Fan Fiction ❯ The Nightmares of Wilddog ❯ Shattered Soul ( Chapter 3 )

Shattered Soul

Have you ever turned off the lights and stared into a mirror with only one single, dim, beam of moonlight shimmering vaguely across your face? Have you ever stared for so long that the eyeballs suck unto their sockets and you no longer look human but death itself? Staring blankly into the darkness of you true appearance, your face so stern that you're not even sure if it is truly you anymore, only to realize that you can no longer even recognize your own face?

I stare blankly into my reflection, only to see that death is within me, because I have brought death.

Eycalipsia is Death.

I am just a mere pawn for death, I now know what it is that Eycalipsia wanted from me. But please, not that.... I don't want to be a mindless sheep in it's herd once again.... I have had enough following, I want to be on my own. For once in my life, I want to be alone and free to do whatever I want to do.

Often I'd sing that song, sometimes it'd play in my head, running over and over.

"Amazing grace,

How sweet the sound

That saved a wrench like me.

I once, was lost,

But now, I'm found."

Sometimes I find myself waking up and singing it, after listening to it within my dreams that I can barely remember. I'd burry my face into the palm of my hands, wiping the sweat away from my face. I panted, whenever I see their faces in my dreams, it becomes more intense. And then I find Eycalipsia the one singing in the background as the bodies lay over miles of a sea of red grass.

I cringe, I screamed, I cried, and I attempted to close my eyes, but the horrors of my dreams wouldn't let me escape the lurid that has tainted my mind. I twist and turn and cry out in pain and anguish every night, and still I see their blood drawn faces. Unforgiving, livid, sorrowful, desolated.

"I once was lost

But now...I'll never be found...."

No...I didn't....

That night, I woke up from that strange dream, finding myself laying upon a couch in Cameron's home, with a thick, wool, blanket pulled over me. I tried to fill my mind with what little blissful thoughts I had left. I tried to forget all of Strider's attempts to force me to sleep with him, and I didn't want to see the looks on the faces of those that I've been forced to kill in order to survive. They begged me for forgiveness, every last one. I remember the very first time I killed a human being and ate him.

I dreamt of a memory....

I was sitting in the corner of a rotting wooden home that we all had been forced into, I had been watching as two men were wrestling to their deaths. One would always win, and to the victor, would live to see another day. Another man walked up to me, standing up while I was sitting. I could see within his black eyes that he didn't want to kill me, and neither did I, but sensing his hunger, it went deeper than just skin. For his bones were stuck far beyond his skin and his eyes sunk deep into his cheekbones. His flesh carried deep up into his ribcage. He neglected the urge to kill for a long enough time.

The first thing he did was kick my face, pressing it against the wall. But he was still weak, and I could take him for I meditated everyday, and the desire to kill and taste a new kind of meat didn't go into my head as much as the others did. Yes, I was all skin and bones, I looked like him. He looked like me. Both of our hairs stringy and skin pale and gray, but he still wished to kill me.

And I didn't think twice before grabbing my hands around his ankles and twisted it, his bones crunching under my palms. The man screamed, dropping down onto his other knee and holding up with his fists down to the ground. Since he was weak, it didn't take long for him to concede defeat. He looked up at me, into my gray eyes. I showed very little mercy for him. Honestly, at the time I didn't feel anything, for I was numb. But now...now....

He begged for his life. Idiot! Why does he want to continue living like this?!

And I remember looking down upon them with my cold, gray eyes. "No, because its not what you would do, isn't it?"

Habitually, I would claw out their organs, digging my fingers through their flesh while they were still weak, ripping apart every last bit and tasted their blood. It was bitter and the first time it made me gag. But it was food, and it kept me alive. His blood did I drink, and his meat did I eat. I gagged even thinking about it.

I leapt out of the couch, running around and down the hallway, across from Cameron's room and dashed towards the bathroom, putting my face over the toilet and vomited a draining, red liquid. Oh god, did I ever feel so sick!

The door opened to his room, and Cameron poked his head out to see me with my face over the toilet with my knees on the ground and my hands hanging loosely over the seat, my eyes rolling onto the back of my head. Great, he really needed to see me like this. I vomited again just by the smell of my puke. I wrinkled my nose, trying to hold my breath as I did so.

A hand rested over my shoulder, sliding down onto my back and rubbed. "Are you sick?" Cameron asked me.

"Mmph...." I muffled out, just before I vomited for the fourth time. I could tell that he, too, was disgusted by the stench of my heave. I didn't blame him, since that'd make two of us.

