[Invitation | PM to enter] And What the Hell Was That?![M]

[Ezrihel]

Do you feel that? I sense a disturbance in the RPG! The Meta is strong with this one. Erik, I’m just gonna go ahead and post to Deme, as well as respond to you this time, but don’t do that again. Sorry that I’m being curt, but I want to move the topic along for now and meta-gaming is my biggest pet-peeve.

"You seem rather calm for a woman that nearly faced death, at the sight of a monstrous beast as well. Pardon my suspicions, but I believe there is more to you than meets the eye, isn't there."

She had been in the middle of taking a breath when he appeared besides her. 

Hm. Normally she would be able to feel people approaching, but he was different. Everything had been different since she fell through into this world. She didn’t have most of her power, but this didn’t change her personality. She just assumed that she would have to figure out a way to get them back, someway, somewhere, somehow.

Being without power was really not that shocking to her. It had not been the first time. Falling into this realm was like being reborn. It was always a struggle to gain one’s powers and memories back at the beginning of a reincarnation. This feeling was nothing new to her, it made her feel the same way that him appearing next to her made her feel: apathetic, disinterested, passive as ever.

And then she heard Erik’s comment on her, questioning her gender. “If she even is a she.”

If she even was a she? Excuse him, who exactly did he think he was talking to or about? Why couldn’t she be attractive and just that? Why did men always like to chalk it up to something supernatural instead of just admitting that they had fallen into sin?

Slitting her eyes in obvious response to Erik’s comment, she answered with that same disinterested but attentively captivating voice. “Well excuse me sir, but you are rather ill-mannered and otherwise rude. You’ve been rather uncivil since we first met, and I must say that it’s starting to make you look quite barbaric and simple. Can a woman not be simply attractive without having had to cast some literal charm on men? Can men not be at fault for their feelings, or is it all a woman’s fault? I wasn’t even trying to get with this striking young man. Have you attempted to even begin to contemplate on the fact that I am not from the same homeverse as you? Mayhaps women there act like I do on a  normal basis.”

She would say nothing more to the teenage man and instead turn away and look at Demetri once more, meeting his light eyes.

After a split second of contemplation on Demetri’s question, she would decide to answer him in the simplest way she knew how to. In a, perhaps unnervingly, steady and calm but not monotonous voice, she would respond, her voice still rising and falling with a that melodic charm.

“Death isn’t something that frightens my people. Horrific or peaceful, we as a whole have accepted that everything has a beginning and an end with the exception of only one thing, the Nothing-That-Comes-Before-All. We do not understand this concept of nothingness, much like humans and other creatures cannot comprehend the concept of non-existence. Try to think about it? That in itself defeats your goal. It cannot be comprehended because it refuses our laws of logic and escapes our capacity.”

“My people are effectively immortal due to our having souls. Humans believe themselves to have souls as well; maybe it’s a byproduct of our tampering. Our souls are immortal, unlike our body, which can be forced to crumble regardless of how long we hold out. Death is meaningless to us, to me, as it is inevitable. Therefore the fear of it is also pointless, made moot by our complex understanding.”

“Maybe a younger soul of my people would fear it, but I am far too experienced to feel and understand emotions like humans. You are flighty, quick acting and short sighted, but so very ambitious. I have seen all of humanity’s history, and most of my own people’s. I doubt anyone could truly understand or ever even begin to comprehend it all, but if you wish to test my credibility on this all, and see why I don’t fear death, you may read through my thoughts.”

After a short pause, she would reach out to Demetri’s mind, waiting only for him to let his defenses down so that he may browse her memories. There were no malicious intentions behind this movement, but she would still strongly defend her mind from the young man, Erik, who accompanied them.

Before he would open himself to her, she would speak up yet again. 

“I would suggest that you proceed with caution. Don’t go further than you can handle, lest you become lost and shatter.” The end of her statement was punctuated with a flash of a smile and a quiet titter. Something that would foreshadow the misery he would face if he went deep, deep down, to far down, into her mind. She had given him a fair warning before she would take him into her mind, sitting back and letting him move through memories on top of memories.

