Kill Me, Kiss Me

- Keir and His Fear -

Content warning: references to suicide

KEIR:

      HE still remembered that feeling. It seemed to be engraved into his breastbone; whenever he placed his hand on his heart, he could feel the echoes of those emotions, those raging thoughts. It came to him in each heartbeat - Badump, Badump, Badump. It tore through the equilibrium, tore through the thin bounds he kept himself in. And if it were pierced into his heart, there was no way to tamp it down, lock it within steel walls, temporary amnesia like the other things. Every time this flesh called Keir surged with blood, breathed life, he would feel it, this twin shadow.

      First came a blurred face, a fleeting silhouette, such exhilaration it came as a flurry of colours, green, red, demure orange and brown - how they whipped round and round, a carousel of joy. Then, he remembered blood, so much blood. Red against concrete, red against wood, red split over grass, over leather. Always the same blood. How was it different to the rest, the mass with unknown faces, only purpose? Again, there was something embedded in his spinal chord, like it had always been a part of him. Here was recognition: I know this blood, I know this shade of red, how quickly it clots, the fluidity, all. It might've been his own blood. His own? It did not matter.

      It did not matter. He always lost. Always, there was this sinking loss that came with the image of blood. Red, red, red everywhere, and not a single spark of relief. It was too humane for him, but that was what this feeling dictated. Each time it came over him there would be a current of electric delight, only a second, a sweetness at the tip of his tongue before it turned bitter and swollen with fear. Because that was what it was, wasn't it? Fear. This sinking of his heart, this panic churning in his stomach, cold sweat breaking over his skin, and oh, how long it'd been since he last felt this.

      Keir closed his eyes, grasped harder onto it, unraveled it and travelled up it - this spiders web, until he came back to that shadow of a face. There, he bathed in that mix of delight and terror. There, he ran forever, travelling between the erased lines of the face and the darkness that chalked out their back, running, running. If only he could remember. Because this was different to... Something about this was completely pure, uncomplicated. One probe, one tear through the membrane, and he would reach the light. But no matter how much he ran, the gap between him and the shadow remained the same. A thin membrane was always between them, as delicate as gossamer threads but untouchable, unbreachable. A faceless lover.

      Pressing his hand to the sharp cold of his desk, Keir opened his eyes again and focused on the crumpled sheet before him. He's read it enough times to memorise everything: the words, the tight loops of Theo's writing. Theo, Theo, Theodore. But he was still watching that figure draw away from him in his mind... the words had a funny way of overlapping with the pattern of blood in his head.

3.3.3. The labyrinth, the running, the blood.

      The words were unfamiliar. It all felt like a dream, the pain that drilled through his temples, smashed his skull when he'd looked at them before. Now, there was no path to enlightenment looking for meaning in the hastily scribbled lines.

10. Bitten by the dog

      Two lines that wouldn't go away. Just tracing through the smudged ink brought him that dream-like haze of iron and kaleidoscopic colours. Pinching his brow, Keir pushed the paper away and leaned back in his chair. He'd forgotten something. Or rather, it'd been artificially separated from his mind like an egg yolk from its white. All that he'd recovered was an outline, but even with an outline, he could sense the familiarity of the main character. Something warm, sweetly tasting, sweetly smelling like sunlight slanting through stained glass.