Author’s Tangent: Hello to all of my readers. I dearly hope you enjoy this newest rendition to the collection of my stories. It is a bit different from the stories I’m used to and by far darker. I beseech that you do not read if you do not like gore and will shun me for it. I appreciate only constructive criticism that doesn’t involve complete bashing. If you don’t like the storyline, then simply do not continue with the story, but trust me, read more than the beginning, the beginning is deceiving, and the story is much more beautiful and less dark. However, the beginning is wretchedly devilish. But please enjoy, and I apologize for editing errors that I missed.

The Prelude Before Darkness

Fate. What is fate? Is it a time or place that sets actions into motion? Or is it just merely a cause that sets forth the best or worst tragedy? Or is it just something that you’re destined for? Well, for a young girl at the age of six, fate was about to begin. She would encounter the one thing to send her into the tumult of her own story. And this all began on a breathtaking day, a day for freaks to come dance with the regulars. It was the day of a grand and all too alluring Ne Cede Malis .

The circus. Oh how Leyna adored the circus the first time her eyes fell upon it. It was a cool, breezy day when she, gripping her mother and father’s hand, entered into the giantess of an orange beastly tent. Her eyes popped open like tiny corks from a wine bottle, and her lips opened in the most perfect circle.

To her the circus was her real glimpse of true beauty. Her eyes roamed the area as if they had a burning fever, and she drank the entire scenery like water to quench the sickness. Fat clowns with puffy hair and elaborate face paint sang curiously to children. Acrobats swung from above in slender, arching forms. African elephants sat like princely puppies. Dwarfs walked hand in hand with illustrious princesses. Men on stilts danced with women in gypsy masks. Elegant ladies twirled and twirled on tight ropes with flying ribbons. Strange humans made pyramids on top of each other. Children appeared as jesters and smiled like tiny devils. Rambunctious venders handed salty peanuts to cheering crowds. Cotton candy grew in tall spurts from the ground like stalks of corn, and popcorn crunched loudly beneath feet. Excitement ran thick in the air, and laughter sent echoes across the entire tent. Everything was dark glitter and colors. It attracted the girl like no other.

As she wandered with her hand grasping tightly to her mother’s hand, she seemed as though in a drugged daze. It was truly fantastical, and she never wanted to leave. Then, as her eyes roamed furiously, they spotted something ever so delicious looking, a blue mound of fluffy blues and pinks, and she felt compelled to press the sticky blue to her warm lips. Her mother smiled at her and handed her enough coins to fill her small palm. Then, sprinting away from her parents, she skipped the entire way to the colorful trolley of cotton candy, placing the small coins within a jester’s white hand. He grinned down at her and patted her head, trading her silvery coins for a cone of cotton candy.

With a joyous laughter, she spun around and scanned the crowd for her parents, and suddenly a wave of horror gripped her. They were nowhere to be seen and her heart thumped. They would not leave her here with these strange fellows, would they? She raced forward as her heart skipped and her head spun. Her hand clutched the cotton candy like a lifesaver and she bellowed through the crowd of happy-go-lucky people, “Mama! Papa!” No answer.

Gasping for breath as if drowning, she halted and felt tears coming to her eyes, as she looked around frantically. People shoved past her as if she was a rag doll, and she felt horrifically lost. What was she to do? Run away with these freaks? At this thought, she began to sob uncontrollably and she only ran further, escaping to a dark place beneath the shade of a small tent. There, she fell to the ground, landing with a soft plop in the dirt. Her hands grabbed at the dirt for something to cling to and she swallowed the globs of spit that sat in her throat. What was she to do? Surely no one would steal her away here.

Then all too suddenly, a soft voice spoke down to her. It was a pure and soothing voice that sent pleasant chills up her spine. “Are you lost?”

Leyna’s pretty green eyes blinked upwards and they fell upon a boy’s pale eyes. He looked at her with a quizzical stare, his mouth half-open and his big eyes blinking rapidly. Gulping, Leyna scooted backwards on her bum and clenched her hand to her chest. She should not talk with strangers. That was the first rule. She knew it was. Never take candies from strangers and then . . . don’t talk to them. Or . . . maybe not. However, she just stared at him with frozen and terrified eyes.

The boy frowned and sighed, shoving his little hands into the pockets of his plaid pants. “Are you scared of me too?” He asked rather politely, and then he smiled lightly, running a hand through the bushels of his soft hair.

“I-I-I’m not s-scared.” Leyna stuttered out, trying hard not to sob out of distress.

