He Is & He Was

Part 25: From This Ocean, I Shall Rise

My demon,
Is a yin and yang symbol.

Pure with a hidden darkness
Evil with a sense of purity.
Reasoning.
He became what you wanted.
He became what he needed to become
in order to live.
In order to give my death meaning.
In order to tell you my story.
Our shared story.
Not for justification-
Just so you know.
Just so you know
what my own kind did to us.
And declared it as righteous.

I woke up inside of a pastel church that was familiarly unknown to me.
A place I had been to so many times in my own head but never been to in real life... The glistening walls were silver and blue, windows white with the faces of angels and sun rays that people called God.
Wooden benches were in lines and rows on either side of me, full of people I knew; full of people I had seen die. Only to die once more when their name was last spoken.
Madam Red.
Rachel.
The other half of my lord.
Patricia.
Agni.
And a handful of people I didn't quite remember.
To my luck it was surprisingly empty for people who had passed in my life but it also made me realise how much I resented human interaction, once I realised immortality wasn't something a human could bare.
A few of my old contractors were here but the feelings of care didn't flutter out of me once I saw it was them... Instead, a sense of anger filled me because I couldn't tolerate that I allowed myself to play with people filled with such greed and jealously of their own kind.
That was why my contractor now was one I couldn't refuse.
He didn't want this, he didn't want to bear my seal and yet for the revenge of our family; he took my hand and called me his. He didn't want power, he wanted the ability to survive his own frailness in order to find the monstrosity's that destroyed us.
That was why he agreed. That was why I took him and no one else.
For entertainment. For fun and for the revenge I so desperately wanted to watch and do myself. We were perfectly carved for one another's morals and I loved it.
The metallic and wooden organ that now took the place of the cross that was usually stood in the end of the room, began to play a melody so saddening- whining and full of realisation of heartbreak that no one could resolve.
The hands of Vincent played between the chimes of the deafening bell above us. His body covered in an iciness that it seek desperately during the house fire. It was so thick that it was almost sprouting off of him like crystals on his shoulders; it was as if he was frozen in a thickness of snow. He was a waterfall in the winter.
I took no time to walk up to him but no matter how hard I tried to race up to him, my legs were heavy and stuck to the ground with every step I took. Vincent's body jerking with every note he played of our farewell melody, the blue crystals shining white as the candles around him hit them at certain angles.
I looked at the people I called friends and family as I walked but they didn't look back. They only stared ahead, smiling tenderly as if happy memories were being flashed before their very eyes, to keep them in a state of happiness during the end of their lives. I wondered if that was what happened when you died; did life's happy events keep on being played over and over again?
Did you ever realise you were dead that way?
Maybe death wasn't as bad as I presumed. For the victim of course. Being the cause was both sickening to me but also addictively enjoyable.
Once I took the first step onto the tiny platform that belittled everyone else's meaning in this church; Vincent turned to look at me over his shoulder. His face blue and almost glittery as if a child had painted his face with my old makeup. His eyelids a silver just like the churches walls. His lips stained a subtle blue, which emphasised the scar I left him on the day Patricia scarred me.
I waited for him patiently. I didn't know why or what I was truly waiting for him to do but oddly, just staring at him was good enough for me.
It was nice to refresh my memories. It was nice to remember what he really looked like.
He stood up from the organ, the last few notes still echoing through the massively silent building.
As he stood, it almost sounded like he was cracking and breaking but I saw no damage show up on his frozen body. We stared at one another, no smiles, no tears. Just stared as we knew; we knew what had happened to us.
A corpse and a Demon.
I didn't think we could get anymore further away from each other in definition.
He suddenly reached out to me and I didn't move as he placed his hand before me, allowing his finger tips to delicately touch my aged face with no worry that I could easily snap his arm into two.
How long ago was it when he did this to me?
Ah, I remember...
It was the first night he saved me.
The first night we locked eyes and knew something depressingly great would come out of the two of us but we got cut short by the war called the human race. We were just two soldiers against billions but yet we never waved our white flags in shame. No instead, we waved rainbows of equality.
I felt something hot trickle down my face and I knew what it was- but I wasn't embarrassed by it anymore. I wasn't annoyed at myself for allowing me to feel what so many Demons denied. I wasn't scared of being a man and being able to cry. I should be allowed to. I had to. I wanted to. It was what made people questioned if I was truly a bad creature or not as they would realise emotions ran deep within me too.
He clasped his hands around my jawline and I hesitated whilst I felt his feeble wrists. It had been so long since skin was felt through my hands in such a loving way, that I almost forgot how good it felt and what I actually had to do for the other to feel the same way.