The melody of her mind would start off sweet and peaceful, as it had last time, with equally as peaceful memories floating past him. Happier memories of sweet bygone times that she kept close to the surface of her mind, genuine interest in humanity, helping the lost find their homes, encourage the humans of her time to explore and spread across the lands. 

Jump back ten thousand years, the pyramids and Sphinx of Egypt were being built, over-seen by her and a lithe bodied male of her people. They stood, pale and beautiful in the harsh desert landscape, just their perfect appearance and advanced technology causing the humans to bow to them and worship them though they had been around much longer, creating and teaching, always teaching and creating.

The people worshiping them were not Egyptians as most knew, these were a race of people, a civilization that came before what “modern” British explorers called ancient Egypt and Greece. Having fled from ocean islands to the Mediterranean and into Egypt, Ezzy loved to endearingly call them “Atlanteans” due to the fact that they had come from the Atlantic Ocean. 

She had taught them to write. She had taught them to speak, to read. She had carried them from the infancy ward and out into the real universe, every one of her interventions brought something amazing, astounding and great to the world that humanity resided on.

This memory, and all of them from this time were happy, even excitedly joyous.

Would Demetri continue to probe? Would he enjoy this little joy ride through her mind too much to understand what was coming next? Would he have the resolve to rip himself out of her head? Probably not. Her mind’s song was wicked in the way that it was so inviting to the curious. Her song was something outside of her control, each person would hear something a little different when they were in her mind, something that seemingly beckoned and welcomed those who peered in.

And she, with a mind older than most could comprehend, seemed alien and therefore enchanting to those who could not or did not share her longevity. She appealed to one of the most base human reactions. Curiosity.

She and in fact her very nature of mystery drove people figuratively insane in curiosity.

But she would let him continue through her head.

She would let him see further into what was now unguarded thoughts of the past. The music becomes dissonant, creeping strings being strummed and left to evaporate away in a dreadful and uneasy silence; a lone singer letting her soft and weepy voice sigh out across the slowly corrupting landscape that made up the deeper, darker parts of her mind and memories, haunting in its own simplistic and macabre nature.

It spoke of deep sadness and abyssal longing, a great chasm of seemingly endless emptiness that threatened to swallow up any and all who ever so dared try to touch the bottom. A place of no return hovered deeper down, just a little bit deeper down inside of her eerily calm tortured mind. It stirred like a slumbering animal rousing from the most precarious of hibernations, threatening to rear it’s warped maw and strike and consume those who get lost. It was the most primeval and alien thing a normal human was likely to ever experience, so great and vast like the abyss it reigned over, so incomprehensible that it could drive the ill-prepared into sheer madness.

He would get the distinct feeling of rushing anger and greed, wanton desire to see bloodshed. The memories would be distorted by the soul-veil, a slight visual warping of the memories that caused them to be slightly fish-lensed around the edges.

"Look upon the land, (name distorted, incomprehensible! Look upon the destruction you have wrought upon the pure lands and creatures. LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!" She stood, pushed down, forced to bow by chains not even she could break, before a council of a few greatly powerful. They sat upon their metallic thrones, shaking their heads in disapproval and spitting on her in disgust. Down, down she looked onto Terra's green lands. A twisted smile curled over her lips, taunting them to do something with her soft chuckles that quickly grew into cawing cackles.

She calmed to soft giggles. "I see nothing wrong. All you want is pure control. You want pets, servants, slaves... Hehheh... Heh, you're just unhappy that I've disrupted your little game."

"Thousands of years of evolution and research. It's hardly justifiable-" A female council member had started to state in an even tone before being rudely interrupted by the guilty woman as Ezzy erupted into side tearing laughter; it reverberated off the strong walls of the council chamber.

