Looking In The Mirror Now

Looking in The Mirror Now

 

Looking in the mirror now, seeing the ends of last night’s means. Red flecks, stains and drenches the features and the hands. Such beauty in every dimension. He claws glistening gouges in his own cheeks and fights back tears and screams. These wounds heal in moments, his perfection restored. But they are as real as the hot tingling through his dead veins and the whimpers shuddering from his panicked lungs. The pain lingers beneath the skin long after the surface is brought to the sickening calm of water once more. Drops of bright blood now bereft of origin trickle off his face and gather in the plugged sink.

                                      Again and again clawing at the flawless visage, drawing more blood. These vanishing cuts only fuel his desire for pain, increasing every moment to overwhelm him. His breathing loses coherency as he fumbles for an object. Anything. Sharp, metal, cruel. A pair of scissors clenched in gently trembling fingers. An iron grip as he holds them at arm’s length, inspecting the everyday object with new intention. Parting the blades and pressing them against a bare chest.

                                      A brief pause.

  Then scraping across thinly veiled ribs, slicing through flesh to expose firm white beneath, the sound of steel on bone, frenzied plunging into soft abdomen, sick gratification found in every tug, slice, stab, mouth moving but no sound emerging. Finally driving his implement into a thigh to remain for a time, every twitch of the leg provoking new punishment.

                                      So. Much. Blood. The sink now almost brimming, the viscious scent nauseating, sapping strength. Doubt sparks and bears him aloft of the moment. Who is the real victim here? Who is the real monster? Who must bear the burden of this curse?

                                      But jagged memories quickly rise to tear apart new found wings. The order of things becomes confused: sights, sounds, smells, sensations spasm in war against each other and inside his head he is forced to drink every sanguine drop spilled by their turmoil.

 

screams echoing from dead mouths and terror from dead eyes everything dead and white and growing cold at once feasting on the taste of warm iron strength returning and seeing colour drain from rosy cheeks the silk of golden hair on the face bending down not to kiss but to bite and rend limb from limb in search of last tender drops when the flow of life begins to wane lust satisfied looking down weeping softly savagely feeling of wetness on the hands shuddering rain blood flowing in an arrow down a drain one image clawing to the surface in ominous ascendancy the gaze now lifeless looking into my soul and asking why

 

Why is it that the fiend must live on at the expense of the innocent? Why must the wretched blood-sucker gorge himself on the beautiful? Why am I dead? Why do you still live?

 

The sudden sharp cold of ice as he is thrown back to face reality once more. Shivering, the stony, determined face staring back is his own once more. Nothing. Nothing can atone, no amount of pain, no degree of suffering. But he must try.

                                He looks down at the red broth stagnating, the sickness in the pit of his stomach reminding him of the shreds of humanity he has left: that precious weakness only those with immortality can truly appreciate. His features threaten to crumple in anguish, his mind to crack under the strain. The thought of shedding a single tear in self-pity, shedding tears as if to console, to empathise with such a thing as he has become disgusts him. Despite this he feels a tiredness and heaviness, an inner wall beginning to crack. His whole being braces, his breathing quickens in desperation, but it is not enough. You must not cry. You do not deserve to cry. Hideous, disturbed thoughts are birthed in the back of his mind, poisoning, tainting, corrupting, spreading until he is at their mercy, their willing slave. You do not deserve to cry.

                                    

You deserve to drown in your own blood.

                                   

                                   He grips the sides of the sink, able to make out the black circle of the plug through the crimson mist. He plunges his head in, a crashing sound filling his ears. He can only manage so long. Life is not meant for death. Barely three minutes and the convulsions rippling through his body force a gasp from him. He splutters, wrenching his head violently upwards, choking, a mouthful of blood burning down his throat, his feet slipping on the slick floor. Collapsed in shock, wiping blood from stinging eyes and forcing down endless grating breaths, just able to scrabble up to the sink to vomit....

 

He cries for hours. Until his head aches with a dull, unbearable throbbing. The tears form clear paths through the deep red of his blood-soaked face. All of a sudden he stops. Something reminds him of her. The most precious thing in the world that he had somehow forgotten in his madness. Yes. Yes, he will live. He will live for her and her alone, he manages to vow before he is gladly smothered in soothing thought of one who lies peacefully dreaming but ten feet away.

                                  He had better clean up. She will wake soon. A smile breaks loose and life is perfect once more. A few weeks of bliss will doubtless follow, but all too soon he will feel the black hooks tugging at his mind, a growing hunger that will render all his tender smiles and tranquil appearances but a petty masquerade. A fatal question will look him in the eyes, its putrid abhorrence sickeningly close, its fetid breath warm on his face.

 

How long before I must feed again?