Don't Hurt Me
Dark.
It's getting darker.
Again and again it's always the same.
To feel myself slip into the shades, to be compressed into some faded memory, and become an intrusive thought within my own skull. Between these shades my consciousness is pressed into the background and my own morality is pushed deeper to the base of my skull, screaming and writhing between the dense rocks of my own determination to seek truth. Was it Foolish? Tenacious? Aberrant?
My will as a student of knowledge personified.
It's an ugly thing. Staring at it now, it's an abominable thing. An empty husk five feet and seven inches tall skulking towards me with shards of static dirt pulsating from the sockets with globules of shadow coalescing into rudimentary strands of beads vaguely resembling hair.
The mouth was only a hole, a bleeding orifice of pitiable content that spewed forth muck at a nauseating consistency. Though, admittedly, I found it calming. Even as it crawled upon me and suffocated me with it's detestable deformities till my mind is fading. Will be fading? Should be, Fading? Into me. Tenebrous. Molto Tenebrous. To me there is nothing for we are... I are... No am, To me this is am, NO! NO!
I AM! I am...
"Horace?"
Awake. Awake in a hard bed and annoyed by the dim candle light peaking through the crack of my door. A moist towel on my forehead, a bucket of vomit by my bed, and goosebumps running down my bare chest due to a chill.
"Maxwell, why am I being treated like a dying man," I asked, my body trembling as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. How strange that the floor wasn't cold. The towel fell from my brow as he walked in carrying a candle.
"Don't over exaggerate. If I was treating you like a dying man, I would have buried you already."
"Oh, you have jokes tonight do you,"A twitch of my fingers and a mumble of arcane syllables under my breath ignite the three candles in the chandelier above me," Well perhaps you can inform me of why it is humorous to place this bucket of vomit next to my bed."
"It's humorous because it's not MY vomit. Check your mouth before using tongue to make such statements, Lord."
Half-digested bits of carrots and the acidic tang of water mixed with stomach acid. I hate when he's right. He takes a single victory in our banter and lords it over my head with a smug half-smirk that just boils my blood up to my cheeks. Not to mention that insufferable stare he gives and the way his words curve into aggravating jests on account of my short comings. Though he does it all for my safety. How annoyingly sincere...
"Am I sick then? How long have I been unconsciousness?" What did I do last? There was... That cat? Those people... The woman... Egasha, I believe. I didn't receive an answer until he sat next to me.
"Only two days this time..."
"So am I sick?"
"Define sick. Personally, I'd say going off for weeks and perhaps even months at a time all in search of a make believe-" What?
Make believe? "Make believe?! You've seen me pour over my research for days at a time and you say that what I'm hunting is make believe or do you so quickly bury the memories that got us into this predicament in the first place, Maxwell?"
"YOU'RE NOT..." I never understood why he always rubs his eyes whenever he gets upset with me. Anyone else he just walks away yet he stays to bear with me. Even when he's wrong, I find him staying put admirable regardless of how smug he is, but those eyes tell another story. A story I wrote for him and, like a dog, he hung on my every word.
"Are you even listening to me?" He's leaning closer to me. Too close. Too close. He noticed me scooting away. He had to, but why is he staring at the floor. Why is he crying? Is it me? I'm not...
"M-Maxwell," why am I nervous," I apologize for my absences. I realize that being the head custodian of the school is stressful, I know that the students always ask where I go and it gets tiresome, and I am well aware that taking care of me is a burden but-"
Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. What? No, No, NO! OFF! OFF ME! GET HIM OFF ME! RESIST YOU, FOOL! HE'S GOING TO KILL YOU! HE WANTS YOU DEAD! YOU HAVE NO FAMILY! OFF! KILL! DIE! CHOKE! CHOKE! CHOKE!
"Uck...H-Hor-ratio..." Choking. Acting. Learning. Mourning. Dying. Ordering. Worrying. Moving. I... I need to.
I let him go. The way his body hit the floor made me lurch forward, but it was my own guilt that made me vomit into the bucket. I suppose with the purging of my own wretchedness clarity follows behind to wrap me in its cowl. It is a bitter mercy for I can only hold onto it for so long, but while I have it I always try to make the best out of it.
