In a world torn between heroes and villains, it can be a dangerous and hostile place. Some take comfort in the Gifted that stand up against those who would use their powers for greed and chaos. While others choose to hide away, fearful of the day...
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"The fuck?" said Dominic, his words lost beneath his heaving breaths. With a shake of his head, he cast her spell away and looked at the dagger with fresh eyes. As if the blade burned his skin, he dropped the knife and scooted away from where it lay.
For a moment, he sat there, measuring the beat of his heart as he urged it to slow down. He glanced at his chest. Blood seeped out of shallow wounds, his skin cross hatched by furious fingernails. The trails burned more than they bled, and his teeth clenched against the pain that pulsed from the wounds. He then turned to his shirt, where loose threads radiated from where buttons once held the fabric together. He groaned, regretting his decision not to change out of his formalwear before paying Mir a visit.
As he thought of his beautiful captive, his mind caught up with reality, or at least the reality he was being presented. He knew he had to be in the server room. That, however, didn't change the way the grass blades curled around his fingers. Or how the scent of wildflowers traveled upon a light breeze that brushed against his cheeks. Despite knowing he was in a room that was smaller than his closet, he still feasted upon the horizon that peaked out from a gap in an army of towering evergreens. The drab walls of the server room had given way to a sky of blue dipped in lavender, where it met the hazy silhouettes of distant mountains.
How, he wondered, can she manifest all this while falling apart?
Close to where he sat, Mir hunched over so her inky black hair tangled with the grass and curtained her face. Sobs arched her back as her whole body quaked with emotion. Mournful cries rumbled across the field, and somehow, she still managed to create the echo that bounced off the mountains in reply.
"Why didn't you let me do it?" he asked, his voice low and gentle. "Given what you can do, you probably could have gotten away with it. Without me here, my architects would have collapsed and gone their separate ways. You could have put an end to all of it and it would have been done by my own hand. You could have done all of it and gone back to... Well, you could have gone back to this."
He let his words hang in the air and her crying continued. He gave her space and took his time appreciating the clouds that rolled by.
"It hurts." Her answer came in a pained exhalation, the words barely articulated, yet Dominic heard it all the same.
"I know." He cleared his throat and considered approaching her to offer a gesture of comfort, but he figured it would do more harm than good. So he simply continued to engage her attention. "I imagine what I felt was only a fraction of what you feel."
"I hate you." This time the words came out clearer, and she dared to lift her head enough to peek at him from between her strands of hair.
"That's understandable." He paused. A ripple of rage raised the hairs along his arms. He took a deep breath and pushed it away before continuing. "You're right to hate me. Honestly, I often find I hate myself as well. I wouldn't have blamed you for making me cut my heart out. So why did you stop?"
