[Fanfiction]: And Yet I Scream, Chapter 04 (Moonchild)
Title: And Yet I Scream
Part: 4 / ?
Warnings: angst, major self-mutilation, personality issues, blood
Rating: R
Pairings: --
Disclaimer: Moonchild does not belong to, nor do its characters or anything else related to the movie. I make no profit out of this story, it is written merely for fun and entertainment of other fans. Yadda yadda.
Summary: I'm trying to draw a breath, but there's just nothing there.
AYIS Chapter 00: Prologue
AYIS Chapter 01: Please
AYIS Chapter 02: Dreams
AYIS Chatper 03: Pieces
And Yet I Scream
Chapter 04: Breath
~*~
My chest starts to tighten. This is not happening. This can't be happening. I should have known it would happen, but still, not like this, not to me, not while I'm still aware of anything. Let me breathe, let me breathe, just let me... just one more breath...
The need for air is something every living being feels.
Watch the world around you. Everything and everyone breathes. It's the very essence of life. In and out. Slowly. Feel the air fill up your lungs, stretch them. Oxygen makes your body function. Keeps your heart beating and your blood flowing, grants you a voice and the ability to think. Move around, because you can do so only as long as you can breathe. What could be more intimate than being close enough to someone to draw the same breath? What could be more pleasant than your loved one’s breath ghosting over you skin, the promise of a touch, the ghost of sex?
Your breath is your life. No healthy person can voluntarily stop breathing. The need for air is just too great. You would pass out and your body would resume breathing for you. It is impossible not to breathe.
Even for vampires.
Vampires are dead, at least in everything but theory. Someone like me is nothing more than a walking corpse. Doomed to wander the earth and feed on the lives of others. I am not alive. My heart does not beat. My blood does not flow. I am dead.
And yet I breathe.
I don't need to. Lack of oxygen cannot kill a vampire. It’s not from lack of trying that I have reached this conclusion. It’s a reflex. I fill my lungs with air whether I want to or not. Some parts of my undead body just work the way they always used to, I guess. My blood does not flow, but I can still get hard. I have desires and urges; they are jut not as easily awakened within me as they used to be. My wounds heal quickly, but that does not prevent them from happening or hurting. Blood loss weakens me, broken bones hinder me, torn skin and flesh hurt me. Put a bullet into my brain and I will be useless for a few hours. Snap my spine and I won’t be able to walk. Get me in the mood and I will be hard for you. Play me like a precious instrument and I will come for you. Strangle me and I will fight for breath on instinct. Believe me, I have tried to stop. I’ve always known I couldn’t kill myself by not breathing, but I needed to know what the loss of something so substantial would feel like.
It’s horrible.
Have you ever tried to stay under water longer than your breath lasted? Then you know the feeling. So even though I don't need air to survive, I really can't stop drawing breath.
Over the time I have come to treasure my breath, though. Inhaling makes me feel a little more human. It’s something every human being has to do. So if I have to do it… it’s not that bad, right? I feel a little more alive when I’m able to breathe. It's all about the illusion of being human. The air rushes in and out of my lungs; so rhythmical, so normal. It's soothing.
Then there’s my voice. Air is what makes your vocal chords vibrate, which in turn lends you your voice. I need that voice more than I ever needed it before right now. Without a voice, Kei won't be able to talk to me.
We are running out of air now. As much as I hate to admit it, I don't think I actually want to be alone down here. Alone with the beast, Kei reduced to silence by the lack of oxygen. Does Kei exist without a voice? He will not be able to move much. His voice will fail him without air. He will be still as a corpse, and just as cold. A body torn open and dead, but not decaying. A mind broken and bent, but still there. No release, no escape. No life, no death. Just something in between that is the worst hell.
Do I still exist?
Will I still exist when the last people who remember me die?
With my memory wiped from the world, with no one knowing where I could possibly be, trapped and alone with the beast and Kei - what will I be?
