Nayantara

Chapter 1: Fading Flowers

I was there, waiting.

Prison, a fun place. But when you remove the rivals, enemies, and the criminal audience, it turns into torture.

Emily knew that very well. So this time, she hadn't sent me to prison, but to the void.

I think you've heard of it. It's a popular place, after all, painted with rumors. But when you remove the colors, only darkness remains.

No sight, no smell... nothing for the senses. A hell full of starvation. When you're there, you crave everything.

Even pain.

The hunger just grows and grows like a forest fire. The same one I caused that sent me on that dark trip.

I should have burned the village near it, because no one deserves to wander inside the void for burning a jungle.

I was ready. Nothing new really. Emily had broken my limbs many times before, each time with a different weapon. And I had enjoyed her frustration, which grew with every rule I broke, every offer I denied.

But I counted days, months, years. She didn't come for me.

Not gonna lie, I was really hopeless. Burning until my flames lost heat. Screaming until my voice left me. I was trapped in black.

Just plain black.

The only other color keeping me sane was yellow. The color of my clothes: a top and pants with no design at all. Also the color of my eyes, though I couldn't see them because the void doesn't reflect. It consumes everything you bring and returns insanity.

But I was already insane to Emily and to everyone else. My mother left me when I couldn't even remember names. Maybe she had seen the insanity first. The insanity I couldn't see, even inside the void.

Everyone else just appeared too sane to me. Too much. Crossing the boundaries of sanity.

But then, I saw him.

A man about my size, with a dull face covered with a beard that looked like vegetation. Still, a little attractive.

He walked with a flower garden. As he walked, flowers grew around him, red, pink, yellow, dancing like children when they get a free bottle of potion.

Vibrant green grass below him reflected the brightness of the sky above his head. The sky grew wider, covering me under its glowing clouds.

The flowers reached my feet. Their softness was wild, like the babies of the human slaves I had freed last year. As they tickled the skin on my feet, I felt that enchanting aroma move, fly inside me, arousing every last bit of desire, even the sleeping parts of it.

That's the good thing about the human world. It's not full of black. You don't have to burn anything, it's already colorful, full of fragrance and light.

He walked closer. I was sure he was human.

I have human features too; only my eyes look like Frekon eyes: yellow with black, vertical, oval pupils. No, I don't have long, curved teeth like those tiny, psycho creatures. They devour everything they see, except each other.

I started grinning so wide you could've fit the whole garden in it. But he just kept walking, looking straight ahead.

I touched his shoulder with my right hand, trying to grab his attention, still showing my teeth like a happy kid.

But then I realized he wasn't in the void doing magic. He was dreaming.

I felt a little bad. My grin faded and turned into a malnourished smile.

The void separates the demon space from the human space. You have to be depressed or suicidal to enter it in your dreams.

But his mind was still clinging to beauty.

He couldn't see me; his consciousness wasn't with him. I felt it in the sky. Maybe it was focused on the clouds.

I grabbed his hand tightly, stopping his walk, and thought, "You are not fucking dying after making me feel this fucking awesome. I'll make your world revolve around me. Your soul is mine."