☦︎; 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐒—𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐒 𝑬𝑵𝑫 ☦︎; ⛧
𝐈 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐲𝐩𝐭, 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐞𝐧𝐝.
The cold crept into my bones, curling between my ribs like something alive. Each stroke of my pencil grew harsher, until the lead finally snapped in my grasp.
My emotions sank heavy. My thoughts clawed.
I thought returning home would soothe the noise inside my head. I imagined that perhaps, nestled between the bone-laced mannequins and blood-spun silk, I might remember a version of myself that hadn’t yet drowned in ghosts.
I had only built a mausoleum here.
My fashion studio. A shrine of aesthetic violence had become a place where I fed the last living traces of my bloodline to the altar of memory. I slit her throat like I sketched. Carefully. Methodically. Gorgeously.
But tonight, I spared her.
I found her once more, only to release her from the torment I dragged her through each night.
It felt like something inside me had worn thin, exhausted from reliving everything with Avery.
My hands trembled as I finally understood what this all was. This studio wasn’t a sanctuary. It was a sanctum of sorrow, dressed in elegance to disguise its rot. It was time to 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑦 it.
I threw the sketch I had been working on across the room, the paper slicing the air like a scream. It landed face down, spared the indignity of being stared at.
I stood up from my desk, moving slowly across the room. My fingers dragged across the seams of gowns stitched from ruin. Beads like dried tears. Threads pulled from the backs of the dead. I had built a legacy in horror and still…I wanted to cradle it one last time.
Each step I took felt heavier than the last. The weight of memory. Of failure. Of love too spoiled to rot.
I stood before it all now. This altar I once believed was my salvation…but maybe it was only ever my cage and it’s time I set myself free.
My gaze drifted left. A small box of matches, left by none other than Ms. Devareux. Of course. Always her, lingering like a final omen.
Perhaps this was always how it was meant to end. In ruin and in flame. Maybe that’s why I came back home. . .to 𝑑𝑖𝑒 where it all began.
I struck the match. Its tiny flame bloomed as I let it fall onto my desk. The fire hesitated as if uncertain whether it was welcome in a room that had long since burned in spirit but then it rose.
Like a sudden gnawing inside my brain came the voices. They always came out to taunt. To play.
𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢？
A hiss behind the walls of my skull. I stood still as the flames licked the floor. Like they’d been waiting for my permission to swallow me.
𝑀𝑎𝑦𝑏𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡.
𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑡𝑜𝑜 𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒．
My fingers curled, nails biting into my palms.
𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑦 𝐴𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑦𝑜𝑢．．．𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑛𝑑．
With every word, I walked deeper into the heat.
𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑟𝑢𝑖𝑛 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑐ℎ，𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑖𝑡 𝑝𝑜𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑦. 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒌! 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒！
The smoke thickened. My eyes burned. My throat tightened and I sank to the floor. The scent of velvet death filled the room. I stared at my hands. Covered in paint, in blood, in memory. They trembled as I whispered.
The fire, like a god finally satisfied, roared louder. That’s when I felt it. A presence. Something colder than the flames and my sorrow.
@0nyxEternity stepped through the smoke like he was been born from it. The fire didn’t touch him, it recoiled. His gaze cut through the haze with amusement and when he finally spoke, it was with a drawl that slithered beneath the skin.
“You do know, love, that most people call the fire brigade when the house is burning…not make a throne from the ashes.”
I looked up as he walked closer, so calm that it disturbed me. Couldn’t I die in peace? “You light your own funeral pyre like it’s theatre. I have to say, it’s… bloody beautiful.” He said as he crouched before me.
“I’ve seen a lot of carnage in my time, sweetheart. But you—” he smiled slowly, it almost felt cruel. “You make destruction look like seduction.”
I tiled my head, eyes blurring from the smoke but then I asked “Who the hell are you?” my voice was soft and strained.
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he studied me like I was an old, rare book he’d long awaited. “Niklaus.” he said finally. “Though I’m sure you’ve heard whispers. People tend to speak of me when they’re trying not to die.”
I tried to rise but he didn’t let me.
“I’ve watched you, Alicena.” he said. “Since the moment your delicate heels returned to Paris. You thought it coincidence? That your bloodline screamed and spilled here of all places?”
My body stilled and he leaned in, his voice low and menacing. “I 𝑜𝑟𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 this stage. Every scream. Every death. Every drop of blood was a line in your symphony. I wanted to see how long it would take you to break.”
It felt as though the world had gone still. As if the fire devouring the walls around us had bowed its head to listen to his confession too. Of course it was him…the reason I had found someone tied to my blood. That woman hadn’t wandered to me by accident, she had been placed.
I see it now. Every brushstroke soaked in agony, every sketch tainted in red, it wasn’t fate I was painting. I was tethered to a performance, my spine the stage and my soul the string.
It was all him but I won’t be anyone’s puppet and he should know that.
“You’re insane…and that should offend you coming from me.” I said dry and venomous.
He tilted his head, eyes glinting. “Perhaps. But even madness recognizes magnificence.”
I laughed, breath catching on the smoke. “Magnificence?” I repeated. “Please… you don’t want to save me. You just want something to play with.”
His smile sharpened, touched with reverence and something far more unholy. “No.” he said, stepping closer, shadows dancing against his cheekbones. “I don’t want to save you. I want to see what the world looks like when it finally bows at your feet.”
Before I could spit another retort, he moved quicker than my eyes could catch. One arm around my waist, the other braced through the air and suddenly we were shattering through the stained-glass window like a cathedral bleeding light.
We hit the alley hard, stone and bone meeting in the echo of collapsing flame.
A myth made flesh. The monster whispered about in ancient corridors… had saved 𝑚𝑒.
The disbelief crawled up my throat like a second heartbeat. It didn’t make sense. I was supposed to be ashes by now. Why was he here? Why save 𝑚𝑒?
He stood just beyond reach, backlit by the inferno I had birthed, his silhouette holy in its ruin…and still, he looked at me like I was the only thing that had ever mattered. Like I was the very blaze he’d walked into, not the one he’d pulled from it.
I stared at him. My pulse screamed. My skin trembled. Part of me wanted to flee and part of me wanted to fall.
“You shouldn’t have come.” I said, softer now. The words came out cracked, like even they didn’t believe themselves.
He stepped closer with a maddening ease. The kind only a man like him could have, the kind that says he’s never once been denied. His eyes, two polished weapons, dragged over me like a slow execution. Not a word passed his lips but I felt the tension coil. He looked at me as though I were a work of art carved solely for his undoing.
He grabbed me before I could oblige, his mouth crushed against mine and it wasn’t affection…it was annihilation. His kiss burned like the studio I had set ablaze. He kissed me like he was entitled to it. Like he’d earned it in blood. I kissed him back like I wanted to ruin him.
𝐴𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑠𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑦 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡, ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑦 𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐼 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑚𝑦 𝑣𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛, 𝑠𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑖𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑡ℎ 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑡 𝑘𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑒．
baratheonpilled
dededos
pixelskylines
jacobvanloon