My mind will be reduced to the faintest glimmer without oxygen to feed my brain. I will spend eternity motionless, without breath, without voice, no sound reaching my ears, nothing to look at, and yet I will be aware.
I won't exist anymore, but I will still be left behind.
If rats would be able to come in here and feed on my never-rotting but open flesh, what would I feel?
It must be a curious sensation, the flesh gnawed from my bones, what remains of my body scattered within the stomachs of vermin. I might still be conscious then, on some very absurd level. Because I can't die. I think. Not even when eaten alive. I might be able to regenerate even then. Pieces of me, digested and left behind, regenerating into the pieces they once were. A muscle here, some skin there, an eyeball just around the corner. Shattered into too many pieces to count, and still very much aware of it.
“The rats would suffocate. Just what you are doing now. It shows. Your mind is already reduced to this freakshow.”
Kei has a point, I must admit, though his voice is awfully weak and distant. Still, it's an interesting thought and won't leave me for a moment. I think. Or has it left me already?
What has been on my mind again?
…
Oh, right.
The rats.
I wonder... if pieces of me were scattered all over the place - I still think it would be an interesting feeling, by the way, being conscious through that... if one can get beyond the pain, which I'm sure I could accomplish in a few centuries. Anyway... I'm sorry for getting off track like this, but it's not all that easy to focus your thoughts when the rats are suffocating.
If I was scattered into pieces all over the place, would my limbs reattach themselves? Would the many pieces and parts form a new body, and would that person actually be me?
You know.
The thing about lying around in a place like this... you have a lot of free time on your hands. And some things just seem like awfully good ideas then.
I raise my left hand and gaze at my fingers.
You know, I never wanted to marry anyway.
Hello victim.
The beast cheers me on.
“Stupid idea”, Kei whispers, but I can barely hear him anymore.
I look at my thumb and start counting.
One - Sho would complain about my lack of manicure here, I guess.
Two - funny time to notice how short my fingers are.
Three - used to be my favourite when I was alive, by the way.
Four - Farewell.
Instead of tearing it off with my other hand I bite down. The beast is still screaming for blood, and it's delight mingles with my breathless laughter as I feel flesh tearing, blood spilling - though not as much as there should be, I guess. Sinews rip, and then there's bone, and bone is an effort. I don't usually bite through bone. There's a first time for everything. It snaps and I pull the digit from my mouth, gazing at it in wonder.
Doesn't actually look like it used to be part of me.
Dazedly I look at my left hand, and sure enough I'm missing my left ring finger. I can see a piece of bone sticking out there, white surrounded by red which really should be black because it's dead and not alive and why is it not bleeding and didn't I want to see if it would reattach itself and oh god I just bit off that finger didn't I and it hurts fuck fuck why did I...
Kei screams.
I drop the finger in surprise and flinch, and when I try to get away from the sound my teeth smash and scrape against stone. It doesn't make the pain go away at all.
It does make the air run out faster, though.
I freeze when it happens.
Kei?
Kei, I think we made mistake here.
Don't panic. I can still draw a breath. See?
In.
And out.
And...
…
No. Please. Don't.
Give me...
Just one...
Let me...
Just...
One...
I'm suffocating. I need air. I don't want this. I can't do this. Don't make me live through this. I'm not strong enough for this. I will never feed on a human being again. I will take animals, not just animals, I'll take rats, the most dirt-ridden ones if I have to - anything! Just spare me. This one time, let me not feel a thing.
Whomever I'm begging with must realize that the promise is in vain, though. Of course, I will never feed on a human being again. How could I from down here?
My chest is burning. Air.
I need...
I'm trying to draw a breath, but there's just nothing there. How can this be? How can it just be used up like that? Breathing is the one thing that comes naturally, air is the one thing that's supposed to be everywhere, so why? Why is it failing me?
I bare my fangs, clench my teeth. My whole face contorts with sheer effort. I can feel myself shaking badly. I'm struggling for that tiny bit of air I need to relief the horribly empty feeling in my chest, but it just isn't there.
There is nothing.
