Ruin Maketh Me

45 - Again and Again

     Warning: Contains violence and torture; may be triggering

     Drip. Drip. Drip. She throws her purse on the floor, and pennies and notes spill across the hard wood with resounding clangs. My feet tense, but I fight the nagging desire to shuffle backwards in my chair. She tears off her sequin covered scarf and turns towards me ferociously. Her eyes are bloodshot and a red mark blooms splendidly on her right cheek. I stand tensely, she must've had a rough customer today.
     "Mother." I step forward carefully, "I'll get some ice."
She tilts her head and stares, eyes hazy and half-focused on my face, "Are you pitying me?" She grasps the heel of her stilettos and stalks forward, "Hmmm? Tell me, do you think I deserve your pity?"
My feet remain rooted on the cold floor, and an iciness grips me by the throat. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. I smile, walk steadily towards her, "I'll make dinner, what do you want to eat?"
"Dinner?" She devours each syllable and opening her scarlet mouth, laughs howlingly at the ceiling, "I don't want fucking dinner!" Bringing her arm back, she throws the shoe at me, screaming feverishly, "Dinner? You call the shit you make dinner?"
     My feet inch backwards. Drip, drip, drip, again and again. What did I do to deserve this? My fingers curl into fists behind my back, "I'll make spaghetti, mother likes spaghetti."
     Her eyes gleam razor-like, and she marches forwards, grasping the heel of her other shoe, "Spaghetti? We don't even fucking have beef, how can you make spaghetti?"
     I shuffle hurriedly around the table, but she leaps onto me and grasps my shirt by the collar. I try to wrench away from her, but she holds on tightly, clawing her long nails into the fabric.
     "You little bastard!" She screams, ramming me backwards into the wall with thud, "I should just kill you. Fuck, did you really think you're royalty, some rich little fucker? You're just a bastard! He won't even acknowledge you!" She brings her bright red shoe down, again, again, again. Pain explodes through my head, and I try to bring my arms up, but she pins me against the wall.
     "What use are you?" She cries, spit flying across my face, "You're fucking useless! Useless!"
     Drip. Drip. Drip. Again and again. The pit inside boils and grows, but I can't get away, and she's shouting and crying, and again and again and again. And it hurts. And her twisted face goes blurry, and she slams me into the wall, and again and again and again. And then she lets go, and she stumbles backwards, and the shoe falls to the floor with a clang.
     "Oh god," She sobs, hugging her own shoulders, "Mama's sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry." She stumbles forwards and clutches my face, fingers trembling, "I'm sorry, so sorry. What do I do? I made a bruise, oh god."
     She runs to the small window, drags the pane open and throws the shoes out with a shudder. Then she turns and smiles distortedly, lips shaking, "Here, it's alright, they won't hurt you anymore. It's not your fault." She shakes her head violently, tangled hair whipping this way and that, "Your father's blind, if he just, just sees how brilliant you are, he'll love us. Yeah." Her head flops up and down, crack, crack, crack, "He'll love us, and we won't have to worry anymore. You're mama's good little boy, aren't you? Aren't you?"
     You're my good little boy aren't you? Show your father you're good enough, you have to be—

