Red As Blood

Chapter 13

The fall never ended. It was the second before falling off the edge of a waterfall, except it lasted for an eternity. She had the feeling impact would be fatal. She could see herself in the black air, the smashing as she broke into a million pieces against the ground. Her bones turning to liquid, her skin disintegrating into dust. She had fallen from heaven and landed in the center of purgatory. Mari's hands refused to open. Her body refused to straighten out, frozen in a fetal position as she fell through the unknown.

When she tried she heard voices. A familiar deep voice that called out to the human side of her. The voice woke memories, memories that were fighting a losing battle against the pain and the emptiness. She wanted to forget that voice, forget its significance. She heard the other voices, pleading and beseeching, worrying... and she didn't care. Perhaps they were her friends, but she would no longer live that life. She wasn't bound by the limitations of the flesh anymore. She felt the beast growing within her, encompassing her with its power.

"Mari..."

Aryan. His voice was laced with concern, but it was no different from before. She had given up her soul and she was still the servant girl to him. She had accomplished nothing. The princess was not next to him for once. Mari looked around, at the bolted doors and the drawn curtains.

"Why would you do this, Mari? What were you thinking? Do you even know what you've given up?"

She'd given up mediocrity, she'd given up death and sickness. But as the first of the hunger pangs struck her, she realized she had traded sickness for a starvation that would never end. She was not a stranger to hunger, but as a human she had experienced it as a dull continuous ache. But now hunger struck her like a stab wound, piercing and producing red spots in her vision. The brief period of lucidity she had was gone. She needed blood, and she needed it immediately. She smelled the bittersweet aroma of the blood from the jar and emptied the contents. Her favorite dress was ruined, but there was a temporary reprieve from the emptiness.

"I thought that it would be worth it," she answered. "I thought you would see me differently."

Aryan knew he wasn't good with emotions, but he regretted not noticing Mari's feelings for him. In his ignorance he had probably encouraged her infatuation. He knew that he could never feel anything for Mari. She was too simple, too good for some like him. He wished that he could change his affections, looking at her stricken face, but all he felt was pity and anger. Mari looked away and wiped her chin of the blood.

"I'm sorry Mari. I never felt that way about you."

He knew it wasn't what she wanted to hear. But she'd already entered into a world of cruel truths on her own accord. He looked at her face, changed and ethereally beautiful, devoid of the human flaws of scars and asymmetry.

"I thought that it was the only way you would be with me," she admitted.

It was pathetic. She still loved him. Aryan wondered if that was how the queen felt. But even love was an ugly emotion when it was in the heart of a monster. There was a reason he was logical.

"If you really knew me, you wouldn't want to be with me. It doesn't matter if you're human or a monster. In the end I can only hope for someone that will understand me. And that's a foolish hope to say the least. No one can understand me Mari. No one understands what drives me to do the things that I do. Not even me. Tomorrow I might find that there is more to be gained in having you dead than alive, and then I will kill you. I won't be happy about it, but in the end you will die if it benefits me. I'm not cruel, but I don't possess emotions like you do. In that way I'm worse than the queen herself. At least she feels something."