Oh fuck...did my stomach ache.... And while I resisted the urge to tell Cameron "Yes, I'm fucking sick, don't you have eyes?" I focused most of my pain towards the sore in my knees for sitting on them for what seemed perhaps a half hour. My eyes swelled up with tears, and my hands shook like I was having a seizure. I felt dizzy, leaning back. Cameron had taken me out to get some new clothes, but for now I was just wearing a night shirt while I slept. I wiped some of the shit off my lower jaw and mouth, while some got on my neck, but I was too dazed to realize it. Hell, I didn't even know it was there until Cameron leaned over me with a towel he had grabbed from the rack, running it across my left side and cleaned off some of my shirt.

I felt like a baby with a bib. Geez, did he had to be so...gentle about it? Shit....

Swaying back and forth, with my arms hanging at the sides and my head hung low, my light brown hair hanging over my face like spaghetti. I felt like vomiting again, but I didn't have the strength nor the substance left inside me to force anything else out.

I let out an involuntary burp, sounding much like a small hiccup. I opened my eyes slowly, seeing little circles surround the room.

"I knew you should have stayed at the hospital for a while," Cameron said.

"I didn't want to be around...doctors. I don't want to be around people...." I burped again, covering my mouth with the sleeve, leaning my back against the wall and rubbing the back of my neck. "I've had enough of people...."

"Alright, then. You don't have to be around other people. You can just-"

"No! I don't want to fucking be around other people! Period."

The way I said that must had sounded so bad, Cameron didn't even bother to bitch about my profanity. He gawped at me. I avoided his gaze as much as I could, but the urge to look into his green eyes was hard to resist. The more I looked at him, the more I could see the blood drain down his face, and the skeleton from underneath the flesh form into a barbaric instinct for me to kill. The voice in my head told me to kill him. Kill him. Kill him!

"Come on, you should get some rest-"

I screamed, instantly recoiling when he attempted to grab onto my hand. "DON'T TOUCH ME!" I crawled from where I was, sitting right next to him, to all the way across the bathroom, now my back pressed against the shower stall. I shivered, letting out a small, pathetic, whimper. I didn't want him to touch me. I didn't want to see their faces anymore! I didn't want him to....

However, Cameron didn't give in, he started to lean over to me, his hand out. "Come on, Oni," he said softly. "I know you don't want to be alone right now. Just let me help you. Talk to me if I can't do even that."

Kill him.... Kill him! KILL HIM!

"NO!" I screamed, batting at my head at these thoughts. "IT'S OVER NOW! I DON'T HAVE TO!"

Cameron quickly rushed over and grabbed my hands, holding them out so that I would stop hitting myself. I looked up at him with savage eyes, my breath and senses heavy, and my hair tangled into knots. That was when the voices in my head had turned me lose. I jumped at him, like what I had done with Strider and tried to do to Eycalipsia. I started smacking at his face, then used my claws to scratch him. I drew blood, running my nails over his cheek. He looked like he was being beaten by a wildcat, flailing his arms madly, trying to catch my hands as I was beating his face in. And suddenly, when there was very little energy left in both of us, I stopped.

Oh god...what have I done....

He was still alive...barely, but alive. His body had gone limp, but his face was scratched and bleeding. A hansom man, he was...and his nice looking face had been maimed. I looked down at my hands. Pieces of skin was caught between my blunt nails, and corrupted with blood. Cameron's blood.

My eyes bulged, realizing to my horror of what I have done. I can't...believe it.... Cameron...will he ever forgive me for this?

I sprawled my way off of him, my back against the shower once again. Cameron opened his now swollen eyes, and he sat up slowly, pressing a hand over his face, and looked down. Blood covered his hand. I knew what he was going to do. He was angry...he should be. And now she wanted to hurt me. He wanted to beat this bloody shit out of my until there was no life left within me to scream. That's what he wanted to do...because he was angry....

...right...?

No, he didn't scowl at me, he didn't even raise his hand to strike at me or leap to attack me back. He got on his hands and knees and crawled over to me. He looked sad, I almost cried. I pressed my knees against my chest and buried my face into my blood clotted legs.

Cameron...he wasn't angry. I could see it in his eyes when he searched into my own. He blinked, and I stared back.

"You're not...going to kill me?" I asked him in a child-like voice.

He shook his head. "I would never want to do that," he then tilted his head. "What happened to you, anyway?"