The warmth unusual to me and my head questioned why violence wasn't sprouting out of me; like every other time I got touched by a stranger.
But he wasn't a stranger.
Even in whatever form this was and wherever I was, he was the only thing that looked familiar and safe.
I suppose you could say, he was the only being that could do this to me.
The only one who could hold hands with a Demon and not be tortured for doing so. The only one to make a Demon as cruel as myself, feel good about myself and feel guilt for the bad things I've done since his death. He was the only one to make me feel regret for the dusty path I chose for myself.
I stared into his eyes that were slightly darker than I remembered. He looked me up and down cautiously, with his lips partially open as frosted air came out of his lungs as if Winter was happening inside his body rather than the outside. But he didn't shiver once. He looked so cold and yet when he held my face, his hands were a warm as they always were.
He suddenly reconnected our eyes, pulling me closer as he did so but we didn't kiss.
In a way I didn't want to. I just wanted to look at him.
"I love you." He suddenly said in a gruff , whispery voice.
I furrowed my eyebrows and tilted my head, slightly regaining myself after he whispered the three words he rarely sprouted. He hardly said I love you. It was almost never. Only on sad days and days where he thought he wouldn't come back from his work; those were the days he said such a slogan.
What was this?
Where was I?
Was this some sort of good bye note he left inside me to give me some sort of closure or was I just thinking into it too much?
Why was he the only one moving in this wonderland my unconscious self made... And why was he frozen?
I suppose it could of been due to the fact I wanted us to be stuck in a time where he was alive and we were both underlined with happiness but it didn't feel right, I didn't know why I felt like that but my body just knew that wasn't the answer.
There was something more. Something else.
Maybe this was Vincent's dream.
"Where did you go?" I asked him, "When I came home that night. You were gone with no letter or conversation. You didn't give me a good bye or even a knowing glance... Where are you, Vincent?"
I blinked and I was no longer beside him but in a darkness I couldn't get out of.
I went to call out for him but I choked on the icy water that filled my lungs and now surrounded me. The saltiness so familiar...
The sea.
Yes.
That night on the Campania still a vibrant memory that made my insides churn and sting from the scar Undertaker left me with.
The scar that took everything from me. The scar that I let him slip through me like an open door. He knew everything would be forgotten the moment he was taken away from me. I was just glad to say goodbye to him before the Undertaker used him against me.
My stomach felt much more emptier than the day before.
I shuddered at the iciness that bit at my skin like little silver fishes, as I sunk deeper and deeper into the black abyss of the ocean. The pressure making my ears block up whilst air tickled the top of my nostrils. Bubbles flying up high like blobby angels but I didn't bother to follow them, I was too cold and so tired of trying to find the escape route of all this cruelness.
I was okay with this.
I was okay with who I was and what I was, I no longer cared about the line between good and evil as I knew I had the right to be what I am.
What was everyone else's excuses?
I looked upwards to see the fragmented sky that was just as dark as where I sank; I guessed it was night time. The big white circle in the sky was a floodlight to discover my corpse in morning, once my lungs became too heavy with water and stones.
A sudden horrific, mumbled whine was let loose into the sea of emptiness; the sound quite terrifying even to me. The moaning deep and long like a whales after it loses its child, making me spin through the density to look around me before I saw it.
The ship.
Still completely lit with blurred yellow lights in the glass windows that hadn't cracked yet, a few hundred metres below me but still enormous in size. To my surprise, it wasn't cut in half like Undertaker had done so after our fight. It was completely perfect in fact, beautiful almost, as the darkness allowed it to sink further and further down -the lights barely flickering from the pressure.
It was oddly memorising to watch. So surreal, seeing such a big thing fall into nothingness and never to be found again. It was fascinating to think about how many people were on there once and how many died that night because of one fatal ice berg collision. All because of a stupid experiment created by a sick man that just wanted his family back. I feel like after that night, there was plenty newborn men wanting their wives and children back just as irresponsibly. He didn't create a cure to death, he simply created more mortal versions of himself.
My butler attire began to weigh me down, once the salty liquid got suckled into the cotton... and that's when I realised I wasn't who I thought I was.
I wasn't Raven.
I was me.
Sebastian.
I was Sebastian after so many weeks of mortality and yet I wasn't even able to swim my way back up with my inhuman abilities.
I just felt so weak. And I didn't understand why.
It didn't make sense. None of it made any sense anymore and I didn't know whether to fight it all and regain what I lost that day in the carriage or to just accept the defeat -that everyone I met-thought I deserved.
