My Guardian and My Demise

A story I wrote years ago, and found recently

It wasn't meant to happen. But he was beautiful, the sense of dark elegance that hung in the air around him like... Like a beautiful mistake, like an amazing creature that if I let it, it would kill me. But it hadn't yet. Why that was, I'm not sure. But I'm glad. Standing in his presence was hypnotising, I couldn't move, couldn't speak, just revel in his horrible beauty. Something was telling me I should run, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

He stood in front of me, our faces inches away. He brought his hand up and I tried flinching away from it, he paused for a moment his hand floating in the air, close enough to my cheek that if he extended his smallest finger fully, I would feel the heat of his hands coursing through the nerves in my face. An evil smirk, plastered on his face. He was the black knight and I was just a pawn from the light side of the chess board. Just another pawn for him to trick and toy with.

"Don't bother fighting Amelia. You will be mine." His cool voice sounded like his throat was a flute and each word was a note, perfectly strung together to make a bone chilling, beautifully deadly symphony. I shivered as he finally touched his fingers softly to my cheek. Not because his hands were cold, they were incredibly warm. Too warm to be human. It was because his touch was so light, his fingertips barely skimming my skin. I didn't know whether I wanted to swat his hand away or lean into it and close my eyes. This was how he toyed with me. It was different for each of his pawns. Some he needed to terrify, but he knew I wasn't scared easily. Some he needed to get rid of quickly, but he wanted to enjoy toying with me. And some, like me, he had to make doubt their own emotions, he had to make them feel uncertain about every aspect of their life. He needed to make my willpower crumble.

"But I..." I tried to say something but before he was able to stop me, I stopped myself. I didn't know what excuse to give him. I didn't know whether I wanted to give him an excuse. I just wanted him to end it. End the toying, or my life. He was my own personal demon, who would haunt me, till the end of my existence. Whether I wanted him to or not, he had chosen me.

Then there was my guardian, this graceful, light, being who seemed too moral to be anything but an angel. But that’s what he was to me. Just like I had my demon, I had my guardian, my right to counter my wrong. And he was just as beautiful as my demise was when I found him. Even now he will always be. 

He stood behind the two of us, watching the scene, but he knew he couldn’t stop it. As much as he was trying, everyone has a dark side and a light. And my dark side was too overpowering. I was going to the dark side of the chess board and all my white king could do, was watch on and pray for me. He was the only thing trying to hold me back. The only one that had it in their heart to care. For that I owe him my gratitude and life. But the dark was all too enthralling.

“Amelia. Please don’t. Don’t let him trick you.” He begged and pleaded behind me, worry thick in his warm hearted tone. Only wanting for me to be fine. For me to be safe. I turned back to him, looking into his pained eyes. I was his assignment. But it became more than that. He was willing to use his life to protect me. But for the first time, the two of us were helpless. For the first time it was the truth that it was us against the world and the two of us would never be enough. He would get out unscathed, but I was not meant to see the end of this. I was destined to die by the dark’s hand. He ran to me, latching onto my hand, hanging on for dear life.

 That’s when I doubted my choices, not believing I had allowed myself to get so close to something so, evil. But that was all my heart could take, that was the last piece of shattered wit, left in my mind. Without it, he knew he had finally broken me.

“I’m sorry.” I said softly before I turned around again and I felt his hand clasp my neck, his eyes went bright red and I knew, this was the last thing that would be in my mind. My feet left the ground and his hand tightened. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t beg, I was going to die. This was my end. And then I felt it, the sharp pain in my chest. He was taking my soul, adding it to the collection of damaged and broken souls he had collected. The pain subsided and for just a moment, I had bliss, no pain, no feeling and no thoughts. But that was the end, for after that. Was nothing. I saw nothing, was nothing, am nothing. 

So my guardian and my death had their battle, they had the battle which was predestined to happen many years ago and I was trapped between the heavens and hell below us. And like the ceiling and floor of a cursed temple, they were going to collide, taking my life amidst the fight. I was collateral damage in the age old fight between good and evil.