zarina's words, though incomprehensibly cryptic, were resonating with broken pieces of the bygones days that seemed to be a gnawing hole inside cael's memories. sharp and carefully intrusive as if they were crafted to be a wicked incantation of the damned, each honey-dripped syllable she sung pierced deeply into his private thought and penetrated every nook and cranny of his brain. they were searching and digging and probing and prodding at parts of him that were incomplete as they blinded his vision, violently, with a sudden surge of fleeting images that were clearly...
clearly her. zarina, and zarina's eyes, and zarina's smirk, and zarina's stone-cold touch, and zarina's blood, dripping down his neck, his fingers clenching around her wrist, her lips pressing to his ear, and...
his head hurt, again, like it always does whenever he tried to recall what was forgotten; it was starting to making him see red. it was aggravating. it made him want to lash out at himself, at the world, at everybody else out of frustration, but mostly at her, the subject of his torment, because no matter what it was or how trivial, why did everything keep coming back to her? her voice, her eyes, her smirk, her touch... they all drove him insane. he wanted to tear her apart, and suck her blood dry until she was nothing but a husk, a beautiful corpse who could no longer tamper with his mind however she saw fit, and feel her cold hand, dead, caress his cheek in slow, gentle sway, assuring him that these very fingers couldn't push him down further into the spiralling madness anymore.
however, in the end, such fanasies were never actualised. he wouldn't dare. he was compelled to kiss the tip of her heels, and to suffocate in her hypnotic gaze. above all else was the unfathomable desire to please her. so did it matter whether he remembered or not? she was there. she always had been. her face a permanent phantom in his soul, her voice a ghostly reminder of to whom he belonged. he had come to terms with this the moment he met her blazing golden eyes.
' no. ' because the city was already burning with desparity when he opened his eyes, and he had lived within this hell ever since then. there was no before, no i once was, it once was, or we once were; for him, there was only one reality against which humankind struggled in vain to restore its former glory despite the absurd nature of that mentality. he quickly realise it was a rather pointless statement because he knew she was well aware of that and it wasn't what she really needed right now, but he made an effort anyways. he wanted to give what she asked for even if he had little to offer. mismatched eyes attentively observed her expression as he sat down next to her, curious about what she was so terribly engrossed in despite being infamous for her ruthlessness. what could ensnare such a cruel woman and engulf her entire being in melancholy? perhaps a memory of a loved one? a brief reminiscient to a once joyful life, without him? with him?
' what troubles you? ' cael asked. he wanted to know.
