Within the Haze - third place winner
Enchanting…
There was something mystical, enthralling in the white like snow and innocence and red like the blood that haunted his dreams. Together they flowed gently, elegantly back and forth but did not-could not-mix even if they clapped together. The two were always separate, never unified.
Except when it swiped out in front of the arctic, apathetic, alluring female that shared his dilemma, then the colors fused in haste to form some sort of misery-pain, agonizing splitting ache. Sometimes the effects were too swift, that no pain could register in the victim’s mind before death took the torn and tattered person, then all those that knew the prey would know melancholy…
Like he did.
The haze the hovered over his mind, enabled the guilt from swelling up from within to swallow him, kept him from caring enough to wonder did she want to? If she were given a choice, if she were not under the vile villain’s power-just like him-would she have picked a different path? But it didn’t matter, it never came to mind. There was no point in what ifs just what happened.
Gradually, the groggy fog began to fade. He wanted to will it away each time he crossed paths with a mahogany eyed girl-tears always in them-that seemed so memorable but once she was gone and pushed from the mind that no longer fully belonged to him he yearned to keep the murk there. Each time it slowly became clear a flicker of a bloody horror scene, his kusari-gama was covered in ruby liquid and terror etched in familiar faces as they dropped to the ground.
A scream Kohaku! tore through him to jerk him back to the need-the need for the fog to stay.
If it were gone he’d have to accept reality… he refused.
So he’d continue to do nothing, to stare at the wavering object that his fellow slave flaunted around, sometimes to vicious wind, sometimes a mild breeze to cause her ebony locks to float as her crimson gaze stared out at the starry sky.
She knew he watched her, night after night whenever they were locked away in the hellish palace of her loathsome creator, the same cruel creature who had destroyed any chance of a life for the boy that was more a toy than anything else-akin to her. She too was merely a puppet who held no control over the strings that tugged at her, forcing her to follow a narrow path.
Someday she’d change that, a burning, flaring desire ensured that or, at least, she’d die trying. Death was better than a life not her own.
Sometimes her crimson gaze shifted to the blank brown eyes that were locked on to her weapon of choice. That child… If she cared, she’d ponder if he held the same aspiration but the longer she stared the louder the answer replied-no.
He had lost his life; she aimed to gain one.