Apo Pantos Kakodaimonos [3/11]
Title: Apo Pantos Kakodaimonos - 3
Pairing: OnTae
Genre: Romance/Supernatural/Slight Angst
Rating: PG-13 for slight violence
Summary: Onew was cursed to forever walk between Hell and Earth as a demon, lonely and unfeeling. He had no memory of why he was cursed, nor what the curse truly meant. All he knew was that bad things seemed to happen to everyone around him, including a certain human named Taemin that had a perverse attraction to his demonic nature. Demons are cursed to never feel any emotion, though, so matter how much Taemin loved him, he could never reciprocate the feeling, and no matter how much danger Taemin was put in, Onew could feel nothing whenever the human was on the verge of death. Or at least, that's what he thought.
[Excerpt] I gasped as air filled my lungs, and I looked back at him. He was still standing in the same place he was when he let go of me. Even from my place by the graveyard, I could still see the distraught expression on his beautiful face. He mouthed the words, “I’m sorry,” before turning around and walking into the church. The large doors shut behind him with a thud of finality.
♱ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I appeared out of the shadow of a mausoleum in the back corner of a dark graveyard. The small structure was covered with moss and vines, and some of the stone was either cracked or missing. What once was a glorious memorial to the deceased was now just another decrepit statue among the hundreds in the cemetery. I ran my hand across the crumbling stone. Broken. Forgotten.
Only a small part of the moon was not covered in shadow, and it offered little illumination. I slowly picked my way over broken tombstones and nature’s overgrowth in an attempt to find the entrance. The only reference I had was the hazy outline of a dark building a ways away. I figured it must be at the front.
As I trekked closer, the image became clearer. A crooked cross rested atop the steepled building. Broken windows revealed the even darker shadows within the church itself. I seemed to have ended up in the same place I was last night.
It had been a long time since I’d ever revisited a place, and I wondered what could have prompted this placement. Oh right, my visions. Or whatever one would call the images I’d seen while in Hell.
And for some reason, I wondered if the same person would be waiting outside the church, maintaining his vigil on the large building. That thought spurred to me to walk a little faster through the graveyard.
I pushed open the black wrought-iron gate with a loud screech and walked out to the sidewalk. I didn’t dare get any closer to the church, instead choosing to remain within reach of the cemetery. The church stood ominously before me, casting its black shadow over my body. A small part of me wanted to run away from the imposing building, but a bigger part of me kept my body right where it was. Unfortunately, there was no figure standing before the door. There was only emptiness surrounding me.
Now that I was closer, I was able to analyze the building a bit more than before. Even though it was falling apart, the church was still so grand and so vast. Even though it was solemn in appearance, it still held an air of delicacy and gracefulness in the way it was constructed. The giant double doors seemed to be the centerpiece and the one part of the building that didn’t seem to be too damaged. The detailed intricacies of its design were a little faded, but other than that, the door had withstood the neighborhood’s destruction. Once could make out different scenes carved expertly on the door of people and animals and angels. The door was framed by a magnificent archway that drew the eye upward. Up, up, up pass every niche and perch of cracked or missing statues, all diminishing in the distance to the ultimate point of the top-most steeple with the crooked cross, itself gothically designed. There was a word to describe the church, and to describe the feeling with which it left me after I gazed upon it. I couldn’t think of it, though.
“Hauntingly beautiful,” I heard someone whisper at my side. I turned my head towards the sound and came across that same mop of ash-blonde hair I remembered from yesterday. He wasn’t staring at the church; his almond eyes were on me.
“The church?” I asked softly, feeling lost in his stare. I don’t know if it was the light from the moon or what, but his eyes seemed to sparkle and glimmer like they contained stars straight out of the sky. I was mesmerized.
He kept his gaze on me instead of answering my question. For a few endless seconds, we just stood there staring at each other. He was the one that finally broke the trance to look back at the church.
“It didn’t always look like this,” he stated. His lithe voice fell sweetly in the night. I felt like I could listen to it forever.
“I know,” I replied without thinking. For some reason, that answer felt right. Was it because of what I’d seen in the smoke in Hell?
The boy looked at me, confusion covering his porcelain-like face. His lips puckered, and his eyebrows furrowed slightly.
“How do you know?”
I stared at him blankly before replying, “I don’t know.”
At that, he giggled; such a beautiful, bell-like sound to my ears.
“Okay.”
With a hidden smile on his lips, he again turned his head away from me. I didn’t, though.
As I looked him over, more and more questions popped into in my mind. How could someone so beautiful and so bright be talking to someone as dark as me? Usually, humans sensed my evil aura and stayed away. If this guy was so fixated with the church, then why was he talking to me, the exact opposite of holiness? What about him was different? And why did I want to find it out?
“What’s your name?” he asked suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.
“Onew.”
