Monster

16. Formidable Desire

1832 February 11th

Midnight

Formidable Desire

Horror struck Ronan like a sword; a blade that had been carved with the sharpest sliver of ice. It brought him to one knee, a hand to his chest. The pain there was more than horror, it was heartbreak. He felt it in the pressure at the back of his eyes. 

"Elsa...." he choked. 

Her lips curved upward. 

She did not even look like Elsa; not the young, stubborn girl he had met seven years ago, dancing in the middle of the street while monsters lurked just in the darkest shadows around her. Those eyes that saw deep into his soul, sought for the secrets in his journal. The girl who pretended she didn't need help, who was independent enough to stride to the ball all alone with a weapon she didn't know the first thing about... 

That girl was gone, replaced by this dark, bewitching creature. She dropped the rose to the ground, and it looked like a drop of blood in the snow. "Ronan," she whispered, "what is it? You look like you've seen a ghost." 

Sorrow filled her eyes; genuine fear, but quickly, as though the girl were possessed, she chuckled a little. 

"Ronan," she whispered, reaching a hand out; her skin nearly glowed in the moonlight, nearly sparkled with the snow. Her eyes were the color of a tender fire; her hair blowing around her shoulders in the chill. She stood taller than before, her dress torn to shreds across her shoulders and at the hems. Even still, Elsa looked perfect. But also deadly. 

Don't listen, Ronan told himself. That's not how Elsa really looks anymore. That beautiful face no longer exists. She is only using it to beckon you... walk away. RUN away! Go... Go... But even still, the man's boots rose and fell in the dead grass, taking him closer and closer... 

And her smile grew with each step. 

When she finally had hold of his wrist she gently tugged him closer, his chest brushing hers. Ronan's eyelids felt heavy, his heartbeat uneven, his knees weak. "Elsa," he said softly, cupping her cheek in his trembling hand. She placed her own ice-cold hand over his. 

"Ronan," she said back, tilting her head as though to study his face more intently. "How I had thought I'd never see you again..." 

Ronan smiled, and he was still smiling when Elsa leaned her face to his neck; her breath tickled his skin like butterfly wings, and then a piercing white-hot sensation engulfed his shoulder, traveling like lightning down his left arm and into his head. 

He clenched his teeth together and instinct caused him to shove Elsa away; she stumbled back, scarlet dripping freely from her lips. There was a snarl, and she pounced back onto him, this time sending the man to his knees and then his back. He was out of breath and too weak to shove her off again. 

He lay broken, the world flickering around him as though only a mirage... any minute it would die out... he could only let her drink his soul away; it was the least he could do for the girl he wasn't fast enough to save. 

It was the least he could do... for the girl he had once loved.

February 16th 

1832

I've been unconscious for four and a half days. The doctors had believed I would die, and yet I have not. I write this in a room lit by moonlight, at a desk so dusty I am nearly positive I am the first to reside here in many years. I am told I am in Poland, and I hope that it proves true in the end because I do not believe I could bare to leave my home. Even if it means to endure the memory of all tragedy that lurks in every nook.