Ruin Maketh Me

57 - An image of hell

Warning: Violence (again, I know, I'm sorry!!!!!!)
Every breath burns like I'm being roasted on a pyre, but I let Ralphus take me by the hand, and somehow my legs still remember how to walk. His large hand caresses my head with a mind-numbing fondness, and his thumb brushes away the wetness leaking from my eyes like the broken tap back in that damned room. Drip. Drip. Drip. The beautiful expanse of purple draws closer and closer before me until we're nose to nose, eye to eye, and I'm drowning back into that sparkling iridescent sea.
"I'm sorry, did that hurt?" His voice hushes the alarming buzz in my ear.
"Yeah." I rasp, voice foreign and broken in my throat, "What the fuck did you do?"
His hand smooths back my hair, "I used the minimum amount of magic, but it seems you're still hurt." He murmurs almost to himself warningly, "It was an oath I made to you, Cynder. Does it still hurt?"
I grit my teeth, push the ache of electric pain out of my limbs to the centre of my back, "I'm ok, let's just get going. But that oath..."
He studies my face for a silent moment and smiles faintly, drawing away, "You need not bother with the oath at this moment, it's just part of Caesluphius's tradition."
Tradition? I watch the shift in Ralphus's face. This tradition, again. Fanatics, love, tradition, and now, this oath. A heart wrenching screech sounds from behind my heel. I twist my head downwards against the wince of pain, and a seemingly angry Honeycomb leaps into sight. His jaw is pulled back into a violet snarl, and his dew drop clear eyes are narrowed and filled with murky wrath, fragmenting the amber into a dozen shades of browns and yellows and reds. A shiver courses down the point of pain into the pit of my stomach. Is it possible for an animal to make such an expression? Although I believe animals to have emotions, I never was one to think animals could have the same extent to their feelings as humans did. But this, I can read these emotions playing across Honeycomb's face as clear as I could've read Ralphus's or indeed, Lilith's. Acute anger, displeasure, sorrow, betrayal, guilt, the symphony of pain that would come across someone's face upon losing something precious. But why this jealousy? What purpose was there to a cat being jealous of Ralphus? And how is it possible for a cat to be so human I wondered for a second whether he was indeed a human in cat's skin?
I turn back towards Ralphus, focus my vision on his dazzling side profile and resist the ferocious pounding of my heart and the slimy, slithering fear hatching in the back of my mind, "As long as you don't regret it."
"Never." His eyes are fixed on the distance and some brilliant future shining undeniably ahead of us, "I assure you, I never make choices I regret."
Some unignorable turbulence wavers the walls of my heart, "And are you completely sure this is one you'll not regret? You demons live a long life."
His gaze pierces my like a thrown machete, unwavering, strong, almost deadly, "I promise you, in my entire five centuries of life I will never regret this choice."
I take note of his look, then I flicker back to Honeycomb, still in rage with fur standing on end. This choice, the oath, I have a faint idea of what it may be now, some sort of promise to serve as a knight or something more. What a defiant show of ignoring my words, or does he truly think he is impenetrable to pain as long as he has his own faith? What a stubborn fool.
"I'm human, Ralphus. I can only live a century or so." I comment sharply.
His eyes flicker to me as if in some desperate attempt to prove to me his loyalty, and there is only his breath for an answer at first, then "I'll find a way."
I shake my head, drink in the merciless black stone of Merlow's motionless figure, "I'm happy enough living to a century. Any longer would be a pain don't you think?"
Ralphus's eyebrows draw down in genuine pain, "No." And again, lower, "No."
A light breath of air slips through my mouth, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. What was there left to do after a hundred years? Only a slow rotting away into stagnancy, the ignition of a profound desire to slip away, all a prolonged, drawn out waiting. I draw his straight nose, the obnoxious curl of his lashes into my mind, even after centuries, after I'm long dead and buried, he'll still be here in this way, seemingly never fading.
"Meow!"
Honeycomb's desperate cry urges us through the abandoned stone arch into the wind-whistling expanse of green grass and swaying branches. Ralphus's grip tightens on my arm firmly, and his sturdy back enters my vision among the green boughs swaying to and fro. I had never given much thought about it, this difference of life span between us, between everything else and me.
"How old are you?"
He turns back towards me, a glimmer of hesitancy flashing through his half-open mouth, "I'm 95 summers old, but that is truly very young in Mal terms, nineteen or twenty in human age."
Ninety five years? A flash of passing seasons and changing times spin through my mind like a horse in a carousel, in that amount of time, how many things would've changed? The invention of the light bulb, two world wars... just a mere ninety five years. A subtle smile tips my lips, "Well, I guess I'm somewhere around 45 years myself." That is, I look down at myself, if I assume this boy's 17.
He looks at me, not understanding, "Forty five?"
I give him a shrug, slide free from his loose grasp and pass through the lych-gate to the Church.
"I'll pick you up later." He calls to me through the wind.
Nodding without looking back, I pull open the heavy door and step into the arching space that both fills and aches my heart. A crisp silence hangs in the air, and the pattern of sunlight on the floor stills under my feet like a perpetual carving within the marble. So many things, there are so many things I have to ask Lilith. This Caesluphius tradition, that Queen of Mal, and the question of his feelings, though but a bit of superfluous doubt on my part. I climb the dusty little stairs, one up, two up, three up, and something strange becomes quiet in my chest. A hypersensitivity rings in my ears, and the image of the walls and the open light at the top become overwhelmingly clear. Every grain in the wood, every speck of particle floating, suspended in the air enters my vision undiluted. The smell of the passage is clean, clear, no scent of coffee or cooking. My legs swing up and down, and I burst out into the spacious apartment.