As soon as my name left my tongue, something happened to the environment around me. It probably would have been imperceptible to normal people, but being a demon, I could sense even the slightest disturbance. All sounds muted for a second; the cry of crickets, the sigh of the breeze, and the rustling of trees all silenced themselves. A slight flicker of moonlight. Barely a second went by before everything returned to normal, and the person next to me breathed in.
“I’m Taemin,” he said with a slightly quieter tone that was a little off from the one before. A sort of tension and apprehension hung in the air for a few seconds.
Suddenly, Taemin grabbed a hold of my wrist and started to drag me towards the church. I stumbled after him, a bit stunned at his sudden action.
“Do you want to see the inside?” he asked me, though he said it as more of a statement, as if I didn’t have a choice.
As we got closer, I felt a pressure settle on my chest. It felt like a force that was resisting my closeness to the church. It grew and grew the more Taemin dragged me forward. The pressure soon turned into one that seemed to squeeze at my lungs and airways. It became difficult for me to breathe. My arms and legs started to feel like lead, my sight was blurring, and my mind was becoming hazy from lack of oxygen. I tried to muster out sounds of protest to Taemin, but I didn’t know if I was able to make any sound at all. Even if I did, it didn’t seem to register as he just kept pulling me closer and closer.
My body felt so heavy, and I felt a mixture of nausea and dizziness. I knew that if Taemin kept leading me closer towards the church, I would pass out or worse: die. I wished he would just look back at me and realize the pain he was putting me through.
I got my wish when he stopped and turned around. Upon seeing me, his face fell, and his usually bright aura seemed to dim a little. The sadness and pain that clouded his eyes was enough to make my heart somehow jump in my chest at his crestfallen expression. With that, he let go of my wrist, and I felt myself being forced away from the church. My back hit the iron fence of the cemetery harshly, and I sunk to the concrete ground with a thud.
I gasped as air filled my lungs, and I looked back at him. He was still standing in the same place he was when he let go of me. Even from my place by the graveyard, I could still see the distraught expression on his beautiful face. He mouthed the words, “I’m sorry,” before turning around and walking into the church. The large doors shut behind him with a thud of finality.
I didn’t move from the spot I’d fallen. Instead, I leaned back against the fence despite the pain and watched the doors of the church, hoping Taemin would come walking back out of them.
Hours later, he still did not emerge.
The sun rose, and as the rays hit my body, I felt myself fade back into the darkness and disappear.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ♱
[ 2] < < < Last
Next > > > [ 4]
Pairing: OnTae
Genre: Romance/Supernatural/Slight Angst
Rating: PG-13 for slight violence
Summary: Onew was cursed to forever walk between Hell and Earth as a demon, lonely and unfeeling. He had no memory of why he was cursed, nor what the curse truly meant. All he knew was that bad things seemed to happen to everyone around him, including a certain human named Taemin that had a perverse attraction to his demonic nature. Demons are cursed to never feel any emotion, though, so matter how much Taemin loved him, he could never reciprocate the feeling, and no matter how much danger Taemin was put in, Onew could feel nothing whenever the human was on the verge of death. Or at least, that's what he thought.
[Excerpt] I gasped as air filled my lungs, and I looked back at him. He was still standing in the same place he was when he let go of me. Even from my place by the graveyard, I could still see the distraught expression on his beautiful face. He mouthed the words, “I’m sorry,” before turning around and walking into the church. The large doors shut behind him with a thud of finality.
♱ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I appeared out of the shadow of a mausoleum in the back corner of a dark graveyard. The small structure was covered with moss and vines, and some of the stone was either cracked or missing. What once was a glorious memorial to the deceased was now just another decrepit statue among the hundreds in the cemetery. I ran my hand across the crumbling stone. Broken. Forgotten.
Only a small part of the moon was not covered in shadow, and it offered little illumination. I slowly picked my way over broken tombstones and nature’s overgrowth in an attempt to find the entrance. The only reference I had was the hazy outline of a dark building a ways away. I figured it must be at the front.
As I trekked closer, the image became clearer. A crooked cross rested atop the steepled building. Broken windows revealed the even darker shadows within the church itself. I seemed to have ended up in the same place I was last night.
It had been a long time since I’d ever revisited a place, and I wondered what could have prompted this placement. Oh right, my visions. Or whatever one would call the images I’d seen while in Hell.
And for some reason, I wondered if the same person would be waiting outside the church, maintaining his vigil on the large building. That thought spurred to me to walk a little faster through the graveyard.
I pushed open the black wrought-iron gate with a loud screech and walked out to the sidewalk. I didn’t dare get any closer to the church, instead choosing to remain within reach of the cemetery. The church stood ominously before me, casting its black shadow over my body. A small part of me wanted to run away from the imposing building, but a bigger part of me kept my body right where it was. Unfortunately, there was no figure standing before the door. There was only emptiness surrounding me.
