Mayhem

Mayhem Is Born

It had been five whole years since the last time we had met, so how long before he returned next? At my fragile age now, my cheeks burned at the memory of his gentle lips pecking my hand and I burned for his return as he fled into the night once again like before. I sighed and wiped my tears away from previously, glancing down at the gift he had bestowed upon me. He gave me the world the way he saw it and as I stared into the mirror. Waiting, as my scorching eyes stared back at me, it felt as though the glass upon the mirror would melt. Was his world as beautiful as I saw him? Did he see light through the night that he dwelled in? I continued to stare in anticipation. Then... My heart stopped and my eyes widened more. How could I describe such a place? Such a time? Who was she? The woman with the long, copper golden hair and crimson eyes as she danced in his arms? In my angel's arms... It looked like a ball and they smiled back at me, gesturing for me to join them in that dance, but I couldn't shift from my position, it seemed like sheer bliss and utter perfection. Nothing to sully the world the way he saw it, but everyone suffers and everyone has demons. In the crowd beyond the waltzing pair, beyond the masks I saw them standing there. Knives in their chests and blood sinking through their clothes, people I somehow recognised toppling where they stood as the girl now turned to me and smiled, her hands covered in blood, the dance floor now an ocean of death, I heard a voice. "Do not let beauty mask the reality. Don't lose your way in the masquerade ball. At first you saw my world, but you walked into your own and I could not see more. All I could see was you sitting there, horrified... These are not my eyes. Those were yours. Your truth. Your world. You cannot join me until you have understood what it is you truly desire, until then... You'll only see the fragments of the world I see." I couldn't understand it then, I couldn't at all comprehend what it was he wanted me to do, but as the time passed on and I struggled through the days as I had always done, my body grew and grew with age. I didn't just grow taller, but I began to bleed helplessly each month and the pain was often unbearable... I'd wake sometimes on those nights with a small vile of coloured liquid beside me saying "Drink up". I knew it was him. He always seemed to relieve the pain somehow. My hair grew into a wild length, now past my knees as it had never seen the attention of a blade, my body developed womanly curves despite how little I ate and my rags were failing to fit my body. The older I grew, the more he'd take of me. My father was becoming relentless with my body as time went on, he dragging me by my hair to his cellar, where he'd have me lay on that freezing, hard ground where I was ragged around every single week for almost all of my life. The more I grew, the more I felt the presence of my angel, I could smell his presence around me and it was sweet in the air even while my father took me perilously. I lay limp on the floor, realising at the mature age of now sixteen that my virginity had been taken before I even understood what that was. I never screamed, I never made a sound... I just lay there and took it, filled with redemption and a lust for revenge. I wanted to murder my father for what he had done to me, for the way he ravaged me and purged me of my innocence. "You know, Ophelia... I should rip out those devils eyes of yours. I should get all the children in Yorkshire to come by the shed and throw sand in them... It's for the best." I gritted my teeth silently as I endured his words, knowing now what I wished and what I wanted. I had never been so sure of it until this night and this comment, I almost called out to my angel without realising I had. I called for him without uttering a word and Oh, he did. After I was thrown into my cage, my mother came by to beat me with her rolling pin across the face, making sure to cause me pain, making sure to make me scream. "You dirty little slut, you'll get all you deserve. Mark my words, demon... You'll perish in Hell." Somehow I just couldn't handle the pain and suffering much longer, I had to do it. I bit back. I protested. "WHAT MAKES ME SO DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHERS, MOTHER?! BECAUSE MY EYES ARE RED?! WHY DOES THAT REPULSE YOU, SO?! I JUST WANTED YOU TO LOVE ME! I LOVED YOU!" As I stopped screaming, now frantically in tears, she stopped. Stared. Now, she was beating me harder than before with her rolling pin, then grabbed me by my hair and spat in my eyes. "Demons don't feel love, you disgusting creature." The fight I wanted to fight had been beaten out of me, my body limply falling down upon the iron cage floor, she broke me. They broke my body and my soul... Or at least I thought. Ascending in the evening when the sun was falling, I thought I smelt him nearby, it breezed