“Oh, it’s perfectly alright if you are. Just about everyone else is. That’s why I love coming here. I mean, no on judges a freak at a circus. Just look around. There’s a man walking around with two heads.” The boy laughed and bit his lip as he looked at her tear stained face. “But I promise I would never hurt you. I just don’t want to see such a pretty face so sad.” Leyna’s mouth opened slightly in wonder, and the boy reached into his back pocket, “I got something out of a vender. Maybe it would cheer you up.” He brought his hand out with his fist curled around a prize and he knelt down beside her. “I mean if you don’t like it you don’t need to take it, but . . .” He opened his fist and Leyna gasped, the green shimmering in her eyes.

“Pretty!” The word escaped her mouth like a sin. Inside his white palm sat a silver ring with a beautiful round ruby on the band.

The boy grinned, “Isn’t it? I mean it’s not worth much, but would you like it?” As she cutely and vigorously nodded, he smiled, “Alright!” He gently took her left hand and placed it on her ring finger, “Do you like?”

With wide eyes, she held her hand up and spread apart her fingers, staring at the ruby shining brightly from the sun that ebbed in through a small hole in the tent. “Wow!” Her entire face lit up with a huge smile.

The boy’s lips spread into a smile, “Well, I’m glad that you’re smiling now.” He suddenly adverted her eyes and his face blushed feverently, “Someone with such a beautiful smile should always be wearing it.”

Leyna giggled, “Thank you.”

This made the boy blush even more and he laughed, “You’re welcome.” He suddenly bit his lip again, “Please forgive me.” He dipped forward and placed a quick kiss on her warm pink cheek, which made her fall back in surprise. The boy swallowed sharply and he frowned, “I’m sorry, but . . .”

She smiled, “My name is Leyna.” With that, she gently returned a kiss to his cheek. “I’m sorry, too.”

Crimson consumed the boy’s face and he brought a hand to his forehead, “You are so cute.”

She cocked her head, “Why is your hair white?”

He blinked confusedly and then smiled, “It’s not white. It just seems white.”

Her mouth formed a perfect circle, and adverting his eyes again, he laced his fingers in with her smooth fingers that touched the filthy ground. “Can you promise me something?”

“What?” She whispered out.

“Never take that ring off.” His eyes gazed into hers and she smiled.

“I promise.” Her eyes glimmered from the recent tears and happiness.

He smiled and he crawled towards her, forcing her to fall backwards onto the dirt. Her fiery red hair fanned out like a beaming halo, and the boy looked down at her smiling up at him. “You are absolutely amazing . . . and you’re not scared of me.” He leaned down, his free hand touching her soft cheek. With a swallow, he brought his face to her neck and she instantly felt his tongue graze the white of neck. She gasped and he instantly kissed her on the lips quite roughly. Feeling stunned, she just stared up at the empty darkness under of the tent, feeling dazed as he dipped his head to the crook of her neck. Then, as she drew in her breath, she felt an alarming burst of pain and pleasure. She felt she would float away and drown in it, and somehow she knew it was wrong. However, she felt undeniably comforted, and she raised her left hand to stare at the ring again. Oh how blissful.

Then as if a crystal ball had shattered, a piercing yell ripped through the air, “LEYNA!”

One word burst through Leyna’s lips, “Mother!”

The boy bolted up, his eyes wide with surprise and his lips a brilliant color red, a red as bright as the ruby. He seemed rather dazed for a moment and his eyes appeared unfocused. “Oh dear God . . .” He whispered, and he shook his head, glancing down into her eyes.

“My mother!” Leyna burst out again, quickly sitting up.

The boy suddenly and surprisingly jumped up from the ground and stared at her as if he had done something so utterly wrong that it pained him. “I am so sorry, Leyna.” He backed away slowly and then turned to run.

Feeling rather confused and lightheaded, she called after him, “What’s your name?!”

The boy halted and he looked behind to face her, his teeth biting his lip again, “It’s . . . uh . . . well, Ari.” Then he bolted and disappeared through the black of the tents.

Leyna merely stared after him and a disoriented feeling washed over her. Had that really happened? Her mother’s voice rang through the air again, “Leyna! There you are!”

Leyna spun around to see her mother racing toward her. A smile burst onto Leyna’s face, and she brought a hand up to where the boy’s lips had been mere seconds ago. It still felt wet, and as she brought her hand down, her mouth fell open slightly as she stared at the red blood that stained her tiny fingertips.

