He dubbed himself the Rat King when he foresaw the rodents crawling on his corpse, weaving in and out of his garments like a sensation, like a disease. Now he waits for them down in the ornate sewer home he fashioned. It is a fickle thing, the premo...
Something pumps dangerously inside Boidae. An illness seeping into his bones, a poison he does not understand. Black, raw, and dripping—growling with rage and clawing at his chest, prying the marrow bone of his ribcage open.
The image keeps playing in his mind. Over and over and over again it repeats until he wants to scream and tear something apart, to watch as it splinters into pieces. It won't disappear. Blood. The long jagged line of torn flesh across ivory skin. The drip of it oozing down the cheek, curling around to slide along her lower lip and dribbling onto the tip of her chin. And blue eyes, bright blue eyes with rays of green staring bemusedly at him as she falls, the strands of golden hair whishing around her face.
This is something, an old voice tucked inside his head whispers. This moment. This look. Do not miss it.
But what does it mean? he thinks and he feels...
He feels and he recoils from it.
The mirror splinters, fractured like a rippling wave as his reflection stares back at him defiantly.
No.
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I am so sorry.
I am.
Little one? Are you listening?
I am—truly. I didn't— I mean, I— It never...
I am so sorry.
Please listen.
Are you listening?
Pet?
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A burn crawls up the side of her cheek like a tear trailing across. It is something dark and maiming that clutches at her, making it seem as if the world is not such a bright place as it once was and the tiny, beating thing within her is smaller and feebler than before. Lying there she can hear it, hear the echoing thud in the silence.
Thump.
Thump.
She opens her eyes wide—as wide as they will go—to feel the stretch of her pupils dilating, a failed attempt to soak in all the black. The molten tear remains on her face, a memory of one more thing she wishes to forget.