It feels as though my lungs are collapsing in on themselves.
Tears are streaming down my face. The pain, by all the deities and demons, the pain; I jerk and my head is smashed against stone. My whole body convulses as I try to draw breath but I just CAN'T. Help me, make this go away, because it's just too much, not enough.
My eyes are wide open. The tears burn on my skin and numb my cheeks. Through everything I'm aware of the noises torn from my squirming and jerking body. Choked sounds fall from my parted lips.
This will be the last sound that reaches my ears for eternity. There won't be anything afterwards. No screams. No voices in the dark. No cackling laughter. I'm losing myself, but it's not enough to grant me any kind of release, not enough to finally be too much.
My fingers rake across the stone, leaving marks too deep. The skin is torn away, the nails break off, but I don't care. I can't care anymore, because all I can feel is that hole in my chest that I can't fill, never will be able to fill again. This is eternity. It will never stop. It won't ever get better. The pain will never leave me. My lungs will always remain empty. Eternal suffocation.
The struggling weakens. I claw at my chest, my throat, trying to find some way to get air in there or to make the pain go away, something to relieve me of this torture. I feel my throat ripping, I feel bone under my fingertips, cold blood and hot tears on my cheeks.
I cry hard, and I would sob if I still could. It's not just pain driving the tears from my eyes now, but it's everything. My fate, so horrible that my mind has already shattered when faced with it, my regrets, my dying hopes, my dreams. The faces of my victims, the wire cutting into my heart. Sho's blue eyes and Yi-Che's smile. Toshi's laughter and Son's worries. Blood in my mouth and a child in my arms. Luka's song and the bittersweet memories of beaches. Love and Loathing. Need and fear. Everything I've always wanted and so much more.
Gone.
With weak movements I wipe my face, smearing blood, dirt and tears everywhere. I lie in complete silence while my body jerks every now and then. Kei's voice is gone. Even the beast has reached its limits. And I...
Slowly my eyes slide shut. Forever, I hope.
I give up.
~*~
TBC...
AYIS Chapter 05: Fading
Part: 4 / ?
Warnings: angst, major self-mutilation, personality issues, blood
Rating: R
Pairings: --
Disclaimer: Moonchild does not belong to, nor do its characters or anything else related to the movie. I make no profit out of this story, it is written merely for fun and entertainment of other fans. Yadda yadda.
Summary: I'm trying to draw a breath, but there's just nothing there.
AYIS Chapter 00: Prologue
AYIS Chapter 01: Please
AYIS Chapter 02: Dreams
AYIS Chatper 03: Pieces
And Yet I Scream
Chapter 04: Breath
~*~
My chest starts to tighten. This is not happening. This can't be happening. I should have known it would happen, but still, not like this, not to me, not while I'm still aware of anything. Let me breathe, let me breathe, just let me... just one more breath...
The need for air is something every living being feels.
Watch the world around you. Everything and everyone breathes. It's the very essence of life. In and out. Slowly. Feel the air fill up your lungs, stretch them. Oxygen makes your body function. Keeps your heart beating and your blood flowing, grants you a voice and the ability to think. Move around, because you can do so only as long as you can breathe. What could be more intimate than being close enough to someone to draw the same breath? What could be more pleasant than your loved one’s breath ghosting over you skin, the promise of a touch, the ghost of sex?
Your breath is your life. No healthy person can voluntarily stop breathing. The need for air is just too great. You would pass out and your body would resume breathing for you. It is impossible not to breathe.
Even for vampires.
Vampires are dead, at least in everything but theory. Someone like me is nothing more than a walking corpse. Doomed to wander the earth and feed on the lives of others. I am not alive. My heart does not beat. My blood does not flow. I am dead.
And yet I breathe.