"Justifiable! You want to talk about justice, to me?" She paused to let out a short roar of laughter. "You made them with our blood, MY blood, then you expect us to bow to your whim and not fall in love with the children of men, made in the image of us to be us by us! Then when I see the children, those that you love more than US, struggling like pitiful animals in the dirt, you expect me to just let them live in squande-"

"(Distorted name, incomprehensible)! Enough!" Boomed the Metatron. "You taught men to make swords and knives and shields and breastplates; and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them; and bracelets and ornaments; and the use of antimony and the beautifying of the eyelids; and all kinds of costly stones and all coloring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray and became corrupt in all their ways. You alone have managed to corrupt every corner of Terra. What say you?"

"Heh, what say me, old one? Ancient one? Maybe you have lost your sense along all these years. Maybe you're letting that deadly wrath get to your heart. Did you too forget that even we are not above what you like to call 'sin'? Maybe I wanted them to experience and learn what they could from Terra, from us, from each other."

"What right have you, lonesome defector, to decide what is best for these creatures?" Asked the Metatron.

"What right have any of you to control their quality of life? Why must you control who I take in my marriage bed, who I beget children with? Do you forget what is it that happened with my first wife? Cast out, by YOU, for not wanting to submit to the hand of a man! You all are not gods here in this city."

"No, (name distorted, incomprehensible), we are not gods among our own people, but we do not tamper where we should not tread. From the wicked communion of us and the daughters of men, you beget another species of huge proportions. What says the daughters you take want to be taken by you, what say you to prove that you are not a deceiver?"

"Haha, hahaha... No. You see, Metatron, I take who I want into my bed. I beget offspring with whomever I wish whenever my loins do command that it should be done. Every woman comes around, after all, I am a god to them. I TAUGHT THEM WHEN YOU WOULDN'T. If they wish to lay each other's blood upon the ground with the knowledge I put onto them, then that is their 'sin', not my shortcoming. YOU GAVE THEM FREE WILL. YOU DID IT. It's all of your faults. All your faults. HahahaHA! Fault from all of you, faulty Gods among your people and among men!"

The image would shift, blurring before refocusing on some new point;

All that she could see was darkness. Silky beautiful darkness that embraced her, kissing her skin with it's silent touch as it sang to her. How long had passed since she had been drug kicking and screaming from the council chamber. She couldn't help but play back the bittersweet sentencing. Gabriel, GABRIEL! Oh that wicked man. He had stepped forward and proclaimed that he had saw much blood being shed upon the earth and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth; the souls of men made their suit, saying, "Bring our cause before the Most High; thou seest what (distorted) hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were in heaven, which men were striving to learn."

Pfft, haha ha. He heh. Oh that was a good one. Man had bit the hand that fed it, and she knew what would become of those humans on Terra once the council were done. Floods? Maybe they would summon forth fire and brimstone this time. She honestly couldn't care how they ended, but it brought her great pleasure to think over the screams and righteous pain of those innocent that too would be punished when caught by crossfire. After all, it was the human's fault for being pathetic and weak. It was their fault for not learning. They were too eager to just take take take, too quick to turn and judge their neighbors and covet what wasn't theirs to covet. Such basic instructions they had been given by their creators, and not even that could they follow.

She pressed his lips together, forming a tight line as she lost herself in thought, convincing herself that she was not the wrong one in any of this. Some one would convince the council. (Name distorted, incomprehensible) would help her out surely! Surely she was just left here to suffer, being bound hand and foot and forced into a dark hole so that she would no longer see light for the rest of her eternity. Within her soul she felt a bitter creature rearing his head, and she thought that maybe if she surrendered to that feeling of hatred and malice and anger, maybe the pain would go away. She sank into herself more and more, surrendering to the bitterness more with every passing breath. This anger that clawed its way up to the forefront of her mind made her feel powerful, it made her feel in control. She wanted to punish the people who had wronged her.

Make the weak submit.

Make them suffer for my pain.

