Before Beasts, There Was Sound--Book 1

The Beginning of the End

Dreaming was never pleasant, and his subconscious was hardly ever indirect with all the troubles and emotions he signed off as unimportant or unnecessary.

Thus, he found himself in the bowels of the Abbey, closed in by dark bricks with the tang of his own blood in his nose. Whether he had blood in his mouth or in his nose or on his face, somehow it had always somehow ended up in the back of his sinuses, or at least the smell: coppery, like wet metal and salt.

But instead of Boris standing before him, whip at hand, and a trembling child next to him holding up a beyblade to practice on the unarmed Kai, Ayah stood there, somehow more beautiful and ethereal than he remembered her. Besides her stood a nonplussed Ray, Tyson, and Max.

"You know you deserved that," said Ray.

"How could you have done that to her?" Tyson asked, while Max shook his head.

Kai spat out the blood from his mouth and tried to speak, but as was often the case in his dreams, his voice didn't work. He growled and heaved air past his throat, struggling to protest, to say he didn't even know what he had done. He tried to stand, to move his arms, but when they didn't respond he looked down to see them bruised and bloodied, with the broken bone of his leg peeking out from his shin. Just as he saw it, he thought he could feel the pain.

He looked up, desperate to make his friends understand, terrified for them that they were even here. But when he looked up, they were already leaving, and only Ayah remained behind, looking down at him with that unreadable look in her eyes. It frightened him, and he hated that. Not much frightened him anymore. Or, perhaps, everything frightened him and he had forgotten what it was like to live without having to always be brave in order to function.

She leaned over him and reached for him with those perfect, delicate hands. He cringed. There was no way any woman should be this perfect. It was unnatural. It was inhuman. But of course she was inhuman. She could hear Ray's very bones vibrating and echo back their sound a hundred fold. She could probably hear the hum of his heart. She could probably just open her mouth and hum the tone that would make it explode.

The soft touch of her hands startled him. As she wiped at the blood on his face, the smell of blood faded. She had started to emit a sound that sounded so familiar to what she had made in the alley with Tyson, but it was somehow...upended. Fixed. Harmonized, so that it fell smooth on his ears. He watched as the broken bone sunk back into his leg and mended itself. The blood was vanishing.

There was a pause and a cough. Then she made the low hum for Max, once more upended and righted, and the rest of the bruises vanished. No wounds remained on him, and neither did the pain, but still he couldn't move. But why would she heal him? No one was just that kind. She must feel guilty—had to feel guilty for all the wrongs she had done him. For stealing the souls of his friends, for getting him shot, for throwing him into this dismal dungeon in the first place—

His vision clouded with rivers of gleaming white hair. It felt like silk against his skin. She had dropped to her knees between his legs, her hands splayed across his chest, and that indefinable emotion curling in her gaze like whirlpools.

He could smell her cinnamon bun rose scent. His mouth watered as he remembered her taste. As though called by his want, she brought herself forward, eyes fluttering close, and pressed her lips to his. Sweetness filled his mouth and a riotous hunger blossomed up from his naval. He never fathomed another human being could be so soft, so...so...

But what had happened to his hatred of being touched? To the disgust? To the creepy crawlies up his skin? He should be recoiling from her, imagining her softness as squishy, fatty flesh and her hands as pinching claws and weapons of blunt trauma. Her legs nothing but bone and muscle, her stomach nothing but a bag of organs...