Elysium

I heaved in, and out. The air was thick in my lungs.

Have you ever been hit by the sudden realization that everything just wasn’t quite right? That change in the atmosphere where you’re smiling and the next you’re not, noticing that for just a second you where happy when deep down inside, you know you're anything but.

That numbing understanding that you are not you.

It’s that fact that keeps you up at night, thinking, and all the while reminiscing on old jagged thoughts that cut into your skull like needles pressed against your veins. Sometimes you just wish they’d fall away, leave you feeling that little bit safer, that little bit more secure. Sometimes you just wish they’d at least be warm needles, or even scalding hot needles so as to feel less numb, so you’d at least feel something while knowing all these things.

And sometimes you just wish they’d cut into you, consuming you whole; your entire being and existence becoming void in an instant.

It’s like for a moment you want to die.

The most tormented of us lay awake at night, and the more we know the more we suffer, it seems. In a way you look down upon those who sleep peacefully, those insignificant beings who would never be able to comprehend, let alone empathize what has become routine torture. On the other hand, you envy them for their oblivious nature, their lack of understanding being the very thing that anchors them in their happiness and mirth.

I sit here now, thinking as I often do. Thoughts come, thoughts go. More often than not, the thoughts are recurring. Never exactly the same, but always returning, kind of like how the stars are always there, but they always shift the slightest bit. I think often, that it's this thought that determines what we are. The notion that as an entity we rely on comfort to keep us sane, in a world where comfort is only obtained by those who don’t see it, is what really binds us to our sanity. Either we stand by our safety harness of what we know, and never perceive beyond, or we let our wildest imaginations catch wind of our intentions, and we just drift, on and on, deeper and deeper into ourselves, where we get lost among our inner demons and descend into madness.

It’s all like a game, where our very sanity is at stake in our minds, and our life, our oh so precious life, kept in our little heart, is the bet we have made. And while the mind can recover from those mishaps and stumbles, our hearts cannot.

Our hearts are a coffin holding our determination, our inspiration, and each second its as if we might let it into the ground and lose this game of life, where our madness is ensured.

Knowing all this, it’s like realizing I am my own demon. I cannot confront myself, not in the most conventional method. Every time I enter this state of thought, my little heart's coffin becomes light in my shaking hands, so so very weightless and priceless, I can’t control what I might do next.
And I feel it being dragged under.

-- Excerpt from Norin's journal

Shardless

I love scars.

I love the tales that they tell
Like stories written upon you
The tragic and revered;
I’ll read the story on your skin

I have a heart of glass
Sometimes, it’s cold to the touch
But when you look inside
You’ll see my wonders and woes
My hopes and my truths
Sometimes, the warmth

Like a silken web adorned with dew
I’m everything you never knew

So handle me with care, if you dare
For I am made of glass
Drop me once and we’ll both get cut
By the shards that I was, that I am

And then we’ll have matching scars
A pair that’s been divided
But I can handle all my scars--

At least, that’s what I decided

When I first learned of pain and vices.

Unseen Predator

He licked his lips.

He could taste it. The scent in the air, as the downwind brought upon him what He'd been waiting for.

He lay with His belly against the floor, crouching in the brush. His eyelids were closed, His ears perked as He patiently listened intently. In His heart, He could feel it. His instinct was screaming, yet He sat with His muscles lax. He padded the dirt before Him, adjusting to the feel of His surrounding.

He began to feel restless, but He further forced Himself to remain still.

He could feel the time approaching, the right opportunity not far from the moment, and once more He licked His lips. The urge was overwhelming.

And then... the crack of a stick, the snapping of dried leaves as they crackled underneath his unsuspecting prey. The hunt was on.

In an instant His eyes blinked wide open, the shimmering gold contrasting so heavily to the surrounding brush. Every muscle in His body tensed, and He lept forward with a feral zeal, His blood boiling in His veins. His eyes stayed wide open, scouring the jungle before Him as it passed as a blur. It was all irrelevant, and nothing mattered, nothing save the wonderful feeling that was driving Him with such primal urges.

His instincts were sharp, honed with the delight of hundreds of successful kills, but this was one hunt in which he'd savor the moment so finely. It was a case in which the Predator became the Prey, and He was going to enjoy taking its Will and Heart for His own.

For a brief moment, He saw it. The bounding leaps of His prey quickly appearing then disappearing behind the trees to His side, and with such savagery, He felt the split between seconds approaching, and He seized the opportunity. One heartbeat, another, and before the third, he lunged.

For that instant everything seemed to slow down. It was Him in the air, his tail behind Him, swishing with fervor, His claws extended as he was bearing down on the back of His unfortunate victim. He could hear His heartbeat pounding, so heavily, and in the background it was just silence. Wide-eyed, He landed upon His preys back, and He dragged it down as His claws grasped tight around the shoulders of His prize.

The beast writhed for a bit, and as it paused for the slightest second, He took His chance to readjust, clawing now at its sides, His fangs sinking into its neck. The torrent of warm delicious blood poured into His mouth, and He relished in its sweet taste, the flavor only sweetened further by the satisfaction in achieving His kill. Within a few minutes, the beast was limp, and He had already cut out its Heart, and carved out its throat.

