a/n:

commentz are appreciated muchly and all reviewz are love (meaning plz giv me feedback). deal with my shorthand. tcha. if you cringe as you read this (i do), skip the chapt. it actualli isn't necessary.

-k8

note (added 01/23/07): haha, i'm sorry about the shorthand. where it stops in the notes is about where i dare defend this fic, though i think the writing def improves chapt by chapt. if you end up liking this, then i'm just blessed. because there is quite a bit of drivel here. & i'll warn you straight-up: plot gets turned into internal character mish-mash. one day DH will be rewritten. until then - i'm sorry, but i have to ask you to bear with me. thank you so much for reading this!

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Dark Hunter

Summary: Because of her, he's being taken to his death. If that wasn't bad enough, she clearly hates him, hates the world, and hates herself. So what does he do? Well, he kind of ... falls for her. Oops?

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Chapter One

(default chapter)

I woke, but it felt like I was still dreaming.

I had to be.

This could not be real.

My cheeks felt stained, and I knew they were salt-crusted. I choked and coughed repeatedly as my body tried to rid itself of the smoke that still envenomed its lungs. But I knew that the essence of it would never truly leave.

It is one of those unexplainable things – the things that never go away, no matter how much time passes. Once you are touched by the darkness, it stains you, and you can never escape it thereafter. You do not forget the memories of those moments; they stay to haunt your footsteps for the rest of your life.

If I could have persuaded myself that I had simply been trapped in a nightmare, and still was, maybe I would have been calmer; more rational. But I knew it was not my imagination.

Do not ask me how I knew, or how I know that I am still not envisioning this whole existence I live now, because I cannot explain it, other than to point out that we can never be truly sure if we are seeing what is real or not.

While you are staring the event in the face, and all your blood does not flow, and you cannot draw in a breath, and your body is frozen in time and feels like it is not your own, and everything around you makes no sound because you can hear the sound of what you fear at that moment so loudly it drowns everything else out, you do not think you are merely conceiving the horrific situation. You may wish you are, for you do not want it to be happening, but you do not truly believe it.

You cannot understand the logic of it until it happens to you. I did not comprehend it myself. I did not want to, and I did not try to.

But life has a way of turning around on you so suddenly you are caught in mid-step and place your foot down before you realize the world spun on its axis a million times during the course of that single step.

Life is not fair – everyone tells you that. I, however, am not so sure. You cannot go through what I went through and then take everything at face value or at whatever value people tell you afterwards.

Life is simply a chain of events, a long tangled string of moments and emotions, thrown at you all at once. I prefer to think that it is the events themselves, and how they ensue, that is unfair.

“Life” is a word that is used far too loosely. I see that so clearly now, but I never thought of it before. For me, life is the wind blowing through the heavens. It is the heartbeat of the world pulsing through your veins. It is one of the central cores of humanity that connects us all. It is something everyone comes in contact with, but no one understands. It is the soft strains of the music of each breath you take. It is the innocent laughter of a child. It is the foundation of nature. It is the spaces between the stars in the night skies, where there is no end or beginning. It is the inner glow in the face of someone who loves you when they look at you and the unguarded shining in the trusting soul of belief.

Life is a gift, and it is not to be taken for granted. But it is strange how though everyone says that, they do not mean it. They cannot mean it. They do not know how it feels to have life stripped from them.

But I ... I know.

The traumatic experiences that force lives to cease to live are, in my belief, too tragic for children to endure. Yet children are not excused from them. And through the eyes of a child, who is still undergoing currents of profound joy and wonder as they see more of the world around them, the lightest troubles become irrationally intense, and the problems that are actually severe in the first place become overwhelmingly life-alternating, even life-scarring, and life loses its beauty thereafter.

The memory ... it hurts...

I could barely stand. My legs were shaking, and my body was shivering violently. I could not stop it, even though I tried – oh, how I tried!

I had cried the entire night before, and I felt wasted and drained from the emotional toll. My eyes should have long run out of tears, but they seemed to be supplied endlessly by the cold air stinging my face.

That day, long ago, I cried enough tears to deplete the stores that should have remained for years after. I have not cried since, but I can still remember how it felt to feel the liquid flowing endlessly over my cheeks and how the saltwater tasted. How I wished I could have slept. But I think my crying would not have stopped even if I had. Sleep was no comfort then, and it still is not now. Nightmares plagued my mind each night, and more often than not I woke sweating and burning with fever. The days back then were long and trying. I would wish for them to end, but when they did, night came and haunted me until I begged for day. That cycle became my mental eternity. All I could do was live for the next moment, and then force myself through the pain it always brought with it.

