The dark drank all that was within her.
And she let it.
She let it swallow what was left.
Stare at the dark long enough and it will befriend you, but it will not relent, either. She did not know what it wanted but it was tearing her apart. She had stopped fighting long ago, let her bloody fingers curl around the lip of an altar. There was so much blood.
There was always blood.
Always.
And horror, blistering horror. Being unmade was unpleasant.
(And tiring.)
Who was she before the dark? That was the frightening part, the part she could not answer with her own tongue. Who was she? Who was she before the dark laid her to waste.
She didn't know.
There was only anger and madness and the dark.
And hunger that left her
scattered.
broken.
"Don't fret, love."
That voice. It was reedy and hollow, slithering like it came from worlds away. Familiar but not, she couldn't piece together a face. She tried to move but her body was frozen, paralysed on that alter, staring into a pit of nothing.
There was so much blood.
A hand cupped her face, but she couldn't see its owner. But it was cold, unkind. Not like the hands that had roamed her before—
Before what? What happened before?
"Your memories will return...eventually."
There was so much blood.
The hand retracted, replaced by cool, soft lips. Tracing down the apple of her cheek, the crook of her neck. No. Another hand appeared, clamping down on her waist, pressing her into the stone. No. She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream but it was as if her mind had been torn apart and pieced together again utterly new and strange, she had no control over her body. She had no control over herself.
There was so much blood.
The bite made her jolt. Her lips did not part, but her mind was screaming. Her insides raging. They sucked and sucked and sucked, until her eyes grew heavy, keeping them open required much of her strength.
No.
The dark drank all that was within her.
And she let it.
She let it swallow what was left.