     My limbs seize, and the dusty air of my small room floods back to me. That's right, I'm in a different world, at the Academy where everything's just fine. She can't hurt me here, she can't even reach me here. I take in a shuddering breath, in, out, in, out. That's it, that's the way to go, it was just a nightmare. I run my fingers through my hair and sit up in bed. Dim light filters sluggishly in through the gap of the curtain and paints the walls of the room a seeping bluish grey. Rubbing my temples I slide back under my duvet and stare up at the hazily gloomy ceiling. There's no chance of sleep anymore, but at this time of day there's nothing better I can do but lie here, dormant and lethargic. An uncomfortable emptiness settles over my body, and a phantom after-image of Ralphus's flushed cheeks and lips rises queasily through my mind. It's hardly like we came to an agreement as to what we are yesterday, but now it almost seems to me that I have a duty towards him.
     Do I like him?
     This time it's not a matter of convenience. I won't let it. So the question is, do I truly like him romantically as another being? There's a connection between us, there's no doubt about it, and I did enjoy his kiss. I enjoyed it very much, though that doesn't say much when Julius Kade's kiss is just as irritatingly pleasant too. My heart thumps like a war drum whenever I see him slashing and cutting with his sword, and my heart warms considerably every time I see him standing calmly under the oak tree. Though again, that doesn't say much when my heart warms considerably for Lilith too. So why? I splay my right hand over my eyes. I didn't want to leave him here, alone in this god-forbidden place. That regret, at least, is true and says much more than anything else could.
     A deep, mind numbing toll of a bell echoes across the entire space. I leap up and pull on my clothes. What the fuck was that? Once, twice, and again, again it rings through the room and beyond unceasingly. I throw open the curtains and peer outside, but all that meets my sight are the same trees and bushes. What is this, some kind of fire alarm? Just what in all hell could've happened? Turning, I make my way towards the door, but the space in front of me ripples, and a flustered Set steps out from between a fold in space.
     "What's—
     But before I can finish the sentence, she grabs my hand, and we fall through a portal. The ground melts away sharply, and we tumble through the familiar waver of colours and textures. My stomach flips, and a sourness builds up at the back of my throat, and right before I'm about to give up, the eye piercing fluctuations draw back and the ground veers up strongly towards me. Set pulls me upright forcefully, and the contents of my stomach threaten to spill onto the floor. I close my eyes, grind my teeth together, and the nausea retreats weakly.
     Except for the rush of breaths, the surroundings are absolutely silent. No voices, no shouts or whispers or even that horrible tolling travel through this place. My eyes flicker open, and a sickly, sticky feeling crawls through the pits of my body. We are completely surrounded with people. People wearing the telltale Academy uniform, people shivering in their pyjamas, people dressed in livery, but none of these people make a sound. In this matter of silence, they are all in agreement. I whip my head towards Set and fire her a questioning look. What is happening? She shakes her head and gestures with a sharp glance of her eyes forward. I follow her line of sight. In front of us, at the foremost of the masses of people is a raised platform. The platform is constructed of wood and shaped very like the guillotine stage except that there is no guillotine. The golden man, the lioness, Tessia, Desmond and the rest of the board are sat at the back of the stage. My fingers curl into a loose fist. What is this, a fucking execution?
The golden man gives a tight nod, and two figures walk up from the side of the platform. The first is wearing a fluttering black cloak, and the second seems to be a bound student being pulled along by the end of the rope. My fingers spasm. It can't be... It can't be and yet... That, that's Lilith, and the man he's dragging behind him onto the stage is Declan. There's no doubt about it, the waves of hair, the defiant but now, fear-filled black eyes. It's Declan. What the fuck is happening?
     Lilith flings Declan onto the stage in front of everyone, and the ominous unease threads through my spine and all my limbs. Set's mouth is set, but her eyes are unwavering, and in the midst there's a faint, frenzied excitement. A bloodlust. I turn my eyes slowly back to the hooded man. My Lilith. Is this a judgement of some kind? Is this one of the things that you do to make Hoplin call you a cold-blooded bastard? 
     "What have I done to deserve such treatment?" Declan asks, voice hard and still cool despite the tremble in his lips.
     Lilith stands like a grim reaper above him, "Declan du Sel, you have broken rule number 10, therefore you will be punished accordingly." His voice flows frigidly and yet sonorously like an underground river. My fingers unfurl and fall to my side. Had he always sounded so distant and... godly, like he's above everyone?
     Declan scrabbles against the wooden platform and tries to stand but crashes to the ground, "Rule 10? We weren't given a list of rules."
     A cold laugh descends from that foreign and yet so familiar figure, "Do you think that you're exempt from punishment just because you're unaware of the rules?"
     Declan's face pales, and he fights visibly against the bonds, "No."
     Lilith nods, "At least we're in agreement." At his utterance of the last syllable, a black smoke disfigures the air, and a black chair materialises in the centre of the platform.
     "No, no." Declan shakes his head and scrambles backwards frantically. His struggles are, however, futile, and with a flick of his finger, Lilith drags Declan's body back to the front of the stage and forces him into the chair. The chains around Declan's body rearrange and snap backwards into the chair, fusing into one mechanism shackling him in place. Declan stops shaking his head, but his dark skin is deathly white, and his hands shake in their confines. Lilith stoops by Declan's ear and whispers some terrible, secret thing. A shiver courses through Declan's body, and his eyes go wide and glassy. The unmistakable, putrid smell of fear soaks the air, more and more, until the very stomach wrenching scent is burnt into my mind like a brand.
     A familiar iciness grips my shoulders and my throat and forces me to look, even though the shiver swimming through my body screams at me, don't look. Don't look. Lilith takes something out from within his robe, and it takes me a few lapsed seconds to recognise the gleaming metal head and handles. It's a plier. It's a fucking plier. Why would he need a plier? But the sickness in my stomach tells me all that I know.
     Red pooling, silver and red mixed together, clang, clang, clang, the screams, screams—
    Ah yes, they liked to use pliers too didn't they?
    Everything is magnified twice, five times, ten times. Each movement is as clear as if I'm standing right in front of them. Lilith takes the intricate little plier, digs one end between Declan's flesh and the tip of his right thumbnail, clamps down, and rips upwards and back. A scream wets the air. Blood gushes from Declan's thumb, but the nail isn't completely ripped off, and Lilith tears upwards again. Declan's screams penetrate the still air. But the nail, the nail still isn't completely off, and again, he rips, and rips and rips and rips and rips. And Declan screams and screams and screams, tears running down his blanched face, screaming, screaming, screaming. And blood spurts from his raw thumb. And blood draws an arc into the sky.
     A wet tearing noise ricochets from the platform, and held between the plier's metal heads is Declan's thumbnail. Declan spasms, and his head drops to his chest, and his hair is dripping with sweat.
     "No, no, no, stop, stop, stop, please stop, stop." Again and again.
     But Lilith loosens the plier's hold, and the pearly nail falls to the bloody wood with a small clang. He advances again and attaches the plier to Declan's second fingernail. And Declan bucks and shakes and tries to wrestle away, but the chains are thick, and he's held fast, and rip. Rip. Rip. Red drips to the ground, drip, drip, drip, drip. And the smell of fear blooms all around, and the sound of people retching fill the air, and Declan screams. Screams. Screams.
     Clang. Another nail falls to the floor.
     Then again. Rip. Scream. Drip. Rip. Scream. Drip. Clang.
     And my feet are rooted to the floor, and my mouth is dry. And I can't turn away from the red and the man in the black cloak.
     He showed me his smile. He's ripping a man's fingernails. He let me into his home. He's ignoring the man's screams. He made food for me. He's breaking a man's fingers. He let me sleep on his lap.
     Lilith, Lilith. Oh, Lilith.
     He's my friend.
     He's a stranger.

-

AN: First of all, thank you all my dear readers and your votes! Ruin Maketh Me has made it to 1st on the Bl chart (at least for today). I never thought this many people would read my story, thank you, I hope you continue to enjoy the journey of Cynder's growth. Secondly, I didn't think I'd write something so violent on a day like this, I apologise for the gloom in this chapter. Hopefully something wholesome might come up later.