My head throbbed, nodding slowly involuntarily. He laid a comforting hand over my shoulder, like a friend would do to another friend when they were crying. Only I wasn't crying. I could barely even spare a tear anymore. And still.... He showed compassion for me. I nearly killed him, and he spared me. I hadn't met another person like that for a long time.

"They wanted to kill me," I muttered.

We were two completely different people. Like the moon is to the sun, and the stars mean to the earth, and life is from death. Of course, we all know where that last analogy fits. We were two completely different people, and he still didn't kill me. I had been spared at a time when I tried to kill another man, only this time it wasn't for food. Now I was killed because my intuition was trying to tell me to. I felt so weak and tired, I wanted to sleep but my body was restless. It didn't want to sleep. It wanted to continue murdering Cameron.

"Oni...who are they?"

"Dead," I whisper. "They're dead now. I don't have to worry about them anymore. Now...I have to deal with her."

"Who is her?"

"I don't know, exactly," I look up at his face. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't worry about it," he told me. "Its just skin. It'll heal."

"No...I'm sorry for attacking you. It wasn't okay for me to do that."

"I told you-"

"It wasn't fucking okay!" I say through my teeth. "It's not because I've done it before. I might do it again. I lost control...."

I try to stand, but the gravity of my own weight wasn't exactly working well with me right now. It was pulling me down and keeping me there. I wanted to leave...and never to look back. The last thing I need is to cause an unnecessary death.

Cameron remained silent, obviously wavering on thoughts of what he should and shouldn't say.

"I'm not going to just let you walk out on your own," he told her. "I have never been down this road you are taking, so I have nothing to compare with, except for...when I was a kid, I used to always get into fights for no reason. It didn't matter if the kid was bigger than me or as weak as a mouse, if he pissed me off he was going down."

"So...what happened?"

"It all came back and kicked me in the butt. Literally. The others gained down on me, and one day, I had it all coming. I was lying in the middle of the playground, beaten to a bloody pulp, and I had to be taken to the hospital, where I stayed for weeks."

"Didn't you tell anyone who did that to you?"

Cameron shrugged. "I got what I deserved, I learned. So I didn't tell on them, and ended up making the best friends I ever had, because one day they sent me a get well card. The moment I left, they asked me to play baseball with them. Too me a bruised eye and a sprained wrist and ankle in order to actually get the hang of it. But they were there for me after that. We all graduated, and went our separate ways, though. I have been the delivery man around here, getting products from town to town, because this village is so small. But it doesn't matter how far away we are, because we still have that memory of us as friends."

"That's one fucked up story, you know that?"

"Never said it was a good one. Just seemed to have fit the situation," he smiled with a blood-spattered lip. I frowned, feeling guilty for doing that to him.

But there isn't a thing I can do...because I am a mere puppet.

***

I wonder...if there is a God, would he understand what I am feeling now? If I still had the faith to believe in God anymore, would I have ended up the way I had...?

Can you hear me? Can anyone hear me? Can you see what I have become? A goddamned empty body, wandering the endless world without a soul to guide me. If there is a God somewhere who can hear my cries, if there a way that I can forgive my sins? I need a sign...any sign.... If there is anyone up there, any God...show me the way. Tell me if this road I am taking is the right one or wrong one.

Gradually, I feel myself slip away, my life draining from me. And I can't forgive myself. My body is a disease. I am the host of a parasite known as guilt. A guilt that goes so deep, I feel as if I can never forgive myself.

I ran when I should have stayed and died.

"Amazing grace

How sweet the sound

That saved a wrench like me.

I once, was lost

But now, I'm found...."

And as my fingers dig into the sheets while I dream the same dream, and I see the same memory, a nightmare that constructs itself into a new form known as reality. A dream that is real...? A nightmare that I have lived, seen, tasted, felt. I have the scars to prove myself of that nightmare. My soul has been poisoned because of those cancerous dreams.

"...once...lost...found...."

If there is a God, and you can hear me, please relieve me of my binds, and free my soul onto a higher plane. Let me close my eyes and forever see the darkness that I have been hiding in all this time.

God, if you can hear me, tell me if I am doing the right thing...tell me...if.... WHY DO YOU LET THESE THINGS HAPPEN?! You're supposed to protect your so-called children, you hypocritical motherfucker! Why do you let bad things happen if you are supposed to be all powerful and great? Why do I still believe in you if you are nothing but a mere myth? All my life, I believed in you, I TRUSTED YOU, and you throw me into my own personal Hell. WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME LIKE THIS?!