The Gray

It was a day not to be remembered. It was a day for gray. That was the color of that day as the snow fell softly onto the ground. The sun pleading for help from behind dark clouds that consumed the air like thick hoards of plaguing pests, and the sky was shifting angrily with sickly colors of gray. Ebbing chills shot haphazardly through the silk air, and the crows cawed echoingly from the sky like poor wretches. Blackened trees deadened from lack of leaves stood out starkly as if praying corpses. The ground was slippery with a thin, ugly white frost. Feelings of emptiness and loneliness stretched themselves gaunt throughout; an aura of mourning remained depressingly thick in the air. No one would remember that day except those two lonely figures.

The gravestones. They stood out like wretched monuments. The cobblestone on the ground held them up wickedly and displayed them to the world. Those gravestones were hideous. They were surrounded by rusted iron fencing, and were enclosed in a secret place for the dead. On such a day, the graves seemed like monsters turned into beautiful, erected statues. They appeared ready to spring and devour if released from their icy imprisonment. The gravestones stood as if testaments against all wrongs. The despicable day gave them their life. Who would mourn on such an ugly, hateful day?

Even gravestones on the dreariest of days have their watchers though, and these beasts were no exception. Two brave souls stood against the wind. Their hands were intertwined awkwardly and they stood rigidly staring at a giantess of a grave, so big that it could envelop them both. One was barely half the height of the other, and the other was thinner than paper. There was a young boy clasping dried irises in one breakable hand; there was a young mother who could not be judged by her weaknesses. They stood there against everything, staring with small eyes and small hearts into the faces of demons.

The boy had silvery blonde hair easily mistaken for white. His eyes were the palest of blues, and his lips the pinkest of pinks. His cheeks bore a rosy color from the stinging wind, and his icy skin bore a mark of purple slowly creeping out from beneath his black turtleneck. He had little ears and little limbs. He could be no older than ten, yet it seemed his eyes had seen more than that of an old man. Pride had already tainted him, and dignity had soured him into quietness. It was all born in his eyes, for his face was a stony mask of fearful sorrow. Those pale eyes looked into the very mouth of the demon and shunned him with a fevering passion. He wanted nothing with the stony monster.

His mother stood with less boldness and a twittering uncertainty could be seen within her soul. She did not stare into the beast with confused eyes like her child; she stared at the monster with the diminishing passion of a lost lust. Irresolution was easily taken from her slight, black-blue eyes. Her whispery blonde hair billowed out like a ghost from beneath a cloth hood, hiding her face in shadows from the world. The slightness of her build made her body sway gently as her shivering arms clutched helplessly to her son’s hand. Fear emanated from her aura, but she still stood watching the monster with love. She knew what she had to face, and she would with the hope that all would be forgiven, each and every one of her faults and vulnerabilities, her weaknesses.

So perhaps this scene is confusing, two different familiar souls staring at a corpse grave. Surely they would be inside on such a day. Except today was the day. It was the anniversary of a sickness, a deathly sickness, and a sickness of blackened sores and feverish chills of agony. It consumed both of their worlds. So this is why they stood there, without anything except two shriveled irises losing their color.

The boy bit his tongue to hold his tears at bay; he would be brave in front of his withering mother. He was resolute. He cherished her as if she was Noah’s white dove. She was oh so precious to him, and he would do his best to protect her. No one would hurt his mother. His hand curled tightly around the irises and he felt the frail stems snap within his blistering palms. Those blisters were reminders to him and he felt his hand open. The irises drifted to the ground lightly, landing upon the foot of the gravestone like two wounded animals arising from watery depths. His hand re-clenched and his throat tightened from a sob about to break forth. The eyes of his mother looked to the broken irises and her icy hand felt warm in his grip. Then she looked up again and her fist tightened around his hand as her mind came to an unknown resolve. The sob broke forth from his chapped lips, “Papa . . .”

The mother glanced at the boy, “Do you love me?”

The boy’s grip tightened, “Forever.”

His mother sighed in relief, “My brave son.”

The Bloodied

The shriek tore through the air like a hurtling and fiery bullet. As the first splatter of blood came, the boy felt his breath catch in his throat and his fingers curled helplessly at the ground. A crack and then crimson shot to the floor like fireworks. Ghastly begging and pleading tore sickly through the room. A tear and a loud thud, the boy saw the body hit the ground, saw the whiteness of the naked body. There had been loud, hurtful rape. There had been unpleasant torture. It was a wonder the body was not drenched in red. The boy's entire frame shook and his eyes were wide from shock. He could not protect her.

