Daily Writing Challenge 2021
Day 27 & 28: Delicious/Blood & Ascension/Obsession
(TW for blood, violence, and generally creepy vibes)
Every facet of the gem glitters exquisitely in my hands, no flaws to be found. Everywhere I turn, I am surrounded, consumed, overwhelmed by the sheer joy of it.
The sight and sound of blood set free from its prison and flying across hard-packed dirt, the smell of it as it coagulates and rots in the sun, as maggots find it and the meat it once kept fresh. The taste of it in the wind, after hours of brutal combat has left the air itself dense and damp with it. The chill of what was once warm, sticky on my fingertips as I wipe it away and lick my hands clean.
Chefs only wished they could create a meal so decadent for me. Plenty had tried and failed, and I delighted in their terror when they saw my boredom. Always so fleeting, though, those little moments. But a battlefield? Ahh, the thrill of not knowing! It could be moments or millennia! Mortal minds were so flighty, so quick to go for the throat but so rarely sure how long they'd hold on. And some weren't remotely uncertain; some, my favorites, the most fascinating ones, would rip and tear the throat and chew at the pieces long after their former owner had stopped writhing.
And then, and this was what made them my favorite: they would teach their young to crave throat meat. To seek it out, to rip and tear it and bring it home to show their families, to take pride in it. Trophies! Testaments to pride, wrath, sometimes even lust all in one! Positively delicious, these mortal minds and their macabre pleasures. It was always worth encouraging them. Even if they didn't do what I expected, they always did what I wanted.
I always remembered that, even when I fell into my obsession with escape. Hell was... so restrictive. So frustrating. So dull. So mindless. It managed to make torment miserable for me. Of course it did; it's Hell, but still. That always seemed unfair. But again, it's Hell; that was probably the point. To not just take away the pleasure of pain but to make me keenly aware of the injustice of it.
Either way, I was aware of it, and I hated it. I wanted out.
Mortals always did what I wanted. Eventually.
It required nothing less than the absolute obliteration of Hell, and that, in turn, brought the universe in which it rested to a grinding halt. Heaven and Hell could not collide, but neither could they exist without one another, and so it all fell apart. I regret nothing about this. All they had to do to avoid it was let me out. It would have been so simple; everyone wins.
Instead, they chose oblivion.
And now I look upon my flock, far away from the torments of Heaven and Hell, and I smile. Not because I am free, not because my enemies are dead, not because the world I left behind was annihilated from the very memory of the universe, save for me.
No. I smile because soon, the battle will be in my name. The very thought leaves me quivering in my temple. My silken throne is a place of celebration, though my flock thinks it is for their impending victory. The celebration is mine and mine alone, for I am mere moments from the first satisfaction I have felt in ages innumerable. First, I dine; then, they pray; then, they fight.
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