blood, Pain, and Cheese Balls 7/10

I remember stars like I remember the scars on the Gentleman's back: each one has its own name and legend. But they are both mere memories: to see scars, you will have to cut off the Gentleman's white armor; to see the stars you will have to cut open the sky – Vexus City had not seen the like of the night sky for many hundreds of years. We had grown too lofty to set our eyes on frivolities.

Was it hubris to think such a way? Perhaps I was having a moment.

Just think of a skyscraper: proof of man's ego! 'To scrape the sky,' touching the world that once only belonged to gods and dragons, but now that men dwelled upon the clouds, we find only smog and water condensation where once sat heavenly thrones.

It was easy to see why humans had gained such haughty blasphemy when standing in a penthouse on the eighty-fifth floor, hundreds upon hundreds of feet in the air. Beyond a barrier of glass, a world of ants scuttled below. I could trample them with a swipe of a hand or allow them to live on a whim. And if the glass were to vanish, I could descend or ascend on wings made of shadow, as black as the gobbled-up stars, as black as mist and empty veins, and black and blacker still until they could be enough to stain a demi-god's boots and cape.

There was a crack in the upper right corner of the penthouse window where a fresh chill entered the room. The city would not be ignored. The window into the soul of Vexus's society, you could say, burning with lights that blaze out the sun and stars, the posturing people that love and lust and cry and kill without needing any help from me, parades of cars with their symphonies of horns and "Watch where you're going, jackass!", the lanterns and advertisements and cappuccinos and beers and all natural, low carb, low calorie, vegan waters and sick puppies and orphaned babies and energy drinks and silk mittens and perfumes and rusted garbage cans and cigarette butts in the sewers and vampires and elephant skulls and snakeskin purses and artistically painted fire hydrants and potted plants (dead or alive) and gold necklaces, gold earrings, gold bracelets, gold teeth.

Since the creation of mankind, we have been creating gods and then immediately turning on them, doing everything in our power to rage against divine imprisonment and wrestle back our own conceived ideas of freedom. It is funny how we then built our own temples in the sky and put above us gold-dipped gods to watch over the insects in the street.

I liked to believe that they were still there, those long-lost fables of stars, up there somewhere, and not just reflected in my eyes. And sometimes, just sometimes, there would be a glimmer of divinity through the gloom. Probably nothing more than a reflection of light, like the false beauty of a rainbow in an oil smudge, but maybe not, and maybe the gods had just moved another step higher out of our reach.

And maybe the smog was not smog at all, but, one by one, we have already ripped out the stars and now there was nothing left. Which was such a pity, since I have always wanted to steal a star. At least the Gentleman's eyes still remained intact; I could settle for tearing those out of his sockets and mounting them in a glass box next to my bed.

Being in the Gentleman's home... it made me feel so nostalgic, standing here in his territory, dressed in my finery: I was as silent as the grave from which I stole my latest outfit: a scarlet wedding dress too pretty to be buried with a needless corpse. The full skirts whispered against the ground, an ever-present pool of blood gathered around my feet. The tool was decorated with tiny crystals and strings of pearls sweeping down from my waist like strands of a black widow's web. The bodice was tight, crystalized, following my curves, revealing my womanhood with very little left to any man's imagination. The hat and black lace gloves were the final touches, that and a silver cane with a handle made from the bones of a human hand, which I gripped tightly with every step: my battle armor: Red Death.