Origin Of Sin

17. The Haunting of Ventablack

I flicked the remnants of a shattered bowl off my desk, my other hand drumming stressful fingers against the wood. I'm aggressive when I'm drunk, witch woman or not, and we both knew that. The demon had been egging me on, encouraging me to devour competitors— he's always egging me on, nearly enticed me to just fuck it and fully claim the witch woman yesterday, but those factors didn't lessen my fury at myself. I was weak. I am weak and I hated it.

I've let the demon rule my existence for decades. At least he left my mind to be my own, but this woman was cruel. She left nothing to myself. Nothing. It was all and only her.

I glanced at the blinds again, mentally cursing the baby blue sky that was fading into indigo. I haven't been this obsessive about a woman since—

There was a hurried series of knocks at the door that made my back jump out of the chair and the throb in my head, ache in tune. The knocks didn't seem to have an intent to end. "Come in!" I garbled out, head sinking back into the table.

I smelt him before I saw him. "Elixio," I acknowledged.

He huffed and pulled out the chair in front of the desk, roughly plopping in it in an anxious casualness I had never seen with him before.

My curiosity was piqued even though I could still sense her on him, the thin veil of soap and musk doing little to hide her confectionery scent. "What is it?" I questioned. I quickly went through the possibilities of an actual emergency occurring at the Estate through my booze ridden mind but the results were inconclusive.

Elixio huffed again and a leg jutted out to shake nervously. "It's Neoma." I rolled my eyes almost instantaneously, so many weird and unwelcome feelings rolling over me at the sound of him saying her name. "What about her?" I murmured, face back in the table to show my disinterest.

"She's missing."

~~~~~~
NEOMA
~~~~~~

I've read before that there is a shade of black so dark that light can't pass through it— or maybe it was that it can't be reflected off of it. In the short videos, whatever the black covered, the objects became depthless. Amazingly, looking at the object straight on, they became indistinguishable from being a 'two-dimensional' object. They called the color ventablack.

Imagine your poor eyes being at utter conflict with your mind. Your eyes telling you that there's your face in front of you and, your brain, momentarily, confirms- but within seconds, the face is covered in a hellish depthless black and thusly, your eyes and mind are waging a war with each other that neither seems likely to win.

Sitting in this tiny, ventablack illuminated cupboard, I realized that Zuemier was this ventablack color. As I stared into oblivion, I realized that seeing him put my mind and body into conflict. His identity thrust them into a bloodless war that saw no victor. It was war I couldn't beat. It would be weird and futile. There would be no use in fighting it.

I ran when I awoke with a crook in my back and note next to a tray of sizzling breakfast. As I greedily shoved eggs and crumbled bacon down my throat, I could hear Elixio's matter a fact tone ringing in my skull.

"I've sent a maid to clean your room this afternoon. I'm sorry about the mess, it was clean last I checked. Whoever's responsible will be reprimanded, you shouldn't have had to sleep on the couch, your a guest and deserved to be treated as so. As for Zuemier's treatment, I'll come for you at 3 pm to escort you to him and propose the detailed itinerary I have a plan for you two for the rest of the week and whether you would like to agree to it. No pressure, but if you do agree, you wouldn't need to worry at all. Just leave everything to me and I'll make this process as smooth as possible.