The Art of Living

Wherever they came from, these spawns of the Darkness are powerful. Their venom, it cuts through my will, and that's saying something. It's odd how I can cut myself, how I can be cut, punched, and even burnt, and yet it's a choice to me if I feel the pain or not. I can put a vast canyon between myself and it, or feel it as it is.

But no, not with the poison. It slices through whatever barriers I put up around my mind, and strikes me right to my core. I haven't felt pain so raw in a many years.

The situation has given me an awaking shock though. Since Lilian left, I've been so... detached. I've been losing myself to it, taking refuge in it. For what? As a defense against the very real pain of her departure? Regardless, it's carried on too long, and I'll be a slave to it no more. The safety, the comfort, has made me languid. It's hardly what I would call living.

I've been given a gift, and once again, I will come to recognize it.
I haven't been living - once again, I will live for Him.
I've blocked myself from the pain of losing... her. No more. I will come to terms with it.

A New Demon in the Mirror

"It's been so long since I've been confronted with the things that I did in those first months," I spoke out the words in a quivering voice, a voice shaking like the candle which provided the only light in this room. "It was so long ago, I had forgotten, and it never seemed very important at all. Even now, I can hardly remember the times... they were so intoxicating. But what I have seen tonight, Lilian... what I've seen tonight was an abomination - an abomination to Him, and to Us."

The woman who sat across from me was beautiful in every way. Obsidian hair, as dark as a raven's feather, and her blue eyes - so much like the sea as it is obscured by night. I could lose myself in those eyes, and had before. Then, she spoke, a voice of empathy, of understanding, and of wisdom; lilting and filled with all these things. "My love... my pupil... if you can see this so clearly, than I have taught you well. It is not the carnage He desires; leave that to Morhiag, no matter how her followers deny it."

"How do we know, Lilian? How do we know what it is He desires. I feel Him, yes, I cannot deny that I am part of Him and He part of me, and you. He is our Father, and I love Him... but what does He want us to do? Children without guidance are hardly good children at all. You've taught me of Him, through your own experience, yet I've none of my own to base it off of..." I looked at her. I think, if I recall, I was pleading. I wanted so much to know what to do, what He wanted me to do. If He would but give me His will, I would have it done. I would destroy the whole damn city if He wished it, even though destroying something so enticing would hurt me so.

She simply looked at me, and smiled a thin smile. So much like the smile I employ now. Somehow, it's just more comforting. "When He wishes something to be done, and it isn't blatantly obvious, He will show you. Remember, we are a part of him. All you must do is listen to Him, through your own mind, and you will know what to do without any intervention from the Father."

Then, I asked the most simple question I could muster in my confused, fumbling state. "Why do they torture them so? Were we not all once like that?"

"They do it because they are sad, because they are mad. Because they don't know how to handle themselves, because they were confronted with the same questions that face every one of us, every one of His children, and they were overwhelmed by it. That, dear, is what separates those who will live for centuries, and those who won't last the decade. Those who last undoubtedly go on to serve the Father more than those who don't."

"Lilian... I want to live. I want to live for Him, not for the blood."
I want to live.
I want to live.
I want to live.
I want to live.
I want to live.

"And with my help... you shall."

Birth

And when my eyes closed, it was not death that I saw. It was not sleep, nor dreams, nor agony that I felt creep upon me. It was the silent comfort of shadow, and the feeling that I could be in them - forever.

"Do you feel it?" The voice echoed deeply, and eternally, within me. It came from everything, for everything was it. Everything was darkness.

"Yes... I feel life."

"And what else do you feel?"

"I feel You. I feel Your pain... M'Lord, you are sad."

"Why do you think that?"

"You are sad, M'Lord, because You thirst. Not for the blood - mostly, but for knowledge mostly. You thirst for the world. You thirst for it all, everything. M'Lord, I feel that you are the most raw emotion that I've ever contacted in all this time, and it... it..." I could not speak, for my voice was caught it my throat.

"Overwhelms?"

"Yes," I could only weep.

"My Son, for you will be My Son, do not cry. I will walk beside you always, and you shall always feel this emotion, my emotion, echoing across the distance. It will be a reverberation of your own emotion, and it will echo your own emotion as if across from a vast canyon, for it cannot be helped. Your's pales in comparison to Mine. My son, I will feed you, and you in turn shall feed me, for it has been deigned that way. The so called 'Divine' would have it no other way than that we both desire this blood. My son, I will hide you in shadows, and from there you will live the rest of your life like any human - but you will live it for Me, and I will live it for you. In Shadow We are One, and in Shadow We are All. Remember these phrases, for if nothing else, they will guide you on your new life."

And it faded, only it didn't. I knew I was asleep now, but the Shadow didn't leave me. Father stayed with me.