Lilith stands stooped behind the kitchen counter, head in his hands, shoulders shaking like a leaf in the influence of a breeze. I hurry towards him, step heavy against the polished wooden floor, "Lilith, are you alright? What happened?"
He lets out a muffled groan of frustration, and he lifts his head from the enclosure of his hands to look at me with red rimmed eyes, "Cynder."
My heart drops and I take another step towards his bent figure, "What's wrong? Did you hurt yourself?"
A grimaced smile twists his lips, and in the molten gold of his eyes, in the reflection of his sight, I see the exact unholy contortion of emotion I saw within Honeycomb. The string of my mind unwinds inch by inch, Honeycomb, Lilith, white hair, gold eyes, what had he said about Beastians again?
     "They are a species that can take on the form of a beast—
     "Do you know what's so special about the Caesluphius house?" He asks quietly, standing upright.
     I wet my lips, the whole image coming together before me slowly, finally, "No."
     Lilith turns his back to the light, and his whole face is cast in shadow, only his eyes, they glow unearthly bright, "They're true fanatics of love. They love only once, and when they give in, they'll pledge their whole five centuries of life to that one person. Do you understand?"
     Thump. Thump. Thump. The beat of my heart thrums like an incessant calling in my ears. No.
     "He tied himself to you. He marked you with his crest." Lilith's voice and eyes tremble, eyebrows drawn together in an expression of absolute pain just before tears.
      A sourness rises up my throat, "Ralphus, he..."
     Slender hands grab the material of my shirt, "Cynder, I can't forgive him," Burning eyes seek mine in despair, "I can't forgive him! Do you feel for him, do you love him?"
     The thoughts in my head spin out of control, but one thing becomes glaringly clear, so transparent my heart aches as if God was clenching it tightly in their fist, "Lilith, you," I turn away from his searching gaze, "don't worry, I'll deal with that bastard."
     Another low groan of hurt and frustration leak from his tightly shut mouth, "Do you like him?" His fingers squeeze my shirt tightly, desperate eyes catching mine again in a yearning for truth.
     The truth. I have to tell the truth, "Yes, to an extent, I do like him."
     Lilith becomes absolutely still.
     "Lilith?" I grasp his wrist.
     His hands fall to his sides, his eyes wide and staring at me with infinite sorrow, infinite disbelief, infinite regret.
     "Lilith, I," There's no hiding anymore, everything's laid bare before me, the entire deck of cards, "I'd like to remain as friends." This time my eyes are yearning out for him, for the dull gleam of acceptance and understanding, "Friends." A blunt ache pounds my heart, and when the word leaves my mouth, I know it's my lifeboat in this all devouring sea. I had believed in this friendship. I had held onto it.
      A shake courses through Lilith's body, and tears, tears bleed from his distorted eyes, and he's shuddering, a long moan tearing through the bitter space, "Friends?"
     My heart shakes in it's foundations, and he tears the thing I'm clinging onto into shreds.
     "Friends?" He spits out a howling laugh, tears streaming down his pale cheeks, "You're my mate!" He shouts, voice breaking, "Why can't you feel it? Why don't you know?"
     Sourness chokes my nose and eyes, and his dark despair drowns me, and wetness beads from my eyes too. Why can't I ever have a friend for once? Why, again and again and again, does it always have to be love, love, love, love?
      "Cynder," He chokes, "WHY? Am I not enough?"
     My feet stagger backwards, but I can't feel the floor, and all I can see are Lilith's burnt out eyes seeking an answer in mine. He clutches his head, and a cry spills from his throat, a rising, piercing yell of keening regret that stabs through my chest, rips apart my heart, tears into my soul and buries itself in the tissues of my body, and I know, I know that I'll never forget it. Never. Never.
Silver light enfolds Lilith, covers him head to toe, and the scent changes. A great, white furred, feline steps out in his place, no longer the small, fluffy thing I called Honeycomb. No longer the thing I thought was a cat. This is not a cat. He snarls, draws back his lips, revealing the row of sharpened teeth, and my mind goes completely blank, or is it completely dark? As dark and impenetrable as all voids combined.
He pounces. I roll away. He bounds at me. I run for the door. He leaps in the way, growls and springs at me. I jump away, too late, we collide. I smack to the floor. He pushes me down with a heavy paw. I kick the soft underside of his belly. He snarls, drool dripping from his mouth onto my face. I dig my fingers into his shoulders and push and push and push. He does not budge. I punch towards his snout. His paw swat my arm away. My arm smashes into the floor, I cannot lift it anymore. His claws dig into my shoulder and push me over, crushing my face into the floor. I thrust upwards. His claws shred into my skin. I shout. His other paw slams down into my other shoulder. SNap. Pain explodes up my nose, and blood drips out. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
His jaw encloses around the back of my neck, the sharp point of each tooth presses against my nape, and his hot breath scalds the tender skin. I freeze, my limbs turn to lead, and my insides tremble. The tip of each tooth rasps against the skin. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no—
"DON'T! STOP! STOP! NO!"
Nausea spirals up my stomach, and bile burns my throat, and I retch into the floor, but nothing comes out but sour digestive fluids that seep onto the floor and smarts my face. His jaw tightens and tightens and tightens and no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no—
"STOP! STOP IT! RALPHUS!"
Splurt. His teeth tear into my flesh, agony rips through my neck, warm blood gushes out, thump, thump, thump. Everything goes blinding white, can't see, can't breathe, can't hear anything except for this horrible, horrible sound, can't get away. HElp. HeLP. HElP. My clothes shred apart, my skin shreds apart, HUrt, it HUrts, HuRTS, HelP, hELp—nononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononono—
IT's mE
I'm sCreAMinG