Stargazing With Beilah

Fading Versus Flame

While you faded away, I went out in flames. 

The sickness took you in its cold grasp and pinned you down, slowly draining life and energy from you, slowly taking you away. I don't blame you for leaving me- you couldn't help it and I know you would have stayed if you could have. Without you, though, life became darker. I no longer had the woman who shielded me from the pain of life. I no longer had the person who kept my head above the water while everything around me seemed to try to consume and destroy me. While the world overwhelmed me, when he hurt me, when they manipulated me, you protected me. 

I made that impact on no one, and when I left, I went out quickly. I disappeared in the snap of a finger and, unlike you, I did not go out sadly, clinging to life. Instead, I threw myself upon Death's doorstep and dared them to take me. If I was dying, I was going out in style. If I was going to suffer, I was going to go all out and I was going to take as many other people as I could with me. 

Before you died, you lay in your bed, staring at the ceiling. You died slowly, clinging to life every second that the disease slowly took the warmth and energy from your body. Your skin turned grey and cold and you grew thin, unable to even eat. The disease sat on your chest and crushed the air from your lungs. It screamed in your ears and filled them with ringing noise that stopped the rest of the world from being heard by you. It covered your eyes to keep you from seeing those who stood by your side. It tortured you before finally taking you. 

I died, essentially, at my own hands. I created what killed me, going out like a mad scientist taken by the hands of the monster that they threw into the world. The flames lapped at my body and ran through my veins. It charred my flesh and seared my hair, filling their air with the distinctive scent of burning corpses. The skin peeled and shrivelled around my bones before I was left to turn to nothing but a pile of charred bones drowning in ash. 

Cries filled your broken lungs as you left. You despaired and hoped that you could continue on. You hated dying. You wanted nothing more than to recover and survive what happened to you. You left life empty aside from your sadness. 

 Manic laughter tore from my throat as I died. I died because I am resourceful. When backed into a corner and threatened with the prospect of jail time, I made my final heinous act and set myself aflame. I died completely full. Full of hatred, rage, and malicious intent. I died proud of myself. I did not fear death. I feared no one, for I knew that I was stronger- that I was the one in control of my fate. 

You were cold and your eyes were blank. 

The fire that took my body matched the fire in my eyes. 

You died with bittersweet peace in your soul. 

I died with vengeance and hatred in mine. 

Your death a whispered goodbye. 

Mine a screamed "fuck you". 

You faded regretfully. 

I burned magnificently. 

You wished for life. 

I wished for nothing. 

When you left, people cried. They mourned the loss of you, saddened by the disappearance of such a great life. They sobbed at your funeral and wished you well as you went off to the afterlife. 

When I left, people were unsettled and relived. I had no funeral, and no one would have attended if I had. No one mourned my death. My death meant that people were safer, that no one would have to worry about the things I could do to their precious world. They spat on the ground when my name was brought up. 

We lead different lives and different deaths. Considering all that is different about us, no one was surprised that you went to Heaven while I went to Hell, but everyone was shocked that we were mother and son. 

Eugene. 

Alastor. 

I don't really like how any of the aesthetics for them turned out, but I felt like I had to make them, so here they are.