THE GRIM BALLAD OF GAIA, tom riddle

𝗊𝗎𝖺𝗍𝗍𝗋𝗈

─── ❀ ───
TW: mention of su!c!de

Obstructed moonbeams glared through cheap linen curtains, fragmenting into pieces across beige walls — nighttime was always quite beautiful when undisturbed.

However, dusk was always seen as a sinful period in time, for it seemed that every malevolent being prowled the silent earth — bloodlust corroding their fractured minds. Burdened souls wandered through moon shadows, avoiding flickering street lamps and preying on lost mortals in the midst of their innocence.

Tonight was no different.

Tom Riddle sat in the comfort between heavy cotton sheets, back propped up against the stiff, wooden headboard. Chipped varnish stuck to the tattered collar of his shirt, itching at his exposed flesh. Though the top of his spine ached with discomfort, he continued to stay still in his position.

His bedroom was quiet, for not a sound was heard besides the hum of his steady breathing. Amid his troubling lifestyle, a moment of serenity was a rare time he cherished. It allowed Tom to collect his pernicious thoughts and sort them without distraction. He despised disorder and never quite understood how someone could ever be so chaotic when they had the ability to change it.

This was humorous considering the circumstances.

For in the palm of his large hand, a locket made of heavy gold sat, dripping its antiquity through the crevices of his printed skin. He absorbed the piece of his ancestry like how darkness absorbed light in a forlorn amalgamation, feeling the way emerald ichor pumped through his veins until it circled back to his withered heart. On top, a viridian serpent shone proudly, glinting through vines of silver light as if it were rough scales.

His ears ringed with persuasion — whispers pushing him to make it into a horcrux already, for his victim was just in the other room. "Not now," Tom mumbled to his demons, brushing them off both his shoulders before rolling them back to stretch out his aching muscles.

There were a plentiful of reasons why murdering Gaia Arbore that night would be the most reasonable. For one, he could easily get away with the crime because no one would know that they were together besides those who were in the bar. Not to mention, it would save him from having to put on this facade for an extensive amount of time.

Though, would the crime really be worth committing if there was not a little bit of anticipation?

Tom was a sinister man, and there was something about Gaia that made him want to defile her to the greatest of means by turning her into a horcrux. He wanted the world to collapse into hell as the cry of her name vociferated holy landscapes.

There would be no gain from simply killing her right now, for it did not seem like she would fear the afterlife as much as she would fear leaving the world when it was erupting into flames; her care for others consumed her.

'That is what makes her weak; caring about others,' Tom thought, stroking the ornate details of the locket with the pad of his thumb, 'How unfortunate to be cursed with compassion in a world full of greed.'

Tom held the locket up to the moonlight. His face was carved with a devious smirk, for the locket was his. Salazar Slytherin's infamous locket was in his possession, and he was going to finish his ancestor's mission of cleansing the polluted world of mudbloods and muggles alike.

How ambitious of him.

Taking one last admiring glance at the locket in his hand, he silently placed it in the drawer of his nightstand, casting a concealment charm so no one else could discover it besides himself. Merlin knows what would happen if Gaia came across the locket during some type of deep cleaning day.