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.

The End

From the perception of Cecil Nightengale, Armante Nightengale, Samuein Nightengale, and countless others.

Why does He do this to me...

Have I not satisfied you enough, Father?! Have I not respected You, given You the Drink, did I not DIE for you? No, no, that's not entirely true... I died for her, not You...

The pain is overwhelming. His shadow is on me no more. His protection is gone, and I cannot bare it. I can't bare it even if the pain wasn't upon me. I never wanted this! Go, my warped mind, unravel at the seems, for I would be disentangled from you forever more. I want these beliefs no longer, I want nothing. Please, just give me the void back. I don't want anything except a lack of everything. I don't want to exist!

And quite slowly, languidly, things fade.

"Please, don't hurt her! Gods, don't hurt her, don't hurt her damn you!"
Silence.
"Take me, let her live; leave her be - I need her!"
"Then you will lose her... but not in the form of her death."
All things since that have been torture, and now... they are gone. I am dead, or at least as dead as I can be. As such, I will remain, for as long as I can. It's only now that I look back and realize how arrogant I was. If only he had taught me... if only I had known what immortality stood to be.

There is none of that now. There is nothing but silence.

A Lapse of All Things

It was night when I saw her. For the first time in who knows how many years, I saw the woman that I had given everything up for. I wanted to run to her, hug her to me. I wanted to tell her what I had done for her, my regrets, my doubts.

I wanted to spill my black soul too her.

Yet, what I wanted, and what I felt were so very contradictory. I felt nothing, I moved naught, and I stayed in the shadows. It is the place best for me. Yet, my wants, my thoughts turned towards ripping off this mask which I now so expertly wear and running to her.

And for a moment, I forgot who I was........

---

"Mother, mother! I'm right here mother!" I said, my voice bursting with excitement as I ran down the street towards the woman who loved me more than sunshine. Fondness for the reunion had pushed aside all my bad thoughts about her, and I saw her for what she really was; a loving, caring, woman.

"Cecil?! My dear Cecil? Look at you! You're all grown, into a man!"

"But mother, I'm still the same child as before. You're little child." And so I was. I was a child, in a brown tunic made from clothsack, scurrying in her arms, while the other children of the slums played around me.

"Oh, my, my, my! Dear Cecil, I've missed you so much!" She hugged me tightly to her, and I hugged her right back.

"Mommy, I've missed you too. I have something to show you!"

"Oh? What's that, dear?"

"Father, mommy! Father's came back!" And I pointed down the road where there, resplendent in a black robe was a tall figure. With a sudden leap forward, the figure ripped reality asunder. My mother fell into blackness, but she didn't fall for long. Soon the blackness crept around her, and I watched as my mother was devoured in shadows. Then, so too was I. In my place was nothing.

----

My emotions, my feelings, my wants, my desires, my thoughts and will have burst forward at the sight of this woman. Emotions... wants... thoughts... I can't tell the difference anymore. It has been cohersively merged together into what has become my existence.

Yet, it's all devoured, and my body quiets. I turn away.

So powerful is the Void that I would turn away from the woman who I had once upon a time gave my life too.

So strong has been my transformation through pain and all sorts of vile torture that I would shun this woman.

My mother.

For my Father. A shadow. All shadow.

The Drone Ceases

From the perspective of Cecil Nightengale.

Buzzing and overwhelming. A fuzz at the edge of my hearing, always constantly at the edge, and bringing me with it. Annoying yet faint.

Always it has been such since the Rebirth.

It's a side-effect of the Gift. A side-effect, ever increasing as I crawl meagerly further and further from the rays of the defunct and broken Warriors of the Sky. It buzzes and sounds in my ear, the constant thrum of the city, the constant thrum of my own body (which is so faint now), and the constant thrum of those bodies around me. Never leaving me in peace, it's always there to remind me of that which I must do, that which confronts me, and that I am constantly, always hunted.

