Forgotten; Worshipped (Imported from Ao3)

19

James sat quietly in his palace, the silence around him in the dead of the night weighing on his shoulders like the mountain on his heart. The darkness engulfed the room in thick layers of black paint, painting over everything. James could see nothing. It was a new moon and he needn't watch the world below. He didn't need to see anything. He knew perfectly well where everything was. There wasn't a sound within his palace. His heart wouldn't beat its rhythm for him, his breath wouldn't dare past his lips. He felt nothing but heaviness. Everything was heavy. His heart was buried under a mountain, a world lay crushing on his shoulders and the silence of the room was drowning and crushing him under its mass.

A sharp breath, a cruel parody of a sigh shot past his gritted teeth and tightly shut lips and pierced the silence of the room like a well-aimed arrow, until it hit the wall and proved to have not had much of an effect on the silence. Yet the effect it had rippled through the room like a drop on calm water. It was hardly anything special, but it was a disruption. Pieces of the broken silence rained down on him like a storm and the thought made his heart under the mountain ache and writhe.

His mind wandered into forests of thoughts he hated. He knew not to wander there, but his mind always wandered and got lost in them and it always took him days to find his way out. Now again, his mind was lost in this forest. He knew once upon a time, he had loved this forest of thoughts, but now the mere notion of it made him sick to the stomach. Not because he had grown to hate it naturally, but because it had been ripped from him once and given back to him the same day tainted.

A growl escaped his loosened lips as he desperately tried to find his way out of this forest his mind had gotten lost in. But his mind wouldn't venture onwards. It wouldn't move and it infuriated him. It was stubbornly stuck in the same space, stubbornly refusing to move on. An end was not in sight nor was it in mind and he threw an arm over his eyes in shame.

A guilt was crushing him like the mountain on his heart or the world on his shoulders. A shame spread through his stomach, a parasite of shame feasting on his body and his mind, picking his heart as its next target. It was eating him alive, shame and guilt. His heart was beating, pounding harshly in protest under the mountain as his mind scolded him for what he had done. He had tried to relieve the aching pain his thoughts had brought him, but in trying so he did not only fail to be relieved, but it only brought him guilt and shame that were now having a feast eating him alive.

The silence was now completely broken, the shards of it piercing into his ears. He let it happen. He let the pain, the ache, the guilt and shame consume him so utterly and completely. He deserved nothing better.

The door to the room flew open in a crash, breaking the door and surely part of the wall it hit, and piercing the thick darkness with violent light that chased to him and scratched his eyes out. He was blind for a second until he found a familiar silhouette standing above him, casting its shadow on his red eyes. A sigh pushed past his lips, defeated, but sounding like he hadn't a care to give to the world. The figure above him growled with anger seething in his very core. If James was honest with himself, and that might be a rarity these days, he really did not care what the figure wanted from him, or why it was angry. Of course, he knew exactly why and what, but he couldn't bring himself to care, he was too lost.

He scarcely felt or noticed being lifted from his spot, hardly felt or noticed being talked to, and then angrily thrown around like a rag-doll for not responding. Of course, his mind grew confused when it felt numb throbbing all over his body, but it changed nothing. He did not fight back, he deserved nothing better. But he attempted to defend himself to his mind and heart that no one deserved better, knowing he couldn't and wouldn't win against the judging quiet of his unrelenting yet unmoving mind. He was split in two, the second half floating above him in a distance. He knew it was part of him, that it was him, but he didn't feel it. He felt the distance, felt not like it had ever been part of him and wouldn't ever be, yet he yearned for it to be part of him again. Perhaps, his half thought, perhaps a reunion of both halves may finally relieve the split god of it all. Of the hunger he felt shame for and of the deeds he felt guilt for. Perhaps he would be relieved of his torturing thoughts, of the parasite gnawing at his heart. Perhaps, he dared to hope, it might even lift the mountain off his heart.