Shards

If I could watch the glitter of glass fall in slow motion, maybe I could catch myself before the dazzling gleam turned to knives that rained down over me, splintering my skin into ribbons as my hands shielded my face and ears.

I could cast my words forth at the beings that attempted to slaughter me, with bullets, knives and more. Like a witch might bind someone up and turn them inside out, because her words are magic.

Wish on bone, on marrow, like teeth that grow larger and stronger until jaws become maws.

Dance on the death, the bodies lying scattered and we might all praise the beauty of things untold, things of legend that I am so bold to wear the skin of. For what are monsters and Gods in a land where religion holds moral bearing?

Not I. Not my flesh. Not any longer.

I am a demon, a monster born of curses and whispers. By witches? By wizards? Casters of ancient magic? I cannot say, but my eyes are sharp, glittering with gold in a way that no human can ever say they've seen. Gifted to me by a man with blue eyes like flame. An innocent mistake, cast out of wanton. Need. All the same.

I do not blame him for my monster. I blame the people who gave the monster reason to eat. For it devours all things in place of the wounds that don't heal, angling for the man who transcends time and believes he is deserving of peace from the long awaited war merriment he's finally uncommitted himself of.

Well, I suppose I am a devil here. Here and now. Tormenting what he seeks, so I might get to watch him squirm. Were I any more moral, I would have been a continuation of the heroine. A strong pivotal figure in a romance where I was true and sane.

But tonight, I do not believe I am such. I am his shadow, his demon. The haunt of a past he gave me I did not want. And we shall converse over it with a splash of flesh and blood to satiate my inner evil for a little while, because wounds that heal sometimes need to be opened again and again until the feeling all but bleeds out. Until the meaning runs as cold as the dead at my feet.

For here we are.

Dancing in the rain of bodies and screams, like it might commit some of the travesty we felt to less memory. And run out the pain like their screams might run out the sound of my own cries in my mind, echoing back the pain of a girl I no longer am.

For I am here.

We are here.

Let us be merry in this old war he once danced to.

And beholden us to our demons until I tire and want him no more.

Because the wounds I felt have festered for too long, and I need to silence them for good. Not once more.