Yet... I hear nothing now. There's no sound, no touch, no scent. I am alone, and enjoying every moment I have of it. The pain lulls me into a state of meditation that until recently I thought impossible. Almost a state of sleeping, and I think; this must be what it's like when one grows indifferent to the world, and in their immortality, a still vassal for the Lord. It's a humbling experience.

Although I can feel naught but the Cradle of Pain (back and forth, soothing), there's still something that pokes at me. It's not unkind. Never was there more a gentle reminder than this of my station...

And that reminder is simply that I am thirsty.

Incineration

From the perception of Nightengale.

He grasped my shoulder. It was in a friendly way, and he even tried making a fleeting attempt at a smile, but I pulled away quickly and walked to the wall. My thoughts were in a race; I was so... used to things now. I thought they would continue on like this forever.
"Sometimes people just have a... falling apart, Cecil. It just happens, and yes it's sad, but please - your mother will take care of you. We'll see each other still, but I just can't bear to be around her anymore."
I couldn't take this. I -loved- him, he taught me how to live, he gave me life. He nurtured me, loved me, and I could not imagine a life without him continuing to do these things. Such thoughts were horrible little spiders, and I swept them away with my pleading words.
"Please, please, just stay here - if not for our family, then just for me. Father, I want to see you all the time, I don't want you to be so far. Please, please..."
"Cecil, act your age. This is happening. The best thing to do is just... get over it."
The spiders once more claw at the edge of my brain, and my thoughts turned to much darker paths as I stormed out of our little shack. If there was a door, you can bet your ass I would have slammed it.
With a haste I hadn't intended for, my feet led me upwards onto a roof across from our residence. It was a very long, roundabout way up here, but I took the walk to clear my head. Now, I find myself up here, staring at the night, staring at the shadows cast by the stars and moon against the building. Everything was lit in a great contrast, for the moons battled quite completely for control of the sky. It was a beautiful night, and inhaling it's cold scent made me quite content. My thoughts no longer were touched by monstrous web-spinners, spinning their nets of darkness. I had turned to thinking about what I was going to do with my life. I would often fantasize at length when I sat up high. Most of my fantasies revolved around doing heroic deeds from the shadows. I would be a great assassin, striking out with the night covering me, but I would not murder in cold blood. I would destroy the evil, those that were not just or right...
Like my father, who's betraying me.
Like my cousin, going further and further away into more older and mature things.
Like my thoughts, which were turning darker by the moment.
I viciously shook my head, and took a deep breath of the night. At length, I pondered the stars, and what they meant. What they were. Jewels of the Divine? Or perhaps something else? There was an old woman, steeped in the lore of the Blessed Seven, who often spoke of them as mortals who pleased the Seven, and were ascended into their domain.
I never was much of one for such thoughts. However I tried, I simply did not want to get my head around heeding to something I could not feel, or see.

Father and I are walking around the outskirts, and he's pointing out the buildings of the city that we can see from here. The shrine, the hospital... it all looks so big. Yet, his gentle reassurance calms me in the face of it all, and I embrace him as we begin to travel home. On our way, we meet a stray dog with a limp. Father quickly moves to him, and picks him up. I watch, mystified, and we move on to our next door neighbor's house. Father hands the dog over to the old lady, who I've often thought a witch, and she takes it into a back room. We wait, and wait, and wait... and then she comes out, the dog following her. All better.
"A little good goes a long way..." my father said to me.

I am jarred awake. I must have been dozing quite completely, for by the way the moon is almost set, I reckon it's nearly time for morning. No sight of the sun can be seen though. I shake myself into further wakefulness and begin to scramble down the building; but I am halted by something. A sight. Below me, my father stands... entangled in the arms of an attractive, young woman. She has delicate curves; very pretty. I've never been much of a child to judge women, having much more fun simply playing seek and sneak with my friends, but this female was beautiful. However, something else made me wretch, her beauty did not stop me from hating her, nor did the carefree glimmer in her eyes which was lost in many women of the slums. At that moment, I wished she would die.

Because she was kissing my father.