FIVE
HE HAD ALWAYS BEEN IN CONTROL OF HIMSELF. It was the people around him who weren't. He had always been in control, that was never a question for him. He was not only in control of himself, but in control of everyone around him. He never understood what it was that made him so compelling: his velvety, angelic voice; his warm and darkly tanned skin; or his eyes that glowed like sunlight, his irises created out of molten gold. He knew that he wore the face of innocence, everyone desperately trying to make him happy. He had an aura around himself that made others feel calm, wanting to please him. Little did they know that he was truly a serpent, coated in the petals of beautiful flowers, creating the perfect illusion.
He used these weapons and wielded them perfectly, using them at his own discretion. He used them to keep himself content and pampered, only to create destruction all around him. He ruined the people around him, the ones who loved and adored them. The ones who were too blinded by his steady compulsion to realize that he was the one creating their pain and grief.
He was used to this steady understanding, this constant that would never change.
What he didn't expect, was this.
For the first time in his life, he was confused. He was out of control, he didn't know what was happening, and he didn't remember how he got here. Something was so sickeningly wrong about this situation that he felt it deep in his bones. Deep within his marrow, seeping into his cells. The wrongness of it all was killing him inside and out.
He had lost all self control over his legs, someone else controlling him. Almost as if someone was the puppeteer and he was the puppet. His legs felt like lead, making him incapable of lifting them unless whoever was controlling him decided they should rise. He felt his left one extend, moving forward, but everything within his being was screaming for him to take a step back. All he wanted was to back away, but he couldn't, not when his eyes were locked on hers.
She stood at the end of a marble walled hall, torches lighting up the expanse. He felt as if he had been taken under her spell, her eyes an intoxicating song that held his mind. It was like she held his brain in the palm of her hand, her sharp nails raking along it. If he fought against her control, she could puncture it with ease. He was hers to control, hers to use. Her eyes were feline, lit up with a molten gold. They seemed to light up, popping out against her dark complexion.
A feral smile was painted on her lips, watching as the fear swept across his face. It was a sight she had seen before, the one of realization. He was falling into a horrific sense of understanding, realizing that she held a powerful compulsion. One didn't even have to look at her to be taken under her spell, she could instantly have them at her disposal at the mere thought.
He knew, in that instant, that she could do whatever she wanted with him, and there was no way he could ever save himself. He was stuck this way, the gazelle walking straight into the cheetah's mouth.
His eyes raked her body, getting a feel for the woman who had promised him glory and history and immortality; the woman who manipulated him into walking straight to his demise. She was covered in silk, white gowns, a gold belt tightening around her waist, and a gold band wrapped around her head. Like a crown.
From where she stood, she looked like a goddess. The way her molten eyes glowed, and how the light from the flames only flashed across half of her face; it gave her an air of mystery, of power. His steps grew faster, realizing that this was a losing battle. He slowly felt himself slipping away from the fight, allowing her more and more control.
Her grin widened.
Any thought he had to fight back dissipated, knowing that this was a fight he was destined to lose. Instead, he tried to analyze what his fate would be. He was now trying to brace himself for whatever fate he would meet, hoping it would be able to soften his fear.
She stood at a podium, looking at peace where she was. It was on top of a stage, and she kept staring at the objects on it greedily. Due to the way it was tilted, he was unable to get a good look. He found himself desperate to know what the objects were, desperate to know what she planned to do with him.
His feet unwillingly brought him to the edge of the steps by the stage, and the woman before him smiled fiercely. There was a sort of hope that beamed from within her, cascading her in an aura of power and the idea that anything could happen. As if she were one step from reaching her own dream; that is, if someone like her had one. He wasn't sure this woman was human to begin with, her alluring nature being hauntingly beautiful. The sight of her sent a series of chills along his spine, freezing him in his core and soul.
He found that she kept him still at the end of the stairs, and she soon started down them. They were three small steps, and it didn't even seem that she walked. She flowed - glided - across the floor. As if she were hovering an air, too high to touch the ground. A woman that was larger than life.
When she was finally in front of him, a few centimeters of space between them, she reached out. Her hand clasped around his, and he felt electricity pulse throughout his body. A new sense of terror struck him, and in that moment, he wished he could take back every greedy action that lead him to this moment.
He didn't have many friends.
In fact, he never had. That, of course, was on his own accord. He could have a legion of friends if he so decided, but quite frankly, he never felt the need to keep any company. People had always whispered about him, saying that he saw himself as better than him. That he practically thought of himself as a god.
He wasn't going to lie, he did think that about himself. He thought he a diamond hidden within ashes, all of which trying to tear him down. He saw his peers as ants, so significantly smaller than him that they didn't even deserve to be in his presence.