Suddenly, the water above me bubbled aggressively and sailed side to side, making me look up and realise the surface was way closer than I expected... The darkness must of played tricks on me.
I saw Vincent's reflection fractured and bleeding through the moving water whilst he stood above me on the water's surface as if it was see through flooring. He knelt down on his knees and submerged his pale white hand into the sea, its iciness not bothering him in the slightest.
His hand looked much younger and softer. Was he now a child to torment me further with his unexpected death?
No.
I was an idiot.
It wasn't Vincent up there... It was my Master.
It was clear by the way he wore his father's vibrant blue and silver ring on his thumb because of its oversized complexion. It was too big for him but yet neither of us dared to get it resized or leave it in a jewellery box; it was too meaningful to hide and getting it redesigned was like killing him all over again. The ring was all we had left of the family we both lost. We couldn't afford to lose it or change it and no we aren't talking about the money expenses here. It was memories that made it so untouchable with horrors.
I took hold of the Lord's hand, hesitant that he would really be able to pull me up because of my size over his frailness but I would never find out because once he pulled at my wrist and I began to become closer and closer to the surface; I woke up.
The room around me lit brightly and patterned with naysaying tiles, that were still clean from the blackened ash I once saw smeared across them.
I squinted for the first couple of seconds because the lights, it almost looked like someone stole some stars from the sky and kept them hidden within this room of mystical mystery... but after a few blinks, I just realised they were normal light bulbs -the odd fly that managed to get inside the curved glass beginning to cook from the heat and making it fly lazily in desperation to find the small crack it once found to get in.
I went to lift my head to look around but I was shocked to realise I couldn't.
I had the ability to but something was keeping me down. Some sort of force. It felt as if gloved hands were gripping tightly onto my limbs and neck to keep me in place... And for some reason I couldn't break free no matter how many times I attempted, which was a weird feeling. No matter how much energy and power I used, the infamous wandering Demon was held down.
My eyes fell down to my body in fear that I had become paralysed in some idiotic way but in a bittersweet way, I was glad to only see the leather restraints of the chair - that I once recalled as a dentist's chair- wrapped around me.
The stench of white sage coming off of the material, irritating my skin and my nose with every panicked breath I took. A deep desperation to get out naturally overtaking me but no matter how much I pulled my arms up and squirmed, it felt like it only made the restraints tighter rather than weaker. My skin becoming red and irritated during my manic attempts to escape.
A sudden array of mumbling caught me off guard, the multiple voices almost sounding like some sort of unteachable Church choir. I turned my head to the side and saw my family of mixed up ages and personalities all roped up and latched to the shiny tiled wall. Usually seeing my Master in such a state wasn't surprising to me but seeing Tanaka, Hilda and Francis like this -in such shameful weakness- hurt me in a deepening way because I knew this time it was no one else's fault but my own. For once in my long life of protecting them in my perfect Butler performance; I had let them get derailed into a madness I never wanted anyone to see. This was the secret I wanted to keep hidden till the dying days of my Lord but it seemed like someone else had other ideas for me. Someone else couldn't let go of my shame and wanted to podcast it to anyone who would watch.
My Lord looked at me with a tinted bruised face but did no more. His mouth so tightly gagged, that he knew saying anything would be impossible for me to make out, but a silent glare was enough for the two of us to know what was happening was something we both had to take charge of as soon as we could... But God knows how long that would be.
Maybe this was the day we didn't and we lost. Maybe this was the day we got checkmated.
This wasn't any of his light hearted missions from the Queen anyway; this was a Demon's birth. A Demon's story that no human should know about or remotely try and fix.
As I said; my creation is permanent and bold.
I can never rewrite it, no matter how many pages I turned because I knew it was still there. I could still see it through the tracing paper.
Two icy hands suddenly grabbed onto my thinned face and made me jolt. It twisted me to look away from my people and only stare into the dark green eyes and fake toothy smile of Joshua. His once combed back hair frazzled and sticking out in certain areas that made him look immediately insane to me, oddly his clean complexion made him look so professional that I couldn't even see his brain had snapped in half a long time ago. I tried to sense how many finger tips he had placed on my face but to my relief he had all ten of his fingers... for now at least.
"Finally, you're awake at last." He said, leaning towards me and kissing my lips even when I squirmed away.
His lips so rough, rubbery and unapologetic to his rudeness but yet something hit me. A heavy weight tumbling down into my insides as I realised; it wasn't the first time I'd  felt his lips against mine.