Hungering Teeth.

XIII.

MAY 20th, 1791

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The night hung heavy with the weight of an impending storm, its ominous clouds swirling like ink in the sky, blotting out the moon and stars. The wind howled through the trees, carrying with it the scent of wet earth and the promise of rain. Agnus's boots sank into the damp soul as he trotted along the graveyard. He passed the marble concrete carved headstones.

    Before him, the graves of his parents loomed, cold stones jutting out from the grown adorned only by overgrown weeds and forgotten flowers.

    The storm cracked the air with a whip of thunder, and in the stillness between its echoes, Agnus's voice wavered, a frail thing, easily consumed by the rage of the tempest.

    "Ma... Pa..." he murmured, the words nearly lost to the gathering storm, a fragile confession swept away by the wind's cruel caress. "I'm so sorry. I've tried—God knows I've tried—to be what you wanted. To be good."

    "Why, oh why must it be so? What is the purpose of this endless torment?"

    The wind, in response, lashed through the trees, their leaves rustling like the whispers of ghosts long gone. His hands, trembling with a sorrow that seemed to rise from some deep and endless well within him, reached out, fingers brushing the cold, unfeeling stone of the gravestones, seeking warmth where none could be found. The dead flowers crumbled in his grasp, as fragile as the promises of salvation he once believed in.

    "I've failed you... I've failed myself," he choked, the confession now tumbling from his lips, raw and broken. "Everything... it's slipping away. I don't know who I am anymore."

    Lightning, jagged and terrible, split the sky, casting the graveyard in a stark, fleeting light. For an instant, the trees twist into gnarled, bony fingers, reaching down from the heavens to claim him. The shadows of the gravestones stretched long and menacing, as if the dead themselves sought to rise from their forgotten slumber. The earth itself tremble under the thunder's fury, shaking beneath his feet, as though the very world was rebelling against his grief.

    Agnus collapsed to his knees, the wet grass biting at his skin, his body quaking under the weight of guilt and confusion that gnawed at his soul. His sobs broke the night's silence, carried aloft by the wind that now seemed almost to mock him in its wild frenzy.

    "I'm so scared," Agnus cried out, his voice choked with a desperation that seemed to meld with the storm's fury. "I've sinned! Ma, I've sinned! I'm sleeping with two men, while Enid is with child! Please, I need something! Anything!"

    But there was no answer. Only the storm, growing fiercer with each passing moment, as though it, too, had been abandoned by the world. The rain began to fall, hesitant at first—soft, delicate drops like the tears of some forgotten deity—but soon the heavens opened, and the rain came in torrents, drenching him in a cold that seeped into his very bones. The salt of his tears mixed with the rain, indistinguishable from one another as they fell upon the earth that would, one day, claim him too.

    And still, there was no answer.

    "Agnus, how quaint..."

    He froze. Breath caught in his throat. Slowly, hesitantly, he looked up. There, mere inches away from him, stood Nori, his lips gracing with an unnerving smile.

    "You think your tears will cleanse you of the sin you've committed? It's amusing, really, watching you flounder in your own guilt. You were always so weak, clinging to false promises."

    "I'm sorry I—"

    "Do spare me your lamentations, please!" Nori interjected sharply. "It is almost comical how you cling to this suffering, as though your tears could summon the dead or change the past. You are lost, Agnus!  I have watched you from afar, seen your sorrow, your struggle. You cling to this deity, but it has done nothing but fail you. It is pathetic! Pathetic to see someone so entangled in their own misery."

    Agnus's breath grew more erratic, his sobs becoming choked, raw cries. He tried to stand, but his legs buckled beneath him, and he fell back onto the wet ground.

    "You've already walked this path far too long. Embrace your true nature or continue to wallow in this," He gestures to Agnus scrunching up his face, "display."

    "But, I need—"

    "Enough! You've already made your choices! Your fate is sealed, and the more you resist, the more you prolong this pitiful display."

    "You think you can turn back now?" Nori continued, his voice a cruel melody. "The path you chose has no room for hesitation. You are nothing but a lost soul in the throes of your own making."

    "Rise," he commanded, his tone brooking no argument. "Accept what you are, or be consumed by your own pathetic resistance."

    Agnus sniffled, his limbs felt like they were moving on their own, standing up on his very two feet.

    "Now, why must you cry, dear?" Nori smiled, wiping Agnus tears with his thumb before placing a kiss on his lips. "Why do you shed tears over a life you've already abandoned?"

    "I don't know..." He replied, eyes glazed with fear and sadness. "I thought—"

    "Thought?" Nori interrupted, his tone mocking as he kissed the side of his mouth. "That your regrets would somehow redeem you? You're a fool, only fools cry for what they no longer have." His lips kissed the side of his jaw, before trailing down to the crook of his neck, nipping at the flesh, bringing it back to his lips.

    The kiss was an artful masquerade, a deceptive dance between desire and dread. 

    The moment stretched into eternity, the world around them reduced to the soft murmurs of the rain and the pounding of Agnus's heart. In that suspended instant, the kiss became an emblem of his surrender, a mark of the irreversible change that loomed. It was not just the touch of lips, but the touch of destiny—a sealing of the fate that had been written long before.

    Nori pulled away, "There's no redemption. No salvation, only the embrace of what you've become. Accept it, or remain here, crying for the life that will never be yours again."

    Before Agnus could fully comprehend, Nori bared his dings once more and sank them into the tender flesh of his neck. A sharp gasp escaped Agnus lips, pleasure, and pain interlined in a dizzying whirlwind of sensations. Nori drank deeply, savoring the rich taste of their blood as it flowed into him. His eyes fluttered, letting out a deep groan.

    Agnus's body convulses in response to the searing pain that shoots through their veins, a guttural moan escaping their lips. Every fiber of their being reacting to the bite, muscles tensing and skin prickling. Their eyes, glaring up at the sky, the heavy rain hitting their irises. It fluttered shut, darkness encroaching upon their consciousness, the world around them fading into oblivion.

    He went limp.

    Nori caught Agnus effortlessly before they hit the ground, cradling them like a delicate flower. The rain fell like a curtain of finality, cloaking the graveyard in its wet embrace, as Agnus lay, now a vessel for the shadows that had claimed him.

    "Rest now, my poor dearest."

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ripedsins.