People thought it pretentious; he thought it being secure in who he was.
He didn't stoop to petty drama, to hearing about who slept with who. He didn't care about who anyone slept with unless they were sleeping with him. Which was what he spent the entirety of his night trying to do. He was trying to find another girl, another notch under his belt.
He was a in a club, another fake id to help him escape his life. He was sixteen - nearing seventeen - but he looked older. He had always known there was a certain, unique sense of beauty about him. A hauntingly cold sense of beauty. As if he were marble, carved to be the perfect boy. It was what made even those that hated him bow before him.
He was a god, and to hell with anyone who thought otherwise.
So, he stood there: cheap beer in hand, back rested against a grimy wall. As per usual, he kept his head dipped down, trying to remain unnoticed as he searched for someone to dance with. He preferred to have a choice rather than be weighed down when someone spotted him. He had an alluring aura, drawing people to him. It was like when someone got a glimpse of him, they were compelled to stick by his side. Unfortunately for him, he preferred solitude and his own company. That's why he only stuck to meeting one person, and sticking with that. Anyone else and his mind would have imploded.
Typically, he would find it displeasing when someone found him first, but tonight, he was intrigued. He typically stuck toward the shadows, remaining unnoticed as he analyzed his surroundings, but he felt her molten gaze on him, and he met hers with his own. He was inexplicably in awe of her eyes, like something taken out of a piece of art. The entirety of her was a work of art, a temple that he wished to worship. A woman he wanted to pleasure, and to treat her like a goddess for a night.
Her slender body began to slip through the crowd swiftly, her golden, feline eyes never breaking their connection with his own. He felt the edge of his lip quirk up into a grin, feeling his body spark to life. He was forged of stone, slowly pushing himself out of his confines and allowing life to slip into him.
It was a rare sight; a boy who refused to live life the way it was meant to be lived, finally allowing himself to become an active participant.
There was an unspoken connection that hung between the two - two strikingly beautiful people. The ones who harbored a beauty that was lethal and terrifying, the kind that sent shivers down the spines of others. It was almost as if they were sculpted by the gods.
Neither of them spoke once they collided. He instantly wound his arms around her, allowing his fingers to slip under her shirt. The tips ran along her bare skin, igniting him. A warmth spread throughout him, making him feel a little less like stone.
He felt the way that she tangled her slim fingers with the end of his hair, the small curls in the back. A hot breath of air escaped his nostrils, finding himself relaxing under her touch. They were caught within a mass of people, music pulsing, their bodies grinding against each others.
His pelvis thrusted against hers, smashing their bodies against each other. She wore a pleased smirk, leaning forward. Her cheeks brushed against his, their bodies melding into one in a sensual way.
Her lips brushed against his ear, sending a chill along him. She had an effect on him that no one had before. He had always prided in being a fortress, a man forged of steel. Someone who could only inflict harm, not receive it. Allowing himself to even consider anything farther than a one night stand, that was madness.
But this woman, there was something so hauntingly beautiful he needed to know more. He saw himself reflected in her, and it got to him in a way he couldn't describe.
And then, she spoke.
"You're destined for greatness, my dear Kye."
He now realized what she meant by greatness - she meant his death. He felt like a fool, but then again, how was he supposed to anticipate something like this? He was nearly certain that this wasn't the usual thing that happened when someone told you that you were destined for immortality. She fed him with words about how he was strong and golden, how he was worthy of glory and the gore that came with it.
Being his narcissistic self, Kye ate into. He let her spoon feed him, hearing all of the things he desired. Everything that he had always believed about himself - that he was the epitome of perfection, a god trapped in boy's skin.
And now, he stood here, on this alter that become his grave.
Her fingers laced themselves with his own, guiding him forward. There was nothing he could do, trapped within her intricate spell of control. Internally, he screamed, trying to break free, but it felt as if someone had locked shackles on him. He was subject to her mind games, and there was nothing he could do.
So, with a heavy soul, he was lead up the three steps, left on top of the stage. The woman - he still had yet to learn her name - gazed at her podium, grinning devilishly. His eyes managed to catch a glimpse, the woman's eyes igniting with excitement when he saw what was there. All that sat was a long, jagged blade. A dagger that could cause more damage than repair. The kind that instilled fear in anyone. It glinted, even in the dim light of torches, instilling true fear into him.
Kye desperately tried to break free and regain control of his body, only resulting in failure. His body screamed to move, every instinct in him telling him to do whatever it took to get safe, but Kye couldn't do it. His fate was out of his control, now in her hands.
She gazed at him with her cat eyes, assuring, "Don't be scared, Kye. It's your destiny."
His bones turned to ice. This was the farthest thing from what his destiny should have been, and he couldn't do anything to fight against this.