The body was ripped up again and lashed at with a gruesome sound. Voices of devils echoed within the room. Echoes that hissed condemning words and sluttish insults at the body, while at the same time each voice demanded where. Where was the boy? Where in the name of Hell was the boy?!

Smash. The body careened into the wall nearby with a harsh crack. The arm had broken and now stood out at a disturbing angle, but the body slid to the ground all the same. What a slow, agonized slide. More screams of angry words strewed themselves through the air. These people were terrified. They were frustrated. They were scared. They were beautiful humans frightened so horrendously. They were murderers. They were gluttonous barbarians now.

The boy choked on his silent cries as a sledge was driven down into the pit of the stomach. The body choked out blood and convulsed, writhed with pain. Yet there were no cries of mercy. The begging and pleading had not been from the tortured, but from the monsters with all too human faces. There was no sound from the whored body, which was really not the disgusting part. The disgusting part was the fact that the body was in fact still alive, still fighting silently against its assailants, and the boy knew this; it made him cringe.

Ten more minutes. That's how many more minutes of torture ensued. There were cracks, snaps, splices, bashes . . . and many numerous sounds. The boy saw them all. He saw the pained expression upon the face after each of these. He saw the gutted, hollowed eyes watch him safe from under the bed. Those eyes he would never forget, the hopeless, bitter defeat within them. Those eyes would haunt him forever and ever. They would come to him in his dreams, to haunt him. He would know. He would know that he had done nothing. He had done what he was told and hidden. He had done nothing, not one shred of knightliness. What a scared, pathetic child he was.

He waited those ten minutes out, listening and seeing every awful stage of Hell performed before his very eyes. Normality was about to grip him when silence suddenly fell over the room like an eerie resentment. The body dropped to the ground, a white and scarred arm flinging out toward the boy beneath the bed. It was dead, the breath refused to come. More quiet, and then footsteps crawled away from the room until horrid silence hung in the air like a thick fog.

The boy merely waited; his breath came in quick gasps and his eyes were fixated with the ghostly dead figure. It no longer resembled a human body. It was mutilated beyond recognition. The boy moved. He moved so carefully and quietly that no one would have heard. He crawled from beneath hiding, and shaking from trauma and awe, he slugged over to the limp mutilation. His eyes stared emptily at the beaten thing. The naked, pale body was shaded with dark purples and was covered in smears of crimson. Teeth had been knocked loose. The fine hair had been torn from the skull. The perfect, teeming breasts had been mashed and the torso was every color but natural. The arms were both broken, the legs were twisted, the . . .

The eyes were lost. They were dead but were still open to the world, and that pretty, black-blue color swam with emptiness. There was no hope. There was no lust. There was no hunger. There was nothing, and how could there be nothing? Nothing does not exist, yet there it was, nothing.

Slowly, the boy's hand tiptoed to the body's hand and it enclosed that dead hand gently. The icy hand was warm yet again. He could still feel the warmth and he realized then that he was a failure. A low moan began to spill from his mouth. He was worse than those demons. He was far worse than hellions. He was . . . the guttural moan grew and suddenly shook the room. His body rocked back and forth. His mind spun with migraines. Shakes trembled up and down and left and right throughout his body. What was he? A bloody monster, that's what.

The boy released the hand, disgust swept through him. Nausea consumed him and he simply retched. He retched and retched and retched until he thought his insides would burst from the loss of himself. Then, scrambling to his feet, he tore himself from the room, tripping and stumbling right into the next room.

He doubled over and his breath came in quick, successive bursts of pain. Pictures haunted him. The sinful moments played over and over in his head. He couldn't rid himself of those pictures. The white body sat like a fat, livid moth in the back of his mind. He didn't want to see it. He had to get rid of it.

Frantically, he hurtled his body to the kitchen and hysterically scanned the room with maniacal, desensitized eyes. A silver flash caught his gaze from out of the corner of his eye and he walked towards it, eying the devilish silver with a darkening hunger. His trembling fingers reached out and gripped the end of the device. Spit congealed in his throat, but he stared at the thing in his hand. It was a simple wine bottle opener with its silver spirals and pointy tip. A skinned bumblebee came to mind and a smile crept over his face. He was so sorry. His heart thudded against his cage and he choked out a crushed cry, "Sorry . . . mother . . .” Then with the heart-wrenching scream that had been tearing at his insides since the first splatter of blood, he plunged the silver bumblebee into his left eye. Gushes of blood swam forth and he shrieked from the blackening pain, the harsh pain of fear and terror. His legs buckled beneath him, but he pushed the stinger deep and sputtered out shrieks of hate and loneliness that suffered him. Everything around him was growing dim, and his fist clenched tightly onto the stinger. He would not let go. He didn't want to see. He refused to see!