She fell deep deep down, allowing it all to swallow her up, smother her and drown her out, let it take control.

She was strong, she was a GOD. SHE WAS POWERFUL AND ALL WOULD FEAR HER.

She felt a bitter burning, suffocating hunger to bathe in the blood of her enemies. Make them cry and beg for the sweet sweet mercy that only she could provide and then deny them that release into the afterlife. It was the only way they would feel the pain and suffering that she knew. That she understood and had become well acquainted with.

But her mind warned her, deep deep down inside something tried with all its might to warn her of the consequences. If you do this you'll never have a chance to try again. If you do this you'll never have a chance to try.

But It's the same sound, same sting, the same collapse of every thing. It's the same slice, same blade, the same lie and that same old vein. It’s the same doubt, the same dream It's the same sabotage cause she’s the enemy. It's the same night, same day, it's the same parasite feeding on the betrayed. A disguise of self-deception hides her secrets perfectly she’s rejecting her reflection ‘cause she hates the way it judges her.

She’s perfectly flawed, perfectly incomplete, like cracks in the glass and faded photographs. A work in progress and imperfections keep her unique.

I’m such a disgrace. Let them Condemn.

Nothing left to lose, just try again; nothing left to lose just try again; nothing left to lose, just try again...

Refocus. Readjust.

A slew of memories would be shown to his consciousness. A rise to power, the civil war, the death and blood, the gore that always followed, staining a red and purple path behind her. How many she had destroyed, ripped them apart limb for limb and stabbing, cutting slashing, gore and guts strewn across the ground. How many had she ended?

How many lives had she ended, watching as that twinkle, that lovely little light of life vanished from their eyes? Smothered by her touch, suffocated and obliterated by her hands and hers alone?

And in time she found how much she truly loved this feeling of domination. Now the music grows louder, unsettlingly louder, as if encroaching down upon one’s entire existence and attempting to smother the life with all of its overbearing weight.

A blood soaked battle ground, her wings spread wide as she soared above the gore, white feathers stained that familiar purple red of her people’s blood. She holds a sword in her right hand, drawn and ready to taste flesh once again. She holds a shield in her left hand, it’s insignia which once proudly bore her alliance was scratched and worn beyond recognition.

She fought for herself and herself alone. She fought so she could make everyone suffer like she had because she reveled in their misery. It made her strong and weakened them at the same time. She loved the control she had over their lives, reducing importance down into nothing but a toy and watching those whom loved them scream in heart-wrenchingly palpable anguish. She was the Angel of Sin, a Child of the Light, a Creature of the Night. She was the corrupter and the corrupted.

For once in her life, she felt in control. Control over it all. She was a GOD. A god that no one dared attempt to threaten. She was Death Incarnate, the absence of love and all that was good in the world. She had the power and ability to be mercy, and the power to withhold that solace from all those who opposed her.

She took what she wanted when she wanted. She was Lust, Greed, Wrath, Pride, Envy, Gluttony and Sloth. The Earth was a graveyard and her palace, her kingdom by the vast sea of stars.

She meant something now. She had left a mark that would scar everything forever. She was twisted up by her all encompassing corrupted nature, the mental framework torn apart and shoved back together in some half-assed broken way. She had neglected to patch the holes with loose cloth and wall plaster, letting it all leak in, all of the entropy and chaos, the shattering glass and bleeding hands.

She was content, pleased at her progress. She needed just one last thing, one more thing that she knew would come down to her, as if it were a gift given to her by That-Which-Came-Before.

Like a answer to all of her wants, it was given to her. Like a match being struck in a dark room, she could instantly sense where it was.

She was going to finish her job.

She was going to kill Metatron. She would make him understand, force him to understand.

He would know why they feared the night.

With speed unequaled, she appears near the recording angel and attempts to sheathe her blade in his flesh, making a cleaving motion that would have split his chest in half if he had not reacted in the split second of time between her appearance and her attack. He was just as quick, parrying her and knocking her sword back, wicked tearing of metal resounding as their High Frequency blades kiss, sending sparks flying in every direction.