In that space between seconds, the Predator had become Prey.

He stalked back to His cavern, with a sense of pride and satisfaction. There was none that could have done better than He, for He lived for the feel of it, the final moment before he bounded in for the kill; The absolution that came with the thrill of it.

The Thrill of the Hunt. 

The End Of Everything

Norin awoke in a world of light. She was floating with clouds, the wisps billowing softly under an unseen, unfelt wind. A torrent of thoughts flooded her:

'Where am I?' 'How did I get here?' 'Why am I here?'

She spent a few moments contemplating these thoughts, trying to find answers in this unknown place, before  finally drawing her questions to a close with a familiar and cold thought.

I am alone.

She sat in silence, the creeping of despair slowly but surely making its way up her spine, engulfing her as she stifled a silent sob.

'You are not alone.'

The voice was familiar, encompassing this strange world with an aura of recognition; suddenly, she was alone no longer. She looked up, and there stood Visage. He was dressed in his usual set of leather, his cloak wrapped around his shoulders, just like every other time Norin had come to see him; but unlike the usual appearance, this time he was dressed in completely white. Norin also noticed that he appeared slightly transparent, and he glowed with a faint outline in this world of light.

'You're not alone, not this time.'

'I'm dreaming.', Norin stated, her voice soft with the realisation of where she was.

'Yes, you are.'

'Are you real?'

'I am.'

Still stifling back tears, Norin raised herself up so that she came face to face with Visage. Strangely, in this dream world, Norin found herself to be the same height as Visage, and the two stood alone, twin figures left forgotten in an ever-changing cloudscape. Her lips quivered, her eyes like starlight as the tears she'd been holding back began to escape from her best attempts at holding them back.

'I'm afraid,' she whispered, the first of many tears finally finding their way down her cheek.

She didn't know what to say, what to think, what to feel. All her questions suddenly rushed back to her, questions she was sure Visage could answer for her.

'Why am I here?'

'You know why.'

With just that answer, all her questions vanished. Those words were all Norin needed to understand.

This was her final goodbye.

'I'm going to die.'

Visage turned, looking into the distance, into nothingness, and released a deep sigh.

'Yes, you are.'

Norin couldn't hold the tears any longer. She'd always known that her end would come, and she'd spent every day of her life preparing for this. All the ties that would have bound her to the world, she'd cut. All the friends she could've made, she'd pushed away; but now that she was here, at the final horizon, she was terrified. Her breathing became heavy as tears fell from her eyes, each one a crystalline drop that glimmered with other-worldly beauty , falling into the infinity that lay below them, below the clouds that they stood upon, a fantasy that could only exist in a dream.

'I've always known that this day would come, where I'd wake up and realise that this was the day I'd die.'

Visage stepped forward, and took Norin's hands in his. It was something, Norin realised, that he'd never done. In all the time that he'd watched over her, he'd never touched her.

'I'm afraid, Visage. I'm afraid to die, I'm afraid that no one will remember me, but above all else, I'm afraid that I'm going to die alone.'

'You are not alone. This time, I will be with you, every step of the way. I promise.'

Looking up, into Visage's eyes, Norin saw something that astonished her. Here, in this world where only the two of them existed, where she stood with this omnipresent being, she saw that Visage himself had begun to cry.

'I'm afraid too', said Visage, in a low tone, a tone of resignation, of reluctance.

In a heartbeat, Norin moved into Visage's arms, and there they stood in a final embrace. Though this was a dream, Norin knew that this moment was real. They held one another in a few moments of silence.

'What's going to happen?'

'Our fates are all intertwined. You, Malek, and I.'

Visage gave another deep sigh. Norin felt his chest rise and ebb with the breath, and although she couldn't hear his heartbeat, she  could feel it in his arms, in his being, like a rhythm to a cosmic song.

'When you die, then so shall I.'

'And Malek?'

'He shall ascend back to where he wants to be; in the darkness of the night, so that he will be able to spread his influence to all those who dare to dream.'

'He wants to die.'

'Yes. As it is said, tragedy comes in threes; but one man's woe is another man's wish. The King wants to return to his realm of Madness.'

'And what about us?'

There was another moment of silence, yet again, before Visage answered.

'I have the answers to many things in this universe, but the answer to that is not one of them.'

Left with another question unanswered, Norin closed her eyes, trying to find solace in the rhythm of Visage's presence. She inhaled cool air into her lungs, scentless.

'I understand.'

The light that engulfed this dreamland had changed colour, fading from that of midday to dusk, the clouds that they'd been standing on slowly dissipating into thin sheets that revealed nothingness beneath.

'It's time to go', whispered Visage, as he tightened his arms around Norin one last time.

'Goodnight, Sleepwalker.'

With a quiet whimper, Norin reciprocated the embrace.

'Goodnight, Wanderer.'

The dusk soon became night, and all light faded from her dreamscape. Norin drifted into the nothingness yet to come.