He couldn't fight when his arm started moving.
He couldn't fight when his fingers curled around the hilt of the jagged dagger.
He couldn't fight when he brought it toward himself, pressing the tip of the dagger to his sternum.
Sweat beaded on his forehead, coating him in a layer of it. He felt ice cold, his breath hitched and heart hammering. Kye could feel the tip of it against him, his thin t shirt doing nothing to protect him.
The woman stepped forward, allowing her slim fingers to run along the bone of his cheek. The pad of her thumb brushed against Kye's skin tenderly, and he watched as she gazed at him with a sense of horrific pleasure. Like he was some toy - some trophy - of hers.
Kye couldn't focus on her close proximity or the way she stared at him like a predator though; Kye was too focused on the edge of the dagger that pressed against his flesh. Every sense of his became heightened, all of them focusing on the weapon that was directed toward him.
Slowly, she wrapped her fingers around the blade, her slim ones rested atop of his own. "We all need a push in the right direction."
He blanched, and before he could process what was happening, she was helping him bury the hilt of the dagger into his chest. He could hear the crack of his sternum the moment the blade made contact with it, a sharp, blistering pain erupting in his chest.
It was his blood that would stain the marble floor.
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He didn't want to fight.
In fact, he had never been much of a fighter - physically and metaphorically. He had never liked violence, not in the way the others around him did. The way their eyes lit up when there was gore to behold in movies, how their lives seemed to spark when a fight took place in the high school halls. The way their books and video games and movies all included immense amounts of gore and scars and death. Sometimes he wondered if he was the only one who didn't seem to hold this fascination of death.
Quite frankly, the idea of it scared him shitless.
He would never be a fighter, that much he knew. He was peaceful, a kind smile in a sea of sneers. It was these thoughts that kept him up late at night, eyes trained on the window. That way he could see the way the moon reflected the light of the sun, and how the stars twinkled in the sky. It painted the darkness into a beautiful mural, dancing in the darkness.
He always dreamed of burning so bright.
For a moment, he was fooled. He believed that he was back in his bed, staring at the night sky; but rather, he was staring into deep obsidian eyes. Eyes that burned with a new sense of ferocity, blazing brighter than the stars ever had.
He was certainly enchanted, losing himself to the eyes. They were hypnotic, causing him to fall under a spell. A spell of sleep and dreams and grand ideas. The eyes that belonged to someone that could only be described as a king.
He was tall, decked in a finely tailored suit that formed to his body perfectly. His dark - the color of midnight - hair fell in curly tufts over his forehead. It was long, but not long enough to fall over his powerful eyes.
His eyesight grew blurry and hazy, slowly slipping into the realm of sleep as he stared at the man before him. He should have been scared, he thought. The thought floated somewhere in the back of his mind, too lost in this trace. He didn't know this man - never even seen him before. Not until earlier, not until he was lost in a dream. For all he knew, he was still in a dream.
Yes, that was what it was. He was dreaming all over again. That's all this was, it was the only logical explanation.
The man in front of his reached forward, and he found himself subconsciously taking a step forward. He felt like he was under someone else's influence, but he found that he couldn't care. The man's hands clasped around his neck, and despite the fact that he clearly held his life in his hands, he wasn't afraid. The man's grip tightened around his throat, and he found himself relaxing under the lethal hold.
The man's eyes bored into his, and he murmured, "Open your mind to me."
He did.
At night, he could hear the town.
The cars that rushed past as everyone was going home. His town was small, but not too small. It was enough where a few small, local businesses had blossomed. A place that had a main street and a few apartments scattered about. He happened to live in one of those apartments, on the highest floor. Above the life that bustled around beneath him. Sometimes he felt on top of the world.
He liked the feeling. Feeling that he was at the top of the world, higher than anyone else. He knew that it wasn't true, but it made him feel like more than everyone else in his town. Like he was closer to touching the stars, to reaching greatness. He had always wanted to rule, but do so peacefully. To instill this idea in the minds of everyone, to make everyone realize that peace was a good thing.
To make everyone realize that was was a plague, and that hatred could be destroyed through love. That countries should go by a moral code, to help those in need. In his mind, that was the only way the world would ever thrive. He knew that it needed to be done, but he knew that he couldn't do it.
Only a god could.
Only a higher power would make people realize that life and love were the only things worth fighting for. And with those two things, there would be no need to fight to begin with.
So, there he lay on his bed, closer to the stars than anyone else in his town. The closest point to greatness, the highest spot. Crawling higher and higher on the throne - the nonexistent one. The one that he created in his own mind, striving to reach.
He knew that one day he would be destined for greatness.