They are all alone on the battlefield this time.

While swinging her sword, she launches her mind forwards, turning it into a finely tuned and sharp point, slamming up against his defense in a rattling blow. This probe would attempt to find a way over, under, around or through this nearly impregnable wall using any means necessary. She is determined in a fantastically godless way to pursue her vengeance. Determined in the way that most humans are to survive and thrive.

She pulls her right hand back to attack with her sword yet again, whipping it threw the air like a snake striking at its prey. At this same time he moves his left arm up to shield his face, causing her blade to jarringly slam off of his metal gauntlet and deflect to the side, throwing her off balance. She lets herself tilt to the right, allowing her to get close to him. Before he has a chance to lower his arm and strike back at the huge opening she had left with this move, she raises her left knee up into his diaphragm, striking him hard and knocking the wind out of him.

He clenches his abdomen up, suppressing some of the pain and delaying her from striking any deeper into his body. She’s now at an angle where he can’t attack her, so he grabs her by the left shoulder and left hip and throws her away from him. The pain that his rough grip had left only caused a grin to come to her face as she quickly righted herself.

She had what she needed now.

In the moment that she strikes him in the gut, his mental defenses weaken ever so slightly, and she rams her way into his mind with no attempt at being gentle.

One second has passed.

He starts to scream, trying to throw up walls in an attempt to keep her from getting too far inside. He’s grabbing his head now, fingers twining in his long golden hair. He drops his sword, completely preoccupied by the assault on his brain. She stretches herself into his head, clawing and biting at every single memory he has, ripping them from his skull and swallowing the knowledge down. Each action she decides to take causing him more and more pain until he’s making those sweet inhumane sounds that reverberate off of those stark white walls. Those precious sounds that were only for her to hear, only for her to love, twisting his handsome face into a mockery of what it used to be.

And into his skull she whispers one thing across the terrorized landscape of his mind.

“It’s okay love, we all break someday, in someway.”

Like a child she crawls into his head on hands and knees, scratching with torn fingernails and leaving bloody hand prints. Like a child he wants to break, shatter.

He was her newest obsession.

He filled his brain with racking sobs, those despairing howls that convulsed his chest and let her know that he wanted to break.

She moves towards him, closing the gap between them. With her sword, she leaves cuts on his body while worming around inside his head like a maggots feeding on the kill. She carried indentations in her flesh from his fingertips.

So now blades would engrave her love for him right down to the very bone. Up would well the violet of his blood that signified that he understands. Of course he understands.  He wept tears that proves He understood. When she knew that they had come to their understanding, she would caress his skin with loving hands and whisper to his mind that all would be okay one day.

Just not today and not the next one,

Or the one after that. 

But some day. She promises him that someday he would come to the limit of his brokenness and it would all be okay. 

Two seconds have passed.

She lets up a little on the pain, allowing him to speak.

One.

Single.

Word.

“WHY?”

She pushes him further, and crawls inside of his brain once again, as if wanting to have one more memory of being inside that insane asylum. She shows him the truth and leaves him naked and vulnerable inside his own head. She shows him everything he had never known in that moment and laughs as he shatters, breaking into so many little unstable pieces. A nervous wreck left forever trapped inside his own mind stands in front of her. He was once such a proud man, so powerful and respected.

She had taken that from him. She had taken every single thing he had left in the world from him and now watches him withering away in front of her, like a child trying to wish away the shadows.

In a rare moment of pity, she walks up to him, and raises her sword one last time. She kisses him goodbye and cleaves through him, standing directly in the spray of blood, not bothering to move as she lets it paint her that familiar purple red.

Finally one last memory plays. A final gut wrenchingly painful personal memory of hers.

Red... It was all red... Black... Black in the moonlight... Sickly... Sickly broken limbs all around, skin stained with crimson...