Shockingly, his hand ripped out the coils of silver and his breath gasped out from the splashes of utter, wretched pain. He was half-blind. He had to finish it. He fell onto his hands; his breath was harsh, but he raised the bumblebee again. Bleed, bleed, bleed, that word echoed darkly in his mind. He would never forgive himself. The coils were hanging in front of his right eye. The hot coils rattled in his hand and he swallowed the spit in his mouth.

Then something changed, a click of the door and a soft pressure of air from the outside world. Panic seized the boy but he was too utterly dizzy and full of contempt. His world was turning black, and as the coil slipped from his hand in that moment of panic, he was shaken into a fear of seeing. His fear was so great that he didn't hear the footsteps. His breath gushed forth and he leaned forward to reach for that coil with greedy fingers, but he swooned to the ground with an ugly thud and his remaining eye closed pathetically.

The Silence

Silence. There was nothing but silence for three years. A barren cell surrounded by concrete. It reminded him of that gray day. What had happened on that gray day? He was forgetting everything. Had there been a gravestone? Or had that been his mother’s head slaughtered up on the grass?

For three years he remained in a wasted cell with only a low cement bed and a small bath with a toilet. He had nothing for three years except silence. It was like slowly drilling a screw into his head, except he had already done that and now couldn’t see out of his left eye. So this was nothing like drilling a screw into his head, but then again that had been a bumblebee, not a screw.

The first week of this solitude, there had been nothing but screams, his screams. There had been one after another until he would lose consciousness from lack of air. Those had been terrifying moments. His bandaged eye had stung worse than any pain imaginable, and every single picture of that horrendous night had haunted him from day to night. His screams were the only thing that blocked out those pictures, the pictures of bloodied corpses and cleavers hacking away at virginal limbs of purity. He had lost all of his sanity in that week. He was more bestial in that one week than when he had torn through his eye. The screams ate away at him. He clawed with his tiny fingers at the concrete walls and mashed with vehement at the metal door to the room. His lungs screamed for answers. His chest heaved with cries and anger, but no one ever answered him. Yet he knew someone was there.

Someone brought him his food. Someone’s hand reached inside to give him his food. Someone made those footsteps that would retreat from his door. And as he bit into the flesh of that hand on the second day, someone’s warm, irony blood had entered his mouth. Someone had made that angry hiss after he bit into its hand. This was obviously a someone. Someone was there.

However, after that first week he learned to live with the images. He came to terms with the images in his mind. When they came, he merely watched on and let them eat at his brain. Nothing could rid them from him, and he found that screams took too much of his energy, for he was deathly drained of everything.

At moments he would remember the past, or at least that graveyard. He would remember the gray most of all. He would remember his mother’s warm touch and her coaxing eyes. He couldn’t remember whose grave it belonged to, but he knew it had been cold. He knew that he had once wanted to protect something, but what? Oh how he missed his mother’s warm hand.

Then he would remember something else, a sweeter memory. A memory of a girl. A girl he had wronged after soothing her waterfalls. How he dreamed of that wonderful girl with fire for hair. Her smooth and beautiful skin. He wanted to touch every part of her and sing soft lullabies to her. He wanted to see if that ruby was still with her. If she had dreamt of him as he did her. She had probably forgotten him and had crushed the cheap toy ring. However, she was all he had left to hope on. She was the one thing that probably kept him from slashing his wrists and lapping up his own blood like a cat. Yet . . . what was her name?

Three years of boorish concrete did he endure. No one to talk to, no one to explain to him, no one to see . . . there was nothing once again. His whitish hair grew long, and tearing a piece of his clothing, he tied it back from his face. He ate the same pathetic meal of bloodied rare meat and dried bread every single day. He washed himself and slept more than the eight hours just to ease the boredom. He taught himself to fight within that cell. He taught himself how to sit still for five hours. He taught himself how to not eat for a week and then fight through that weakness. He became stronger than he could imagine, but he did not know of it. The dim overhead lamp drove him mad.

He had nothing to do with his time and it slowly drove him mad. For three years he was driven mad with boredom. He hated everything, except the fire girl’s face, which soon began to fade from his memory like a drifting butterfly. Then when that butterfly was on the very edge of escaping the forest of his mind, there came a day, a day to be remembered. His cell door opened and he was blinded completely with a light that made him writhe.