𝙾𝙻𝙶𝙰. we have never been beggars. it is simply not in our nature and neither is it in our capabilities. my mouth does not know how to form these desperate shapes, my tongue at an even worse loss to carve words that did not sound like an order, ᴀɴ ᴀʙꜱᴏʟᴜᴛᴇ ꜰᴀᴄᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴀɴɢɪʙʟᴇ ᴜɴɪᴠᴇʀꜱᴇ. IT IS FASCINATING, really, the way my throat fills with howls to match those of the waves, invisible in the abyssal nothing. no gentle sound could survive in that ragged column of flesh and blood upon which sat my head, but how could I bear to scream at her any longer?
élisabeth is nothing more than a glimmer of false light in the pitch darkness, some ways ahead of me, moving sporadically like a dust mote in the wind. every now and then I catch the glint of a jewel or a speck of glitter on her skin; EVEN IN THIS VACUUM, SHE SHINES. that is who she is, but what of myself? 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑, 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐀𝐌 𝐈? I am someone else’s pride, a mind and a set of machinations. I am a firm handshake and a cold visage. 𝐌𝐘 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋, 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐔𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄. I look ahead and only ahead. they certainly say that hindsight is twenty - twenty, but what good is hindsight to someone whose eyes would sooner roll back in unconsciousness than do something as useless as search the past. I look ahead and only ahead while my regrets sleep inside me like hidden time bombs, waiting, I’m sure.
the world darkens with each passing second and I can feel myself sinking into the sand beneath my heels. to the left is the ocean, unseen yet powerful all the same, and to the right is the bustling traffic of an eternal night, cars and pedestrians remaining in the light. I am as still as a dense shadow, unchanging even as whatever scant light that does manage to pierce our arena shines off the dull flaxen shine of my hair. only my eyes move and they do so with precision, just as always, to track élisabeth as she paces and stalks like a spectre stuck in a loop. LUCIE, MY LOVE, MY LIGHT, CAN YOU ESCAPE THE MEMORY? think of something else, anything else, besides the sight of me as the devil, offering my hand as though it were a guillotine descending. ᴀɴᴅ ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴀɴ ᴏʀᴅᴇʀ, ᴍᴀ'ᴀᴍ? I grit my teeth and draw a breath in between the bone, seething even against my own will.
“ THE TIDE WILL COME IN SOON, ” I announce, speaking in absolutes once more, my voice disappointingly dead - like yet still so commanding; I suppose that if I could not look behind me, then history would have to speak through me itself. “ COME ON, LUCIE, I CAN SEE THAT YOU WANT TO YELL AT ME, SO COME HERE AND YELL. ” / @ouorboros ❤
