Heartbeat

Part Two

"What happened next?"

"You look pale."

"I'm fine."

"I believe you're scared. Are you afraid of me?"

"Why should I be? You can't touch me with those shackles on."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes."

"You must really trust him."

"What story did you tell the boy?"

"You can't keep me locked up forever. I will see him again."

"We'll see about that. Just continue."

***

He nodded, rather he truly wanted to hear my story or just thought it would buy him more time on this earth I did not know. All I knew was that at that moment I wanted to share my story with someone I knew would never be able to repeat it to another living soul.

"Our story starts long ago. I was only twelve at the time, a normal boy to all who encountered me. Even then, however, I knew normal was far from the right world to describe me. I always had this... monster inside of me. A darkness, you could say. I never felt anything, not for my mother or my father, not for my brothers or my friends. Everyone around me would throw around these words; 'I'm sorry', 'I love you', 'You hurt my feelings'. They were never more than words to me though, words I learned how to repeat with the illusion of meaning, but words none the less. Now that I look back, I think my father always knew this about me. At least, that's what I tell myself to explain the beatings. Things changed one night though. I met someone who brought a light into my darkness, the only problem was that I was the darkness. Do you know what happens to a light consumed in darkness?"

He did not answer, only shook his head. I stroked the long black hair, almost as long as his, and let out a soft sigh.

"It eventually dies out. Darkness always suffocates even the brightest of lights. I had never felt love before I met him but once I really knew what love was. I wanted to be with him every moment of my life and I wanted to protect him from everything evil in the world. I couldn't have both though. So, I was doomed from that moment on to be stuck loving him from afar, never being able to have him the way I want. You know what all the monsters you humans speak of in your stories and movies have in common?" I paused and took a moment to study the boy next to me in order to ensure he was following along. 

He nodded stiffly, trembling like a leaf under my darkening gaze. I licked a drop of left over blood from my perturbing dagger-like teeth before continuing.

"These monsters, they're all viewed as emotionless. You humans comfort yourselves in the fact that they're their minds or souls are broken in a way that separates them from yourselves. You spend so much time fearing the monster who feel nothing but a monster without feeling is easy, they have nothing to fight for. They have nothing that gives them a reason to fight aside from their own survival instincts and even that can't hold up against an army of skilled warriors, even if they are only human. A monster who feels is what you should really fear. We're the ones that will rip the throats out of every last person who stands in our way, and even when we're outnumbered and the odds are against us we'll win. Real love gives you the strength to overcome even the most dire of situations. It is a power wasted too frequently on the likes of your species. You're too weak and stupid to know how to harness it and properly use it. You let your one advantage over the monsters you fear become muddled by your own desires to live lives of comfort and excess.

While you drown yourselves in sex and drugs and food you make-up reasons to excuse this behavior. You walk through your lives blindly, hurting those who love you with your own sick perversions and effectively killing your only chance of winning over the monsters who lie waiting. You turn your back to any responsibility for your actions and seek for something to make you feel whole while walking all over the one thing that can grant you that fulfillment."