When I was conscious, I was shadowed by hellish visions. Closing my eyes gave me no relief, for the images stayed with me, and I could not shake them. The past was over, but it did not let me leave it behind. It pursued me relentlessly.

I could see it all clearly: the bright searing lights, the dizziness and shortness of breath, even the burning all through my body.

And I could hear the screams, as piercing as if they resounded through my very soul.

I do not remember whose screams they were.

Maybe they were my own.

The physical pain was terrible in itself. I have never since felt even half the agony I felt then, but all of that paled in comparison to the emotional turmoil that followed me after. Nothing could have prepared me for that.

I know what I am saying when I say that you do not even touch the edges of true pain until you are so desperate to try and escape it that you try and force yourself not to breathe, and succeed in overcoming the involuntary human reflex to inhale.

I am not sure why I am still alive. I have thought of killing myself, and have tried to, many, many times.

I do not know why I have not succeeded.

I stood among the ashes of all that remained of life as I knew it, risking my life to do so. But I did not care.

What was life to me then, since I did not wish to live?

And by then the tears had stopped – outwardly, at least. Inwardly, they still poured. They did then, they do now, and I think they always will. Inside my soul and my heart, I will always cry, for there is nothing that can stop the flow.

Living felt so far away. Life felt so far away. My mind did not feel alive. It felt like it was dead; I had not coherently thought in what seemed like years. I did not know what to do. I did not know what I was doing.

I cannot remember what I was thinking at that moment, but I remember all too well what I saw, and what I felt, even though I wish to forget it.

Everything was gone.

It wasn’t possible!

How could everything have gone?

Was I alive? I was breathing, but was I alive?

A hair-raising screech from the sound of metal scraping metal sent shivers through me. A naked blade reflected the glaring sunlight I did not see. I touched the edge with my finger, testing it.

Sharp.

A jet of blood spurted suddenly from a cut that seemed to appear from nowhere, and I winced involuntarily. I stared at the knife in my hand for a long time, turning it over and over in my hands, admiring the keen edge and the gleaming metal that made the blade. It felt like I was in a dream. Like I was watching someone else.

What was I doing?

I pulled it across my left wrist.

At first there was only a faint sensation of shock. I did not know what to do. I did not even realize I had just cut myself. I just stood there and watched the thin line turn red. I watched with a slight, detached interest as the blood travelled along the cut’s entire length, filling it and then overflowing it, not really thinking about what was happening. It didn’t register.

Then the pain came, first light, then searing.

I dropped the knife to clutch my arm, and the blade clattered to the ground, the sound ringing in my ears as if I was in a hollow chasm.

Agony. So much pain.

Yet I felt comforted. Strange. I do not know why, but somehow it made me feel better. I could concentrate on the wound, and not on reality or the wreckage strewn around me.

That day was the first time I ever drew steel across my flesh.

But I admit it was not the last.

Since then, I have watched my own blood stain the ground many, many times.

Sometimes there is a lot of blood, and it runs down my skin like a river and drips off of my fingers to splatter on the ground and it soaks through the cloth of my shirt, racing up it with an insatiable hunger. Sometimes there is only a little, and I only see a trickle of sticky liquid that barely registers. But there is always blood.

Always: that is the point.

Sometimes I draw pictures on my arms and hands, or I just cut numerous times randomly. I have even cut out my name. It makes a pretty pattern, when the blood begins to seep. I never cut both arms at once, though. I never make too deep a cut. I do not want to die. I just want to hurt. Just to see if I still can be hurt. If I can still feel.

I always can, and after I finish satisfying my curiosity I tell myself that it will be the end of my self-mutilation. It will be the last time, I promise myself. I will not do it again.

And I always break that promise.

My arms are heavily scarred now, and those scars do not fade. Some of them are almost ten years old, yet they are still there. So I cover my arms.

But I do not try and make the marks go away. They are always there, to remind me of my past and to show me I can still feel pain and that I still have blood running through my veins. I need them. They remind me that I am still alive.

I forget that a lot, you see.

a/n:

thank you for reading that. if you liked it, i'm flattered. there were some veri, veri awkward linez. and the rest of this stori iz not in first person, thank God.

-k8