Wildest Dreams (Alastor X Reader)

Darkness still follows.CH: 15

"So you wanna t-talk about it? Why are you so s-scared?" I say softly. He doesn't say anything but walks over to my bed, sitting on the edge.

"Darkness still follows me, dear. You are not to say a word to anyone else." His eyes start to glow threateningly as I nod back. "It was so many years ago, I can hardly remember what year. I believe it was 1916 when I was 17 or maybe 18. My father wasn't the best of men, truly no gentleman. He was an unfair, drunk, abusive man."

"When I was a boy, I was helping my mother in the kitchen. She was always a gem and never let anyone put her down. My father came home with a hungry beast. He might have been a man's best friend to my father, but not to me."

"That drunken bastard came home and was angry at who knows what. One thing led to another, and I was thrown into the basement with that hungry dog. It ripped and scratched me. I had bruises for months. My mother, who had been beaten by the man, still came down to save me once the monster ran to his whores house. She took me to the hospital. I believe I was there for four weeks. When I came home, he wasn't there. It was quiet. I called out to my mother, but there was no answer. I thought maybe she was sleeping or listening to music."

"I walked into her library room. It was her favourite place to be. I'm not sure why. I remember seeing bruises all over her, and there was blood. I ran over to her and called her so many times" He stopped talking for a second.

"But there was no response. A bullet to the heart, and she still was able to give me a smile every day. I buried her, and something just washed over me while I stood where I buried her."

"Next thing I knew, I had a knife in hand and was walking towards that bastard's work finding them both there." His eyes darkened.

"I ran over to him and stabbed him right in the middle of his chest. His mistress was screaming, and I killed her next." He paused.

"One thing led to another, and I was the talk of the town, both as the famous radio host and as the unidentified killer of New Orleans. I kept this up until one day I was dragging a body to bury, and I started to see dots. I remember dropping to the ground, the burning feeling of being ripped apart, and chunks of skin and meat being bitten off me again. It turns out someone mistook me for a white-tailed deer and realised I had a dead body. He called the police on me, and they sent out their dogs. Long story short dear, I woke up here." Alastor finished, twisting his microphone between his fingers. 

"A-Alastor, I—"

"I don't need your pity. I'm still the most feared being in hell," he cut me off.

"It's still so-something you've had to hold on to for such a long time." I place my hand on his shoulder, surprised he didn't p-push it off.

"With all due respect, dear, you are new to hell. You wouldn't understand who I am." He looked at me.

"You would be s-surprised how much I do," I say softly.

"Darling, if it wasn't for Charlie's ridiculous hotel, I would have eliminated you already." His eyes turned into dials.

"Then why t-tell me all this?" I say defensively. He stands up, walks to the door of my 'now' room, opens the door, and stands in the doorway.

"Because no one will believe you, and you and I both know with a snap of my fingers, you will be erased." He closed the door and left me by myself. I quickly ran out of the room and found him walking down the hall. I run and grab his hand. He stops.

"Al I don't care a-about how much pride you want to show because you have a title but you would be lying if you said you a-aren't hurt by this." I turn him to face me.

"Dear-"

"I don't want to hear what e-excuse you have for something that you think makes you weak. It doesn't make you weak it makes you s-stronger, I'm not saying go tell all of hell I'm saying talking helps." He looks at me closely. My heart skips a beat the way his smile softens a bit. It's hard to tell but it was there. "Don't push something that h-hurts down because you're hurting yourself more than you hurting others." I finished. It's quiet for a second.

"Thank you, dear." with a blink of an eye he vanished, I sighed and walked back to my room.

As I lay there, the darkness of the room enveloping me, I couldn't help but replay Alastor's words in my mind. Each sentence carried with it a weight that seemed to press down on my chest, suffocating me with the sheer magnitude of his pain. It was as if I could feel the echoes of his past reverberating through the walls of my own room, a ghostly reminder of the horrors he had endured.

Images flashed before my eyes, fragments of Alastor's story piecing themselves together like a twisted puzzle. I saw the young boy, cowering in the shadows of his abusive father, his innocence shattered by the cruelty of the world around him. I saw his mother, her strength a beacon of light in the darkness, her love a shield against the storm raging outside their door.

But beneath it all, I sensed something darker lurking, something that Alastor had only hinted at in his retelling. There were gaps in his story, moments of silence that spoke volumes louder than words ever could. What had driven him to embrace the darkness within himself? What secrets did he keep hidden behind that charming smile?

The clock on the wall ticked away the seconds, each stretching into eternity as I wrestled with my thoughts. It was as if time itself had become suspended, trapped in the liminal space between wakefulness and dreams. And in that moment, I felt a strange kinship with Alastor, as if our fates had become intertwined in ways neither of us could fully comprehend.

Eventually, exhaustion overcame me, pulling me down into the depths of sleep. But even as I drifted into unconsciousness, I knew that Alastor's story would continue to haunt me, its echoes reverberating through the corridors of my mind like a never-ending symphony of sorrow.

For in the heart of hell, where demons prowled and lost souls wandered, there were always stories waiting to be told. And as long as there was breath in my lungs and ink in my pen, I would be there to listen, to bear witness to the pain and the darkness, and to search for the faint glimmer of hope that still flickered in the depths of the abyss.