past the shed and I assumed I was dreaming again... Dreaming of the angel. I knew somehow that I couldn't be a demon if an angel cared for me. How could he? They're the purest creatures to have ever existed. My angel may not have been white and ethereal like the morning sun, but he was different. Like me. As I began to drift, I was abruptly awoken by the sound of painful screams and the sound of my father shouting, "Please stop! Please! Don't hurt us! We... We'll do anything you want!!! HURT THE DEMON GIRL! SHE'S THE ONE YOU WANT!" With this, I panicked and my chest tightened as I crawled to the back of the iron cage. I heard a disturbingly dark chuckle boom and echo through the house and out into the garden and even through my cage did it echo as powerfully. It was as though it surrounded the skies and I felt that the world around me had given way to the wings of nightfall. "How dare you..." I heard the voice around me and now the sound of my parent's heavy breathing as they trembled in fear whispered around me. The echoing around me was now clicking shoes that got louder the more they walked, it felt as though they were coming towards me... Quickly, I grabbed the mirror from outside the bars, hidden under foliage and stared into it, calling for a vision that was ours. My eyes bled into that mirror and my wish called out to me, I took its hand... The woman with the copper gold hair he, my angel took her hand as they fled into the forest as night called, she would trust the angel to cleanse her with himself and give her the strength to exact her revenge. She storms back to the manor, Ashdown hall – the image breaks as I hear him call. The echoing stopped. I woke from this dream in his arms, the forest awaited us and the breeze escorted us. "The forest of tormented souls and a wish that shall be fulfilled." My eyes fluttered up at him, into his ebony eyes, I felt as though I was falling into the black hole of his eyes, I felt it. What he was saying. "You feel it don't you?" He continued as he clutched me tighter, staring into the distant forest, wandering forward. I just watched him, his facial expression, he seemed determined to make it to that forest, I was entranced by him. "You saw it... My vision. Our vision." I snapped out of my trance and awkwardly stuttered a response, feeling my heart grow heavy as he held me and spoke softly to me. "I did..." My eyes shimmered, my heart leaping as I burrowed my face into the angel's chest. "What did you think?" I could feel the vibrations of his voice, but his body was cold – unlike how I envisioned. I replied, "Was it us?" He stopped and we had reached the centre of the forest. He had gone silent and then placed me on my feet to the ground, took my hands as I stood in front of him and stared back into my eyes, now focused his world on me. "Yes. Yes that was us..." His eyes drifted to the ground and it was as though he felt guilty, like he had committed a crime. He was there, but he wasn't there. He was holding me and yet he felt like a mirage. "Then... It was perfect." He looked back up at me in delight somehow, now leaned forward into my body, wrapping his arms around me in a gentle embrace. "I will follow you into the dark." I murmured quietly and then heard him gasp quietly and tense up, I continued... "I wish to be what you are... That is what I want." The world went silent and it felt as though the earth around me had broken away like glass as we fell through because when I said that line, pitch black swallowed me, but welcomed me with a kiss. Red rain fell from an invisible sky, but the earth didn't smell like Petrichor. It smelt like iron. There we were, beating my mother's body with the rolling pin she beat me with, I smashed her skull into pieces and tore her apart without a sound and I loved the bloody rainfall that landed delicate kisses upon my face. She screams and it sounds like such a beautifully composed melody, I wish to hear more, but I just cannot stop, her skin is torn away and I can see the bloodstained bones... Pretty as china. My artwork is complete. "Onto my next piece..." I whisper, as I stand up after examining her pretty bones, I grab the fireiron that sits on rack beside the fireplace, this will be my new tool of trade and I drop the old rolling pin. There he is, he looks like a rat cowering in the closet, and his pathetic expression repulses me beyond control. "OPHELIA! D-DON'T DO THIS!" Who's that? Who's he talking about? I ponder, but then smash the fireiron into his jaw. He's confusing me and... He deserves this. Again, again, again and I cackle out of all control. Art is so fun. He's spitting out blood, it looks like red wine, and I lay my lips upon his twitching lips and taste his blood... "Vermin..." I utter as I stand, ramming the fireiron down his throat, listening to the morbid choking of this infested creature. I simply, put it out of its misery. "I'm not Ophelia. I am Mayhem."