Now that I was closer, I was able to analyze the building a bit more than before. Even though it was falling apart, the church was still so grand and so vast. Even though it was solemn in appearance, it still held an air of delicacy and gracefulness in the way it was constructed. The giant double doors seemed to be the centerpiece and the one part of the building that didn’t seem to be too damaged. The detailed intricacies of its design were a little faded, but other than that, the door had withstood the neighborhood’s destruction. Once could make out different scenes carved expertly on the door of people and animals and angels. The door was framed by a magnificent archway that drew the eye upward. Up, up, up pass every niche and perch of cracked or missing statues, all diminishing in the distance to the ultimate point of the top-most steeple with the crooked cross, itself gothically designed. There was a word to describe the church, and to describe the feeling with which it left me after I gazed upon it. I couldn’t think of it, though.
“Hauntingly beautiful,” I heard someone whisper at my side. I turned my head towards the sound and came across that same mop of ash-blonde hair I remembered from yesterday. He wasn’t staring at the church; his almond eyes were on me.
“The church?” I asked softly, feeling lost in his stare. I don’t know if it was the light from the moon or what, but his eyes seemed to sparkle and glimmer like they contained stars straight out of the sky. I was mesmerized.
He kept his gaze on me instead of answering my question. For a few endless seconds, we just stood there staring at each other. He was the one that finally broke the trance to look back at the church.
“It didn’t always look like this,” he stated. His lithe voice fell sweetly in the night. I felt like I could listen to it forever.
“I know,” I replied without thinking. For some reason, that answer felt right. Was it because of what I’d seen in the smoke in Hell?
The boy looked at me, confusion covering his porcelain-like face. His lips puckered, and his eyebrows furrowed slightly.
“How do you know?”
I stared at him blankly before replying, “I don’t know.”
At that, he giggled; such a beautiful, bell-like sound to my ears.
“Okay.”
With a hidden smile on his lips, he again turned his head away from me. I didn’t, though.
As I looked him over, more and more questions popped into in my mind. How could someone so beautiful and so bright be talking to someone as dark as me? Usually, humans sensed my evil aura and stayed away. If this guy was so fixated with the church, then why was he talking to me, the exact opposite of holiness? What about him was different? And why did I want to find it out?
“What’s your name?” he asked suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.
“Onew.”
As soon as my name left my tongue, something happened to the environment around me. It probably would have been imperceptible to normal people, but being a demon, I could sense even the slightest disturbance. All sounds muted for a second; the cry of crickets, the sigh of the breeze, and the rustling of trees all silenced themselves. A slight flicker of moonlight. Barely a second went by before everything returned to normal, and the person next to me breathed in.
“I’m Taemin,” he said with a slightly quieter tone that was a little off from the one before. A sort of tension and apprehension hung in the air for a few seconds.
Suddenly, Taemin grabbed a hold of my wrist and started to drag me towards the church. I stumbled after him, a bit stunned at his sudden action.
“Do you want to see the inside?” he asked me, though he said it as more of a statement, as if I didn’t have a choice.
As we got closer, I felt a pressure settle on my chest. It felt like a force that was resisting my closeness to the church. It grew and grew the more Taemin dragged me forward. The pressure soon turned into one that seemed to squeeze at my lungs and airways. It became difficult for me to breathe. My arms and legs started to feel like lead, my sight was blurring, and my mind was becoming hazy from lack of oxygen. I tried to muster out sounds of protest to Taemin, but I didn’t know if I was able to make any sound at all. Even if I did, it didn’t seem to register as he just kept pulling me closer and closer.
My body felt so heavy, and I felt a mixture of nausea and dizziness. I knew that if Taemin kept leading me closer towards the church, I would pass out or worse: die. I wished he would just look back at me and realize the pain he was putting me through.
I got my wish when he stopped and turned around. Upon seeing me, his face fell, and his usually bright aura seemed to dim a little. The sadness and pain that clouded his eyes was enough to make my heart somehow jump in my chest at his crestfallen expression. With that, he let go of my wrist, and I felt myself being forced away from the church. My back hit the iron fence of the cemetery harshly, and I sunk to the concrete ground with a thud.
I gasped as air filled my lungs, and I looked back at him. He was still standing in the same place he was when he let go of me. Even from my place by the graveyard, I could still see the distraught expression on his beautiful face. He mouthed the words, “I’m sorry,” before turning around and walking into the church. The large doors shut behind him with a thud of finality.
I didn’t move from the spot I’d fallen. Instead, I leaned back against the fence despite the pain and watched the doors of the church, hoping Taemin would come walking back out of them.
Hours later, he still did not emerge.
The sun rose, and as the rays hit my body, I felt myself fade back into the darkness and disappear.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ♱
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