Fear clutched its fingers around the edge of her dress. It crawled around her body, piercing her chest. Back and forth in rhyme it squeezed onto her back, like a parasite it closed into her ribs-together each bone twisted in on itself. Hot red blood dripped from her temple and onto her hand.
Fear is like a savior, it gives you the everlasting, perpetuous kiss on your lips slipping down your chin. The tingly sensation makes love drop to its knees and cower in the face of oppression. The face it holds steals. It holds everything dear to humanity in the palm of its hand and calls it kindness. When really- when it is over you, you can feel it dance and twirl its fingers around your neck.
You see all fear is, is perfection, the destroyer of all things pretty. You cannot ignore it, it is always staggering behind you like a shadow. With each step it takes closer to your body, the harmony and music of it makes your muscles weak and the hair on your arm stand.
The girl felt her lips move side to side, and her teeth grind against each other, it ached. Her enemy stood on top of her, pulsing his foot and pushing her into the ground. She held his ankle trying to move it off. Her muscles grew weak with every movement. Her fingers desperately searched around for something to grab onto-anything but her hands turned brittle and shook against the pain that moved from her chest.
Fear was a man. A tall one with dark bloodshot eyes smeared in anger and revenge, with black hair drenched in blood and sweat. A small vein popped in the middle of his forehead. He was happy, he had never gotten close to victory, sneering laughing at the sight of her laying defensively. He twitched his heel into her ribs, consumed by power, using it like a drug. It was burning his tongue.
Power destroys kindness and replaces it with hate and dread. Man cannot seem to let it go no matter how much you try, they hold on to power like it is the last thing they do. The girl winced at the pressure, squinting her eyes as she felt her heart pound against her chest. Her mind turned to dust-blank-unable to know what to do. She didn't know this gnawing feeling that rendered mind, the sound of her own breath from her mouth, the blurriness in her eyes. It was all just confusing.
Before she learned how to reject emotions that came into her mind. Any ounce of human emotion that she felt even once was bottled up, and pushed way deep into her soul. It turned her into a colossal of expectations and dreams. It wrapped around what was expected and was known of her. It blinded her and chained her to how to feel and how to act, but this ache in her muscles- the feeling that twiddled in her mind made her feel as if her steady hand slipped against the grip she had on the world. A strong, and proud being who turned her pain into her advantage. A blade on the tip of her finger spinning around her next opponent's neck with pearls smeared in red. The daughter of Nike-tied to victory and gold. Her wings spread so wide, and free; the whole world would know of her glory. She was a god, they would cower from the madness in her eyes. Now this god was made into the damp sticky feeling of loss, laughed upon, and mocked. It held her on the ground stopping her from doing anything. Her limbs became stiff like marble encompassed in time.
She couldn't think.
She couldn't move.
She could only feel.
Feelings consumed every being of her. Slightly pricking her skin like she is carved, and burned for pleasure as iron liquid filled her teeth. Loss was new, it was different, it made the whole world she once knew so well, upside down.When fear and victory are misused, they turn on each other. A war of soulless creatures use for power.
One to feel and one to numb.
Suddenly there was a snap, the man stepped harder on her and the bones around her lungs broke into two. She couldn't breath, the air was sucked from her throat and everything was blurry. In and out she tried to remember, just as she was taught. But, there was nothing. Her breath was taken; air, something so simple, and taken for granted laughed at her use for it.
Anger flowed through her like a river. She wanted to crack him open and use him like he used her. She didn't know how to be frail, pleading for mercy was not something that was ingrained in her system. She wanted to show the pain and the feeling that induced in her soul, she wanted him to know every raw, disturbing piece of it. To make him crumble from the terror. It was not pain that made her eyes wet, it was the feeling of not knowing-of defeat- of loneliness. It was quite disturbing and pathetic to see her on the floor, the cry from one monster to the other did nothing. Death was on his mind as sorrow was in hers, they were forever tangled in hell. But she had to get rid of it from him like it was the last thing she did because it was, the choice was not up to her.
As the man laughed cynically like he was spiraling into insanity. Cut gums and red lips, the girl took whatever left in her and smiled. She looked up at him, and grabbed onto his foot. In shock the guy tried to shake her hands off. In the slightless hesitation of the pressure, the girl took all the anger she could form and used it to reach for the dagger that was tied to her waist. With swift movements, she quickly grabbed the dagger and drove it through her enemy's leg, carving a hole right in the center of his thigh. He fell. Blood spurted out, and the man screamed, grabbing onto his leg trying to stop the bleeding. The girl staggered her way up to her feet, her chest ached and the world became slowly and dizzy. There was a loud buzzing noise clogging the screams of man, but it didn't stop her.
Pain infused with her anger, and the grip on her knife tightened. She walked over to the man, with tear stains around her cheeks and a red face. She stood over him the way he did to her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Like an old friend, she greeted victory back into her embrace. She opened her eyes and looked down at his squirming body. Pain was moved through his body, and his eyes widened and dilated as he watched the girl crotch down to his face. His breath was heavy and loud. The girl looked at the man carefully. He had freckles sprayed across the bridge of his nose and white pale skin like winter sleet. He was so angry but sad at the same time. She had never noticed it until now, it almost made him look human.
She wondered if she should get rid of him forever. If she should drive her knife into his heart so he is gone forever and ceases to exist. But she soon came to the realization victory cannot exist without fear.
The thought of the chase exhilarated her. She knew after this he would chase her for eternity. Decade after decade, he would be one step behind her waiting to strike to make air leave her once again and chain her wings like before. But one cannot live without the other.
"I cannot kill you, but you can't either." Her voice echoed through the room. The man watched as victory took her foot off of him. He stared as he realized his defeat. "Together we will be tied to each other, hand in hand in an ethereal war causing only pain and suffering. That is my vow and our purpose, but I promise I won't let you win."