I don't need to. Lack of oxygen cannot kill a vampire. It’s not from lack of trying that I have reached this conclusion. It’s a reflex. I fill my lungs with air whether I want to or not. Some parts of my undead body just work the way they always used to, I guess. My blood does not flow, but I can still get hard. I have desires and urges; they are jut not as easily awakened within me as they used to be. My wounds heal quickly, but that does not prevent them from happening or hurting. Blood loss weakens me, broken bones hinder me, torn skin and flesh hurt me. Put a bullet into my brain and I will be useless for a few hours. Snap my spine and I won’t be able to walk. Get me in the mood and I will be hard for you. Play me like a precious instrument and I will come for you. Strangle me and I will fight for breath on instinct. Believe me, I have tried to stop. I’ve always known I couldn’t kill myself by not breathing, but I needed to know what the loss of something so substantial would feel like.
It’s horrible.
Have you ever tried to stay under water longer than your breath lasted? Then you know the feeling. So even though I don't need air to survive, I really can't stop drawing breath.
Over the time I have come to treasure my breath, though. Inhaling makes me feel a little more human. It’s something every human being has to do. So if I have to do it… it’s not that bad, right? I feel a little more alive when I’m able to breathe. It's all about the illusion of being human. The air rushes in and out of my lungs; so rhythmical, so normal. It's soothing.
Then there’s my voice. Air is what makes your vocal chords vibrate, which in turn lends you your voice. I need that voice more than I ever needed it before right now. Without a voice, Kei won't be able to talk to me.
We are running out of air now. As much as I hate to admit it, I don't think I actually want to be alone down here. Alone with the beast, Kei reduced to silence by the lack of oxygen. Does Kei exist without a voice? He will not be able to move much. His voice will fail him without air. He will be still as a corpse, and just as cold. A body torn open and dead, but not decaying. A mind broken and bent, but still there. No release, no escape. No life, no death. Just something in between that is the worst hell.
Do I still exist?
Will I still exist when the last people who remember me die?
With my memory wiped from the world, with no one knowing where I could possibly be, trapped and alone with the beast and Kei - what will I be?
My mind will be reduced to the faintest glimmer without oxygen to feed my brain. I will spend eternity motionless, without breath, without voice, no sound reaching my ears, nothing to look at, and yet I will be aware.
I won't exist anymore, but I will still be left behind.
If rats would be able to come in here and feed on my never-rotting but open flesh, what would I feel?
It must be a curious sensation, the flesh gnawed from my bones, what remains of my body scattered within the stomachs of vermin. I might still be conscious then, on some very absurd level. Because I can't die. I think. Not even when eaten alive. I might be able to regenerate even then. Pieces of me, digested and left behind, regenerating into the pieces they once were. A muscle here, some skin there, an eyeball just around the corner. Shattered into too many pieces to count, and still very much aware of it.
“The rats would suffocate. Just what you are doing now. It shows. Your mind is already reduced to this freakshow.”
Kei has a point, I must admit, though his voice is awfully weak and distant. Still, it's an interesting thought and won't leave me for a moment. I think. Or has it left me already?
What has been on my mind again?
…
Oh, right.
The rats.
I wonder... if pieces of me were scattered all over the place - I still think it would be an interesting feeling, by the way, being conscious through that... if one can get beyond the pain, which I'm sure I could accomplish in a few centuries. Anyway... I'm sorry for getting off track like this, but it's not all that easy to focus your thoughts when the rats are suffocating.
If I was scattered into pieces all over the place, would my limbs reattach themselves? Would the many pieces and parts form a new body, and would that person actually be me?
You know.
The thing about lying around in a place like this... you have a lot of free time on your hands. And some things just seem like awfully good ideas then.
I raise my left hand and gaze at my fingers.
You know, I never wanted to marry anyway.
Hello victim.
The beast cheers me on.
“Stupid idea”, Kei whispers, but I can barely hear him anymore.
I look at my thumb and start counting.
One - Sho would complain about my lack of manicure here, I guess.
Two - funny time to notice how short my fingers are.
Three - used to be my favourite when I was alive, by the way.
Four - Farewell.