Pools of sweet nectar on the ground,  sullying the walls, furniture and the once cream curtains blowing quietly in the breeze...

Why?

That had been what she had pleaded to the beast as he did it over and over again... It fell again... Sick snapping... Vision in red...

“Hush little baby... Don’t make a sound...” His soft coo broke the humid air.

All she could hear was her own ragged, terrified heartbeat as this creature turned to her, his eyes... Eyes like that of two daggers, pinning me to my spot against the stained wall... Sap... She was covered in their sap... Oh god... It was all over her... Would this thing, this vile beast, would he end her like he had ended all the others before her? Would she just become some other smudge on the carpet?

“Hush little baby... Don’t make a move...” He said.

And then it spoke to her... “I can see it... In your eyes, your terror... Your fear... What am I going to do to you, you ask?” His voice... It mocked her with it’s false kindness... He spoke so softly, so gently, as if she were precious and breakable... But his words... What he said betrayed any sort of kindness... “Oh my, Dearest you should know how I like my fun.”

He stepped over to her, things underfoot making squelching noises that sickened her to my very core. He came closer, closer and closer he drew until he was directly in front of her, and then he knelt, touching her cheek with a warm, wet gloved hand... The fabric was rough against her skin, but all she could manage to focus on was the slimy dampness as it left a stain on her flesh... He looked her dead in the eyes... His eyes... His eyes were so very captivating, almost enthralling as his left hand slipped under her own right hand, holding it in what would be a highly comforting way in some other situation.

“This is gonna hurt... Me more than you...” His words were curled; one could hear the malice in his tone as his hands began to undress her. Her traumatized mind couldn’t even comprehend what his words could have meant until the cold feel of the night air against her skin jolted her out of my stupor. Instinctively she reached a hand out and managed to land what would be a stinging blow to his left cheek, she could hear the smack, feel the sting from the force of her palm as it his face; yet he didn’t even seem to flinch away or otherwise react. No, he caught her petrified stare with eyes that carried the sparks of insanity, something was broken within him, something that had once comforted her in a kind and full-hearted manner.

“I really wish that you hadn’t have done that, Love.” He said with a slight sigh, she could feel the warmth from his gloved hands as he placed said appendages midway up both of her forearms and pressed down with great force. She heard four sickening cracks right before pain exploded from her forearms... It hurt, it hurt so bad, the pain running up her arms and through her body as if suddenly her limbs had become full of live wires. She could barely hear him as she hissed, writhing in pain; pain like two hot irons against her bones, burning her to the core. “I truly hate hurting you, please, do stop struggling.”

She could barely form a sentence, she couldn’t focus through the scorching pain she felt in my arms, it seemed like a horrid nightmare. She chokes out his name before she stopped, gasping through the pain, trying to block it out while she struggled.. “Get off!”

A grin, brought to life by the moonlight, spread across his face. “Why don’t you just lie back and take it, like a good ol’ girl? Granted, I do like the thought of being rough with you, hehe.” He chuckled softly, pinning her down with what seemed to be ease. He pulled back, his right hand grabbing her jaw, fingers squeezing down enough for it to hurt. When she let out a noise of pain and opened her mouth, he spoke again. “I’m the master. I control you, and you take the punishment. Must I tell you again?”

Then he stole everything from her.

“I’m so sorry for hurting you.” He whispers to deaf ears. “I did this because I love you. I love you more than my own eternal soul. Am I really that bad of a person because of this?”

She was broken Inside, still feeling alive and forced to defy those who cast her aside. Losing her mind as she’s gasping for life. She feels like she’s crashing through tides that drive her to find the darkness behind which she knows will never run dry.

There seems to be a thinning line between her soul and sanity, and it’s quickly fading. It takes but a breeze to cause a storm, a breath to cause a scream, and she knows that it takes just herself to cause a tragedy. Without much more of a word, she forces him out of her mind and back into his own. She had shown him a lot in just a brief moment.