I helped the poor boy to his feet and embraced him in my arms as I lead him to my bed. He looks up at me with eyes replete with tears caused by my own madness. An animal I was... An animal I still am. I hold his cheek in my palm as my thumb coaxes the tears to flow freely. Would proclaiming my apologies do any good now? Thankfully, Maxwell knows me well.
"Is your vision clear?"
I nod and look at the bucket once more," For now." I feel him trembling in my palm yet he does not move. The gaze of his eyes focusing upon my face locks up my jaw and the rest of my body follows suit as his fingers rest comfortably on my cheek.
"You need to get rid of that tome." He knows I won't. Even as it sits beside me closed, I can feel it teasing my senses with only it's exterior at first. Black dyed leather cover and the symbol of eight eye stalks arranged in a circle was hypnotic to me. I swear they even moved slightly if my eyes were not focused upon them.
"Would it change anything?" Even without the tome, I would still hunt down my "peers" and finish all of their sickening existences with a flick of my wrist. If only it were so simple, but I am persistent. They do not deserve to breathe after using their lungs to spout such filth at me and are not worthy of even lifting their fingers after pummeling me into bloody shambles just for their own entertainment. Their childish glee at my suffering is a sensation I shall relish in once the rolls are reversed.
"I'm hopeful that it will. I can handle the students, Horace. I can be the leader while you're off doing your research, I can deal with the dwarves when they come with more paperwork, I can even send for mercenaries to deal with the Christoph and the others if it really bothers you, but I can not just sit idly by while you're being warped into this aberrant reflection of who you were. You're not the same."
"A fiend then," I asked as look down at him. I must admit the sight made me wish to have looked away. Never could I bear my soul to him fully yet here I am in that very event.
"I've always been such. I am ashamed of it. Once more and stronger, I am ashamed! Yet it is who I am. When I look in the mirror I see what I've become and I see a devil wearing human skin. I've tortured many, saved a few, and made so many personas I'm not even sure who I am anymore. I am only dimly aware of what I am..."
"Don't say that you, dolt. You can change that." I can. I am. I am hopeful that I die before something happens to him. He loves me, but I must be unlovable. To hold him as I would a close friend would be to drag another with me on the winding road of my own damnation, constructed by none other than myself on the whims of my own preternatural desires. I would travel this path, and though with him it would be brighter, his body would be any stepping stone and his mind a workshop for my own ideals. He would die by my side. Why would I want that?
I speak no more on the topic as I remove his fingers from my cheek and I left his head off of my own. Own. Own. Own myself, I must before the creeping seeps back into my mind. I already feel it or I feel it already. How dramatic. Here I am, standing in front of my closest ally, my back turned to him as he lies physically hurt and confused by me. My bare chest exposed to the elements as my hair drapes in front of my eyes, blocking the light from the hallway from reaching me as it worms its way through the door. And there I go. Walking towards the door, gripping the doorknob, and opening it more for Maxwell to leave. Which he does, he always does.
He looks at me as I stand behind it, cocooned in shadow. He can still see me as the book draws my eyes away from his. He reaches to touch me and I flinch. Why do I flinch? Lips tighten into a wry smile before asking," Is there anything I can get for you, sir?" I do not have the resolve to speak. If I speak, I follow him, he follows me, then we spiral. I shake my head slowly as the air in my lungs weigh me down. I feel sick. I only see his heels as they leave and the light fade as I close the door. The creak of the hinges remind me of an execution.
Mine?
His?
I care not. Back to caring. Not that I would know the feeling. I lumber back my bed, beads of breathe barely breaking the silence. The tome calls. I answer. Again I spiral to my brain breaking, bleeding, braying, praying. Knowledge is power but Magic has a price. In loving leeches like myself I find that everything ends. I wish I could end. For him.
I can not. So I do not. Horatio he called me but my name is Horace. My name is Horace. My name is Horace. I was Horatio. And this is my lie.
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