The Heart Of The Demon

Chapter Twenty - Four: An Eye for an Eye

Zendar

The world crumbled to nothing but ash and smoldering embers. The smoke mixed with the fog as the fire folks worked together to put out what little remained. I didn't know who sought them out, everyone in the building was long dead. Medics worked over me as my vision blurred in and out from the blood loss in my arms. I couldn't move. It was dark, they probably assumed my blood was just a deeper shade of red. With the suppressant in my system, I couldn't heal. It was still continuing the leak out in streams of burning liquid as they attempted to stitch my arms closed.

I stared up at the night sky. Happiness had never been a part of my life. It was foolish of me to think that after all this time I'd be allowed to live with such a gift. It was a miracle I got it at all. I walked a path of suffering, always had. There was no soul saving arc for someone like me. There was no long last lover that would bring me to redemption. I was a bad demon. I was a killer, a tormentor.

Images of my first childhood crush flooded into my mind. Pain stabbed into my arm as the Timekeeper dug his nails into the flesh of my arm, forcing me to move, forcing me to make the boy I'd come to love unrecognizable and warped.

"Stop! Please! He's done nothing," I sobbed, fighting against his hold even knowing what would happen when I did, knowing he was stronger and resistance held nothing but pain for me.

"Would you rather take his place?" the Timekeeper asked, his voice cold and unforgiving.

I trembled, the still unhealed cuts on my body screaming in protest for what I was going to say next. "Yes."

"Falosa, why are you doing this?" the boy croaked, only a year or two older than I was. He didn't even know my name. He would never know who I was. His body was covered in deep gashes, while chunks of flesh were missing and one of his eyes had been plucked from his head.

I had done that to him. At the Timekeepers guidance I had hurt the one I loved.

"You know why," the Timekeeper said, strapping my arms and legs down on the opposite table. He held the bloody blade in his hand, stabbing into my fingers. "Tell us, why are you doing this?"

I knew why. I didn't want to say it, didn't want to believe it.

He stabbed through the palm of my hand, all the way through to the table. "Tell me."

I screamed and tried to get away when his knife met my chest, cutting in deep enough to make everything burn. "Because attachment is weakness. Never love anything, it'll always be taken away."

The Timekeeper nodded, his face hidden away beneath his hood as it always was. "Good to know that you were listening." He put the knife to my forefinger. "But you still need to learn a lesson for defying me."

"Please," I begged, but I knew he wouldn't listen. He never listened. It would grow back, it always did. I had lost count of the amount of times I had lost fingers, but even knowing how much it would hurt and for how long, I still could never prepare for it.

The knife bit into my skin, the bone popped, being crushed beneath his strength, leaving a burning trail of agony behind as my finger fell to the floor.

"Until you learn this lesson, we will have to keep doing this," the Timekeeper stated. "Or you'll always find yourself suffering again and again."

As the last of the stitches closed, my heart closed with it. No matter how many times he sought to teach me, I never learned. The feelings had grown duller, less frequent, conditioned by agony and the want to avoid pain, but they never fully left.