[Locked to Josef]

[thatsalieand]

There is a girl on Navy Pier with a guitar.

This is mostly noteworthy because Navy Pier is scorched and partially demolished by various occurrences during the plagues. Also it's technically closed off to the public, not that there's more than a couple of wooden barricades blocking the way, and no police patrolling. There are more important

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[destroytheother]

I once knew a girl named Sarah.

Josef is also walking along Navy Pier. He is not in the best frame of mind. His hands are a frenzied mess and his mind is worse off. He's burning and he needs to spread the fire around.

There's no rhyme or reason to him approaching her with the intent he does.
Except she's there, and the demon is out and it's claiming it wants this, and what other reason does a demon need?

Little girls, this seems to say, never stop upon the way
Never trust a stranger friend no one knows where it may end--

His face is expressionless once he's stumbled upon her but it isn't kind. "A girl like you shouldn't be alone out here."

Apologies, Sarah Tapper.

Tonight, you're it.

[thatsalieand]

Sarah snorts a bit, not looking up just yet from the strings. "A girl like me? I think I can handle a little alone time." She looks up, then, and recognizes him - her expression goes from mild annoyance to concern. It's not like they're good friends or anything, but she remembers him.

"Oh, hey, music lover!" She hops off the railing and puts her guitar down, frowning. "God, you look awful, are you okay?"

[destroytheother]

"Oh, I've always been an opera man myself. That day at the park was an excuse like every other I use with the people I intend to get close to. It's how I know the man you so dearly love left you and you've never fully recovered. You weren't enough to keep him there, were you?"

He grins, baring his teeth. "I bet you can handle alone time."

Josef cants his head to the side and keeps approaching. His hands furl and unfurl. "But you're not exactly alone, are you?"

[thatsalieand]

Sarah freezes for a moment, her eyes widening. He's coming closer and she can't move because she's still so shocked by what he said.

What he knew.

"H-how do you know about Harry?" she asks, her voice shaking a bit. She finally stumbles away a few feet, trying not to take her eyes off him. "Stay back!"

[destroytheother]

For every step she retreats he advances, entirely unmoved. "Come now, Sarah. You're not exactly in the position to ask me questions. Let's not make this all a bit too predictable, shall we?"

The problem with questions is they have their answers, he said once.

Tsk.

Josef lunges. In quick, graceful steps he's right behind her, a hand grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanking back. His lips dance along the pale smooth of her cheek. Pretty little bird, you have walked into his cage. "Not a word."

[thatsalieand]

Part of Sarah's problem, unfortunately, is that she's got spunk. One of those traits that can be both extremely helpful and might possibly kill you in the wrong situation. She doesn't fight, she doesn't try to knee him in the balls... just four words, with as much contempt as her trembling voice can manage.

"Or you'll do what?"

[destroytheother]

Josef doesn't mind the spunk. He's always appreciated when it's more of a challenge. He's stealing Sarah's memories as he remains in place, but there isn't one that truly beckons to him. She doesn't know pain the way he does.

He backhands that same pale cheek. "I'm glad you asked."

He still uses what he finds against her. Focuses on each and every one of her failures, every time she shed tears over Harry and her parents' disappointments, sending them directly to her with monster truck force. Over. And over. Increasing the intensity.

Josef drags her away from the pier by the hair, fingers still curled painfully into it.

[thatsalieand]

There are demons that can bring back your nightmares. Sarah knows this, if only in the theoretical sense. It's the one thought in the back of her head as she tries to fight the deluge of pain and heartache and disappointment and frustration, looping in on itself, growing. She hardly feels the pain as he drags her away by her hair, as she stumbles after him, so lost in every time she'd hurt. Every time she'd failed. Hadn't been enough.

She's sobbing - it's so easy, with a girl her age, to break her heart.

"Please s-stop," she chokes out around her sobs.

[destroytheother]

"It'll never stop," Josef hisses into her ear, shoving her toward the wall. Her cheek presses painfully into red brick and something hums inside him. She's asked him to stop and he only plays each scene with greater strength than before, until they bleed inside her mind.

"Don't you see? It's all you are. All you've ever been, all you'd ever be. This great fuck up that they needed to get the hell away from. When I'm done with you, when you're wiped from this world, they won't even blink, Sarah."

[thatsalieand]

She cries out when he shoves her into the wall, but doesn't say anything. She can't even get her mind to come up with the idea of pulling herself together, it's just pain and loneliness and failure.

And being forgotten. She unconsciously makes a soft keening noise at that. She doesn't want to be forgotten. She doesn't want to be useless. She wants to be loved.

And she never will be. She can see it now, she never will be because this is all that she is. A failure. "No," she whimpers, but it's less a denial and more a plea. Don't let it be true. Someone make it not be true.

[destroytheother]

There is no one to listen to her plea.

No one but Josef, and the demon doesn't listen. Not because he can't, but because he doesn't want to. It needs those noises she makes with her throat, those useless pleas that in the end won't make a difference. It's hunger, an unbearable hunger and it needs to be indulged.

"No what?" He flips her over in one swift motion, careening her forward only to slam her back into the wall. He wants blood. "There's no one around that will listen. No one here that cares. You have no one to blame but yourself."

He picks up the guitar that's been left behind on the pavement a few feet away from them, smashing it on the ground and pulling at the strings.

[thatsalieand]

The problem with wandering off to someplace secluded to get your fresh air is that when you scream, no one will hear you. And scream she does, when he smashes her guitar - the combination of pain and hurt with losing the one thing she had that always made her happy?

Her music was everything, after Harry left. "Stop! Please just stop!" she sobs, as if maybe he'll change his mind and go away.

He's a demon. She realises that now. She doesn't bother trying to get up and run - even if she could do anything right, she wouldn't be able to outrun him.

[destroytheother]

Oh, but he would have enjoyed the chase.

As it is, Josef only pulls at the rusty strings now in his hands as he returns to her. And this, this right here, is what the world within this world itself fails to understand.

There is beauty in madness. There is poetry in death. There is power in the kill. With his bare hands and a chord or two, he's taking her thankless future and turning it into something else.

It's something he's good at and why shouldn't he foster such a talent?

"You're the one that needs to stop. Stop talking. Stop fighting." He kneels before her. His voice is now a soft murmur, almost gentle. He wraps the chords around her throat and they start to close in on her throat. "It won't save you."

[thatsalieand]

Stop fighting? But what else is she supposed to do? "I don't want to die!" she chokes, her fingers trying to pull the strings from around her throat. She doesn't want to die, she doesn't.

There's nothing to live for, but what comes after is unknown and frightening.

More frightening than the strings cutting off her airway? Maybe. She can't tell.

[destroytheother]

You strangle a person for only as long as they can hold their breath while they flounder in their panic. I don't want to die!

Unless you crush their throat.

Josef is curious as to how much of her breath she can hold.

But not curious enough. Is she crying? Are tears falling silently onto the pavement? He can't tell, he's not paying attention, control is on fragile wings and the beast of desire is overpowering. The guitar strings are poisonous vines that curl around her neck painfully and his eyes never leave hers and look, look, Sarah.

This will be the last thing you see.

There, there.

[thatsalieand]

She's kicking, and crying, and her eyes catch his and lock, and suddenly she can't look away from his eyes as she tries to breathe, tries to fight, tries to keep the blackness closing in around her from taking her away.

Please...

The last thing she sees as she loses consciousness are his eyes. Her heart keeps pounding, racing, trying to get oxygen to her brain, but it's still cut off. It slows.

Slows.

Slows.

Stops.