Emperor of Mayhem

s i x t y - n i n e

MIKHAIL

I was once a man whose only thirst was the need for absolute power. There was nothing else I felt I needed more than the need to acquire nearness to immortality; I didn't need family, friendship, conscience, humanity and definitely not the most pathetic of them all, love.

I didn't think I needed love.

I was going to take the world by a storm on my own. I was going to plunge heaven and hell into a state of complete disarray, even the devil would run and hide at the mere mention of my name. 

I was going to be so powerful, only a force as tiny as a thread would have separated me from immortality. That was all I hungered for, day in, day out. 

Power. Absolute power.

But somewhere along the line, I began to get carried away by simple things; I started to think I could fall in love too even though I knew love was always the beginning of a man's ultimate destruction.

Knowing this, knowing opening my heart meant opening my iron doors for my enemies, I didn't stop myself. 

And I knew when things started going wrong for me. I knew when the life I thought I had all tailored out started to turn into this ravaging war of passion; passion that looked a lot like how I envisioned my doom someday.

I knew my destruction was on the way when a seemingly soulless man with nothing but his conscience to lose, started to wonder what it would feel like to want someone so greatly he would do the most unimaginable things.

I knew my end was near when I began to toss and turn in bed at night, dreaming up scenarios where like in the telenovellas I always accidentally stumble across on the screen, what it would feel like to have this heart; this cold and still and dead heart of mine, beat so wildly at the thought of that one person.

I knew my downfall was underway when I decided I must find a woman who would keep my heart on the move, become my every waking thoughts, stand by me through thick and thin, close her eyes to all my flaws because somehow, she had learned to be devoted to me just the way I was; broken, cold and hard to love... except by sacrifice.

And I knew exactly when I lost myself to this passion. This annoyingly, energy-draining and all-consuming passion that although I could try, I knew I would never be able to live without, not when it had become my addiction and my strength.

I knew when it started. And it all started when I decided I wasn't going to spend the weekend in Japan anymore and must return to Russia by dawn.

It was when my foolish driver came a bit too late to pick me up from the airport, so I spent an extra hour waiting behind.

It all began to unravel when instead of resting my head and sleeping after a tiring journey, I decided Moscow all of a sudden looked so beautiful so I wanted to admire the sky, I wanted to see cars race with mine, watch pedestrians go about with their lives. 

I wanted to see what it was that made the wind a little bit too harmonious that evening.

Destruction came staring at me in the face when my eyes fell on her as she jadedly dragged her suitcase through the walkway.

I desperately wanted to get closer and made the driver slow down. And when I was hungry to see the face behind that grace as if she was the first woman I had ever caught a whiff of from afar, I vividly recognized my doom. For it knocked on the door when she turned around and smiled at me like no one had ever done before, and my heart did something weird and wild. Maybe it was the twinkle in her blue eyes? I wouldn't know.

I was a gone king when I decided to trace her to her home. Or when I came to a heart-shattering realization that she was too young to be mine, that society would frown at a possible relationship that I desired with her, yet I hovered around her like a shadow.