"Sleep, Leo," a voice whispered, a soft, masculine voice that seemed to be created out of the sweetest honey. It rang in Leo's ears, making his eyes flutter ever so slightly. He wasn't alarmed, assuming that he was just hearing things. It was two in the morning after all, and he was a high school student who was highly sleep deprived. "Sleep."
Leo's eyes were slowly fluttering shut, and a sensation took hold of him. One that he didn't know was ever possible. He couldn't tell if his imagination was running wild or if something seriously freaky was just happening to him, but he knew that his stomach dropped. It fell, his entire body seeming to twist in on itself. As if he was being sucked away from the conscious world, and deeper into his mind.
It was something horrifyingly enchanting that was unfolding, and he found himself growing rather excited over it.
He was plagued in darkness, somewhere deep in his mind. But, there was something else. There were small lights that twinkled around him, like the stars he adored and dreamt of. It was as if he was trapped within a single room, space unfolding around him. Beauty that was created out of catastrophe.
Leo could have stayed there for hours, basking in the the stars that surrounded him. Rather than doing that, his attention was drawn away when a figure unfolded from the darkness. A man who could have been created out of the starts himself, having a darkness to him, but a light that outshines it. A brilliance that surrounded him like a second skin.
"Leo," the man spoke, his voice sounding like pure beauty. The kind of song that could send insomniacs to sleep.
Leo gazed over at the man, his eyes still running wild around him. "What is this place," he inquired, fascinated in it all.
"You tell me," he said, causing Leo to raise his brows. "It's your mind."
A breathless laugh escaped Leo's lips, the boy musing, "Cool."
"Leo," he spoke once again, Leo all too excited to really focus on the man. "Leo, look at money." And Leo looked at him, listening to a voice that sounded like honey. There was no way he couldn't follow instructions given from a voice like that. "You've felt it, haven't you. Felt that you were destined for more than just this."
In that moment, Leo felt understood. Then again, how could he not. He was in his own mind, after all. This was probably his subconscious speaking to him, so it wasn't a shock he knew exactly what Leo thought of himself.
"And?" Leo prodded, unsure of what this conversation could possibly bring him. "I'm never gonna leave this town." He chuckled softly. "Even my subconscious likes to rub that fact in my face."
A sly smirk slowly crept on the man's face, causing Leo to grow a bit confused. His mind was weird. Minds were weird in general.
"You think I'm a figment of your imagination now?" he questioned, seeming amused by Leo's words.
Leo raised a brow. "What else could you be?"
"The only person who can give you exactly what you've always wanted," he explained, his obsidian eyes igniting. As if they blazed with the fires of a thousand suns.
"And how could you possibly do that?" Leo demanded, a sharper edge to his voice.
Usually he didn't sharpen his words, making them blades, but right now he wasn't in the mood for his hopes and dreams to be made into a joke.
The man simply took a step forward, saying simply, "My name's Hypnos."
He said it as if it should have meant something; Leo should have known it meant the entire world.
Leo opened his mind to Hypnos without a second thought. His voice held a sort of control, and Leo found that he didn't mind it. Maybe he should have, but it didn't feel like any of this was real. If anything, it all felt like one large dream.
It felt like a lock being unlatched, Leo handing over full control of himself to Hypnos. It was an exhilarating feeling, his entire body kick starting an unknown process. The tips of his fingers tingled, humming throughout his body.
He felt his body grow cold. Slowly, he began to lose feeling throughout his entire body. Slowly, he felt the tingling disappear as a cool numbness took its place. Oddly, it was like his entire body was shutting off. As if Hypnos was flicking switches within his brain, turning his organs off. Allowing them to shut down entirely, killing him.
Leo began to wonder if he was truly dreaming or not.
He also found that he didn't care. In fact, it seemed he didn't care about a lot of things as of right now. Maybe, for once in his life, he enjoyed feeling what it was like to not be in control.
It was then when his chest constricted, his breaths growing shallower and shallower. As if his lungs no longer had the strength to to consume oxygen. The catalyst in turning his body off for good. No air meant no functioning red blood cells which meant getting no oxygen to his organs which meant his body would shut down.
He was dying.
A slow, drawn out death that should have haunted anyone else to the core, but Leo was not anyone. Leo was destined for greatness.
It was the last thought in his mind before everything faded to darkness.
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not edited.
this is really short and i'm so sorry for that! it's been over a month - i think - since i've updated, so i'm also extremely sorry about that too! i've had major writer's block - and then i've been gone for multiple college visits. i've also had work, and when i'm not there, i'm trying to finish my ap english homework. i have two more essays sos.
anyway, i hope you enjoyed this! be sure to let me know what you thought! this is also the final chapter of act 1, which means i get to start getting into the plot of this! do you guys have any favorites so far??