Daydreams

Monster

There they were, suddenly, without warning. The battle seemed to part around them where they stood, arm covered in blood and face covered by a cruel smirk. And I was frozen. For a second, maybe two, I was knocked out of myself, knocked into my confused mind and a sea of memories. In those two seconds, neither moved. Their eyes were locked on me, as mine were on them, and they were brutally unfamiliar. Filled with a hatred I could never have imagined, they broke my heart.

Then the two seconds ended and they charged. They swung their sword and as I did the same out of pure instinct the bucket of cold, icy water that is reality was dumped over my head. The tip of my sword grazed their hand, and they dropped their sword.

I stared as the blood started welling up from their wound and saw, or maybe just felt, how their cruel smirk and the hatred in their eyes deepened and hardened. And I knew that, like me, they were being taken back to a long past summer. The summer of our last year of school. A summer of unbearable hot days when secrets normally hidden by long sleeves had to be revealed.

"Do you really think you can hurt me with a blade?" they taunted. And it hurt, because I didn't want to hurt them at all. But they didn't think so. Or maybe they didn't care.

A gasp from behind me broke through my filter and I spun to face Nico whose eyes were locked on Deen where they stood behind me. I grabbed his arm and shook him.

"Go, Nico. Leave! I'll take care of it."
He tore his eyes away from Deen and looked at me. His eyes slipped back for a second before he looked at me again, nodded and took off through the fighting masses.

I went to turn back around, but I had left my back recklessly vulnerable for too long. Before I could turn something hit me hard and knocked me down. I rolled over to fight them but no sooner were my arms free before they were forced down by Deen's knees as they straddled my chest. They dug their hands into my hair and gripped tight.

"Ah!" I gasped.
They lent down until our noses touched and hissed,

"Hello Princess"
The only nickname they ever had for me. Cruelly given the first time we met as enemies.

"Remember that time", they whispered, "you were attacked and almost killed, by an unidentified person."
They pulled my head back further.

"They tried to smash your skull. Would have done it too if they hadn't been interrupted. Shame that, isn't it? That they didn't get to finish. I was so very disappointed"

And as they pulled my hair again, the painful realization washed over me.

"That was you?" I gasped.
They laughed.

"I'm surprised clever little princess didn't figure it out earlier. I used to think you were smart"
They lifted my head and banged it into the ground. Their voice turned into a growl.

"This time, princess, I'm going to finish the job. I'm going to split your pretty little head open properly.

In a fear fueled burst of strength I toar my arm free. My fingers found the dagger on my thigh and in raw panic I started banging the handle into their head, because blades wouldn't hurt them. After just one hit their hands went to their head and they wailed. It hadn't escaped me that their head seemed much more sensitive than it used to be. A weakness that could be my saving.

As I kept hitting, their hair seemed to glide down their head. It wasn't their hair. They were using a wig.

I kept hitting and hitting until I managed to push them off me and press them into the ground. their head was a bloody mess but they were very much alive and breathing. My head yelled at me to kill them, to keep hitting until they stopped moving, but I couldn't. I was so confused. I looked down on them and saw a face I had loved, but without a trace of the person I had loved. Where my best friend had been was a bloodthirsty monster of hatred and cruelty. But I couldn't kill it.

And as I stood there, a figure swept up next to me and slung a dagger down between their shoulder blades. They convulsed. And went still.

I looked in shock at the dagger before me and then at the woman who had wielded it. The dark empress stood next to me with a gentle smile on her lips. She turned her face to me and said, as if she'd read my mind,

"The master's gift. A servant in pain may call their mistress to relieve them of it." And then she was gone. And left was only me and the body of a monster and a friend.

Trigger warnings: violence, implied self harm, death