. . .
"It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane."
—Philip K. Dick
. . .
...it should be familiar by now.
The taste of blood lingering on her tongue. The way her vision blurs in and out of focus like a broken camera as her chest painfully heaves in a bid to take a shuddering breath every moment or two, her mouth falling open as she desperately tries to gulp in much needed oxygen, her throat constricting in itself at the mere effort like she was drowning on thin air—but there was no air, not enough air—when he continues to squeeze on her neck, easily breaking bones as he leisurely strangles her.
It should be familiar by now, but it isn't.
It was clear in the way her body just couldn't get the hint. In the way she instinctively squirms in place, in a bid for freedom.
Like a butterfly pinned in place, her limbs flailing about weakly as she desperately reaches for something, anything to hold on to... but nothing, there is nothing here, nothing but the monster practically lying atop of her.
"How the mighty have fallen," Roman was saying, his voice a quiet sound, as if he were telling her of a secret tale from long ago.
A tragedy. A mockery.
Perhaps both.
And the senselessness of it all makes her want to kill him, wants to wrap both of her hands around his too-pale neck and strangle him herself until his throat is the one snapped broken like a twig and blood seeping out of him with thick, syrupy rivulets.
But as though he can hear her, as though he can read her thoughts, his head suddenly turns to look at her, and he leans close, closer. So close until she can feel his dead cold lips brushing against her cheek and–
Her body trembles.
Being in the same room as the King of Vampires was awful as is, but close enough for him to actually kiss her if he wants like this, Winters can see those impossibly red eyes staring right back at her hungrily, can hear the way whatever scrap was left of his and her clothes rustling, can feel the biting cold and remember sharpened claws leaving bloody streaks all over on her skin.
"Do you understand? My love," Roman says, one hand moving away from her neck to cup her cheek, "Your struggling, it's pointless. We will be doing this again soon, after all... very soon..."
She should have been paying attention, she knows. She would have had her senses not began to fail her one by one when he suddenly breaks whatever was left of her neck without a warning... because there was something ticking in the back of her mind, yelling at her to listen. Just listen.
At this point, Winters should have the right to claim that she had been strangled enough to last a lifetime, that she had her neck broken or cut off enough to get used to the feeling of death.
Dying in this way is nothing new anymore.
But she can't, it still hurts like the first time whenever Roman decides to do it slowly, so slowly, as if he was savoring the way the fragile bone in her neck gives way like a twig underneath his hand, as if he was intending to make the pain last.
"Like Ouroboros, Amara." Roman whispers to her then, voice deep and alluring. Haunting and soothing as a lullaby, movements slow and languid as a clawed finger runs up and down against her cheek before it gently raises her chin up because she was no longer able to, her eyes focusing on his smile, on the way darkness crept at the edges of it, "...because there is no end for you, nor there is in mine. We'll devour each other until there will be nothing left to take."
What right do you have to take? What right do you even have to hurt someone like this? She briefly wonders, wants to ask, wants to scream, and curse at him at the same time, as the darkness creeps closer, a familiar chill weaving its way around her being, a momentary reprieve in a temporary state of death.
And since when did dying even become so normal for her? Something to look forward to, to... expect—and at the hands of this monster, this madman, no less?
What have I ever done for you to hate me?
"I am yours, after all," he chuckles, as though hearing the question out loud, face drawing closer until all that she can see was the red in his eyes, the way they widen in manic glee, "And you...."
Winters can only stare at him then, at the demon whose face was supposed to look like an angel, but it had been twisted into something so unfamiliar and horrible, and her last thought as she dies being you were human once, too...
You were mine.
