Reprieve From Eternity

Chapter One : : Part One

December 23th 1988, Tsushima Residence, Kanagi, Japan.

The simplest way to describe his residence was sterile. Corridors needlessly vast, hollow, with banal decoration. A maze of rooms eternally vacant. A foundation of prolix misery. Gloom permeated every corner. Leaden walls absent of pleasant color. Wooden grains plagued by crimson secrets. A tedious spectacle of affluence.

Occupancy incapable of recovering it from desolation. It suggested the dismal reality which swallowed its inhabitants. A dreary world. A vapid world.

The world of elites...

One wondered. Were they not but corpses unaware of their own demise? The deceased had no need for riches. Yet the decaying minds of the privileged craved them. Only the spoiled dead coveted life through such meaningless things, no? Or was it the opposite? Decaying life coveting riches on the winding path of death.

Whispered hauntings gliding across polished floors leading to an area of isolation. The musty smell of paper and old leather, creeping into hollow corridors from beneath the creaky entrance. The stuffy air carried the heavy record of undesired history, a comfort beneath the murky lights of the library.

Bookshelves, reaching from floor to ceiling, lined the long walls of the spacious room. A terrifying variety, and needless collection–rows upon endless rows of leather-bound pages. Bookcases, crafting an ever shifting maze of singular destination. A secluded, windowed alcove swallowed by soporific obscurity. An escapist's home.

It was a deceptively roomy space concealed behind the winding passage of bookcases. Housed in a messy corner, across a worn dark mahogany desk, a comfortable single-seated sofa of vintage leather and cinnamon brown. A warmly lit antique lamp, so dim one could barely make out the surroundings. At the center, a low profiled coffee table sporadically decorated in parchment and flickering candles, a cocktail of danger.

Books, of various perplexing subjects, littered haphazardly across the uniquely fashioned floor. An intriguing jigsaw of 500-year-old dark oak wood, where no two pieces matched yet fit together entirely. A pleasing image in the eyes of the beholder, built upon the experiments of an architect.

A cushioned cover stretching the window sill, matched by plush pillows, the light so dim its color could not be made out. Like velvet curtains, the shadows draped themselves across the tinted glass. Forgotten spirits enveloping the deplorable mimicry of life, which made its home against the seat of the frosted window. A consoling blanket for an unknown loss.

A young boy settled against the fogging chill of the window. Beside the sill, leather-bound riddles piled, towering beneath his feet. A stern posture and air of prestige carried him even as he lounged. He couldn't be older than six or seven, but age could be deceiving. His body was small, his limbs thin and flexible. The bitter smell of antiseptic clinging uncomfortably to his skin. It disgruntled him.

Fluffy brown hair framing a delicate sculpted face. His eyes were a dark chocolate subtly tinged red under the dim light, carrying a blank boredom. His dress was stately, a white button-up shirt, tucked neatly within a pair of black shorts held by a brown belt. A carefully knotted black tie resting around his collar.

Attracting the eyes, bandages partially displayed themselves from beneath formal black boots, crawling up the smooth skin of his legs just below his knees. The peculiar bandages likewise peeking out from below his collarbone and beneath his long sleeves. Every break of his skin engulfed by the pleasantly tight ring of cotton. The demon resting against his skin disguised in healing white, hiding that which was No Longer Human.

His blank eyes roamed the pages of a vibrant, thin book of calming melancholy blue. It was as languid as the one who held it. A record which did not belong, not amongst the piles at his feet, nor those lining the shelves. A nameless story. The supernatural fiend living within his flesh, collecting data of a Setting Sun.