Moonlight Sonata

•7 - Blood•

Blood: the red liquid that circulates in the arteries and veins of humans and other vertebrate animals, carrying oxygen to and carbon dioxide from the tissues of the body.

•She•

I visited that garden again. Secretly, this time. I didn't tell Him about it at all. And I embarked on a search for that stranger once more, a task nearly impossible considering my condition.

But I didn't give up that easily.

Why were they intriguing me so, this annoying, challenging stranger? And was I pulled to them solely to find peace with my own self? Did I need confirmation, a proof that I lived a certain life, and there were others who lived another certain life, and most often these certain lives did not match, and that was completely fine? Did I need to repeat my words to my own self in order to be able to stick to them? Was I just looking for a chance to do that? And did that person give me that chance?

Or was it something more? Was it the prospect of a new person - a fresh story waiting to be read, a new journey waiting to be traveled. Were they the path that led me out of my cage, just waiting for me to follow them?

I felt my way through the grass, the whoosh of the wind as my guide, I looked all around, hands outstretched, careful not to tumble this time. It was ages before I found success, I had almost given up. But suddenly, there was a thud near my feet, and I heard a voice I knew.

"So you came back," they drawled coolly, and immediately, I tensed. Their presence flustered me, I didn't know why. But it was a good fluster, the exciting, intriguing kind.

"You tempt me," I said plainly. "I wish I could see you better."

"It's good you can't," they said. "You wouldn't like the sight."

"Why are we drawn to things that are wrong?" I asked suddenly.

"Wrong to you maybe," they said, "But to someone else, right."

"Then let me be that someone else," I said with a step behind.

"Your curiosity is undying," they said. There was a light hand on my neck now. "You want to know so much; things He never tells you, never dares. But ultimately, you're scared."

"Scared of what?" I demanded in disdain. "Nothing scares me at all."

"Then why do you step back," they asked, "every time I step forth?"

"I-I'm blind," I stuttered weakly, as something soft brushed my cheek. "I don't know where I'm going." It stretched at that, the soft thing - they were smiling against my skin.

The pleasure lowered to my neck now, and I squirmed, despite myself. Two fingers, after that, started tracing up my leg. And I saw a flashy rainbow, as I finally closed my eyes. Different, it was, I knew, from the one I was so used to. Yet wonderful all the same, with the colours flashing around. Tinting me here and there, I couldn't make a sound. And as the colours increased, in intensity and grandeur, I found my senses falling away, swept up in the flood. As I felt a sudden pressure on my lips, my stomach knotted up in a way it never had. And I recognized a colour, a thing I'd never done before.

But for the first time ever, I knew that it was blood.

It all started fading away, as abruptly as it had begun, and soon all that was left, was a gaping black hole. The very next moment, I felt a yank in my hand. "Wake up!" He was saying.

The day had just begun.

A terrible feeling filled my lungs, one that was cold, bitter, and bad. Once in my senses again, I hated myself for being so mad.

I clutched Him tightly with both of my hands. "I know, I know!" I cried. "I know the colour now!" And I kept shaking Him, even though He restrained. "Get this off me!" I shrieked. "Clean off this filthy blood!" He kept asking what happened, but I was in extreme distress. "The Devil's found me," I said. "What will happen now?"

"The Devil?" He mused, and this time, He laughed out loud.

Surprised, I stopped shaking him. What was this all about?

"How do you know for sure?" was what His response was. "How do you know exactly how the Devil is supposed to make you feel? How do you know how Hell looks from above? If you've never been, to either Heaven, or Hell, how can you even tell? Or maybe where you are right now, is either, itself."

I stared ahead in silence, searching for a light in the dark. But He was my light, and yet, He was the one who was dark. "So maybe this is Heaven," I said. "Or maybe, it's Hell. Maybe I'll be blessed here, or maybe I'll be damned."

"And maybe your stranger is the Devil," He said. "Or maybe, I am."

"Will you damn me?" I asked, feeling a little scared.

"I've told you before, dear girl," He laughed. "In Hell, you can't be damned."

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