A HEART AS DARK AS MINE caos caliban x oc

1

GOD HAD DESERTED ME A LONG WHILE AGO. I still prayed until my knees were raw. He was still God. Forgiveness did not come easily, I knew that. Repentance was toilsome work, and that was why only few walked in his light.

My back was carved open, two fresh wounds where wings had once been. This did not feel like repentance. The scars that covered every inch of my body did not feel like displays of devotion. If anything my faith was a curse.

I laid hunched in on myself, my body contorted into a small, scrunched knot as I hugged scarred knees to my chest.

My only relief came in sleep. I was greatful to my fleeting consciousness, for in the moments it waned I caught glimpses of the world I created inside my head. There was a boy, a friend. He was sometimes more than that. He was beautiful and kind, we always met on the beach at sundown, with sand the same golden as his hair and waves the same blue as his eyes.

I have only had one friend. A girl with red hair and a heart shaped freckle on the bridge of her nose. She was the kind of friend who vanished when it all turned bitter, when the truth came out. She was the kind who thought this torment would fix me and make me pure again, the kind who believed in devoted suffering. The boy didn't believe in such things. He said that love should never be painful.

The only thing that kept me sane in those endless years of torture and pain was the comfort that came with those dreams. Dreams of  that beautiful boy I hoped to one day meet, however stupid or foolish that may have seemed.

But dreams could not last forever, he was a shattered visage in my mind, bound to crumble to dust as I woke.

꧁꧂

I had been dreaming of him for twenty years, and my immortal existence seemed to pale in comparison to the two decades in which my dreams had been filled with this boy. It was no surprise when I dreamed of him that night, just like every other.
I settled myself beside him in the sand. We were up in the dunes this time, and the grass bristled in a sharp midnight breeze. His eyes seemed to trace its billowing movements before landing on me. "Tomorrow's the big day," He said, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips, his voice sounded like the rasp of crashing waves, and their melodies blurred into one blissful sound. "Are you afraid?"
I contemplated it for a moment, watching the tide roll in below us. The night was darker and colder than my usual dreams, and the ocean had an unfamiliar ferocity to it as though a storm was fast approaching.
"I suppose so," I told him, "but I think that this was how it was meant to happen. My father can't rule forever."
He nodded, eyes meeting mine as I rested my head upon his shoulder, "Do you think the flesh Acheron will hold him?"
"Yes." I said "No, maybe, I don't know. But Bri isn't coping well, she misses Nick."
He had come to know me well over the years, this figment of my imagination I had concocted to find some solace within, and though I had made friends after my escape to the mortal realm, none compared to the boy who lived in my daydreams.
"It's only natural," he told me, fingers combing through my wind swept hair, "But if it's any solace, I can't wait to meet you, Sera."
I looked at him with confusion etched across my features, "What?"
He laughed, a genuine, soft laugh and planted a kiss atop my forehead. He began to slip away, I felt him beginning to turn to dust, to fade away beneath me. In the prime of my torment I had clung to him, even though he could slip through my fingers like smoke to the afternoon breeze, but ever since my escape to a more pleasant, softer life, I had learned to let him go. He became the wind, echoes of his laugher dancing in the breeze as the world began to dissolve around me.