Instead of tearing it off with my other hand I bite down. The beast is still screaming for blood, and it's delight mingles with my breathless laughter as I feel flesh tearing, blood spilling - though not as much as there should be, I guess. Sinews rip, and then there's bone, and bone is an effort. I don't usually bite through bone. There's a first time for everything. It snaps and I pull the digit from my mouth, gazing at it in wonder.
Doesn't actually look like it used to be part of me.
Dazedly I look at my left hand, and sure enough I'm missing my left ring finger. I can see a piece of bone sticking out there, white surrounded by red which really should be black because it's dead and not alive and why is it not bleeding and didn't I want to see if it would reattach itself and oh god I just bit off that finger didn't I and it hurts fuck fuck why did I...
Kei screams.
I drop the finger in surprise and flinch, and when I try to get away from the sound my teeth smash and scrape against stone. It doesn't make the pain go away at all.
It does make the air run out faster, though.
I freeze when it happens.
Kei?
Kei, I think we made mistake here.
Don't panic. I can still draw a breath. See?
In.
And out.
And...
…
No. Please. Don't.
Give me...
Just one...
Let me...
Just...
One...
I'm suffocating. I need air. I don't want this. I can't do this. Don't make me live through this. I'm not strong enough for this. I will never feed on a human being again. I will take animals, not just animals, I'll take rats, the most dirt-ridden ones if I have to - anything! Just spare me. This one time, let me not feel a thing.
Whomever I'm begging with must realize that the promise is in vain, though. Of course, I will never feed on a human being again. How could I from down here?
My chest is burning. Air.
I need...
I'm trying to draw a breath, but there's just nothing there. How can this be? How can it just be used up like that? Breathing is the one thing that comes naturally, air is the one thing that's supposed to be everywhere, so why? Why is it failing me?
I bare my fangs, clench my teeth. My whole face contorts with sheer effort. I can feel myself shaking badly. I'm struggling for that tiny bit of air I need to relief the horribly empty feeling in my chest, but it just isn't there.
There is nothing.
It feels as though my lungs are collapsing in on themselves.
Tears are streaming down my face. The pain, by all the deities and demons, the pain; I jerk and my head is smashed against stone. My whole body convulses as I try to draw breath but I just CAN'T. Help me, make this go away, because it's just too much, not enough.
My eyes are wide open. The tears burn on my skin and numb my cheeks. Through everything I'm aware of the noises torn from my squirming and jerking body. Choked sounds fall from my parted lips.
This will be the last sound that reaches my ears for eternity. There won't be anything afterwards. No screams. No voices in the dark. No cackling laughter. I'm losing myself, but it's not enough to grant me any kind of release, not enough to finally be too much.
My fingers rake across the stone, leaving marks too deep. The skin is torn away, the nails break off, but I don't care. I can't care anymore, because all I can feel is that hole in my chest that I can't fill, never will be able to fill again. This is eternity. It will never stop. It won't ever get better. The pain will never leave me. My lungs will always remain empty. Eternal suffocation.
The struggling weakens. I claw at my chest, my throat, trying to find some way to get air in there or to make the pain go away, something to relieve me of this torture. I feel my throat ripping, I feel bone under my fingertips, cold blood and hot tears on my cheeks.
I cry hard, and I would sob if I still could. It's not just pain driving the tears from my eyes now, but it's everything. My fate, so horrible that my mind has already shattered when faced with it, my regrets, my dying hopes, my dreams. The faces of my victims, the wire cutting into my heart. Sho's blue eyes and Yi-Che's smile. Toshi's laughter and Son's worries. Blood in my mouth and a child in my arms. Luka's song and the bittersweet memories of beaches. Love and Loathing. Need and fear. Everything I've always wanted and so much more.
Gone.
With weak movements I wipe my face, smearing blood, dirt and tears everywhere. I lie in complete silence while my body jerks every now and then. Kei's voice is gone. Even the beast has reached its limits. And I...
Slowly my eyes slide shut. Forever, I hope.
I give up.
~*~
TBC...
AYIS Chapter 05: Fading