We all must believe in something....

...but why am I so lost...?

...is it because I have yet to believe in something worth giving my faith in? What is there that I can believe in that'll not do this to me! Why have you turned your back away from me, God? Why is it that whenever I try and walk towards you, you turn your back towards me! I want to be welcomed with open arms...I want to....

...to....

...die....

***

The smell of bacon and eggs filled the air. What a nice smell. I hadn't smelled anything like this for a long time. I sit up from my seat on the couch, as I see smoke coming from the kitchen. I blink, walking towards the room, scratching my head.

Cameron was standing there with an apron, jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt, flipping some eggs over the steaming pan, wearing glasses over his now-opened eyes. They must have healed a little bit overnight, but the red marks of when I scratched him where still there. A wave up guilt ran through me, just by seeing what I had done to him. I wanted to tell him that I was really sorry, more than he had known. I don't know what came over me at the time....

"I didn't know you wear glasses," I managed to say.

He looked over his shoulder and smiled. "I only wear them while reading and doing other certain things. Other than that, I can see perfectly while driving, but I still have to wear them," he turned back to the stove. "I hope you like bacon and eggs, I'll stir up some pancakes in a bit. Until then, have a seat at the table when you are ready. I have some extra clothes for you in the bathroom, in case if you wanna get dressed right now."

Without another word, I sauntered down the hall, entering the restroom, where I had beaten Cameron into a fucking peice of shit. I didn't mean to do it. I don't even know what came over me, I just....

Clothes were stacked over the closed toilet seat. Jeans, corduroys, shorts, and shirts like tank tops, short and long sleeves, blouses, much like the stuff a man would wear. That was me, obviously. Didn't want to get any cutesy girlie shit, now, did we? Most of them were T-shirts with tigers, dragons, and other sayings like "My Other Sword is a Light Saber" and "If I Throw A Stick...Will You Leave?" I loved those kinds of things, and after months of wearing ragged shirts and jeans, because I was never given any new clothing, I kind of missed them.

I slipped on some jeans, shoes, and a black and red and blue dragon T-shirt, I brushed my hair before I walked out to get some breakfast.

Cameron smiled through the wounds that I had given him, making is harder for him to show any facial expression, he set down some eggs and bacon along the side. I look down at my breakfast. It smelled really good...at least Cameron could cook better than I could. I can't even make a salad worth my life! Hard to say whether if I was going to get used to this guy or not.

"Thanks...." I told him.

"No prob, if you need anything else, I'll get it for you. Need something to drink with that? Coffee, milk, soda?"

"I'll...just have a glass of milk," I told him. It always went best with breakfast, right? I turned to look at the kitchen clock over his microwave, and saw that it had been eleven. I shake my head and eat my breakfast, though I found myself more scarfing it down. I was hungry...and thirsty. Very much so, was I. By the time Cameron came back with a glass, he had seen my plate cleared.

"Hungry, were we?"

I give him a nod, taking the glass from his hand and downed that just as well. Cameron raised an eyebrow, watching me gulp that down just the same.

"See it's not just hunger we have to cure, now, huh?" he said.

A sudden pain rushed through my head, I dropped the glass and grasped my forehead, trying to wait for the pain to pass, but it didn't. The more I waited, the greater the pain was becoming. Cameron rubbed my shoulder, and patted my back.

"That's what happens when you eat and drink too fast. You end up choking yourself."

And he suspected that I didn't know this...? So what if I choked myself, might be for the benefit of the greater good, then, wouldn't it? At least he wouldn't have to worry about me beating the shit out of me again. I looked up at his face. Those glasses made Cameron look a little bit more intellectual, and I started to wonder whether if he really needed them.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked him, picking at the cloth of the table.

"Hey, you never need a reason to help a damsel in distress, now," he said, walking back into the kitchen. "It's Sunday, today, so I have no work. Maybe you might wanna come to Church with me? Might be very enlightening."

"You're a...Christian?"

"Yeah. What about you?"

"I don't really believe in anything."

"Ahh," he nodded understandingly. "Atheism. Not exactly the best way to go," he said, handing her a mug of something hot. When I took it and smelled, it realized that it was coffee...with a hint of chocolate. Cameron continued. "Everyone needs to believe in something. If not, then you should at least believe in yourself. If you don't, then I don't see what's the point in being humans."

I stare into the liquids, swirling from the light above. "Then maybe there isn't a point...."

Cameron scratched the back of his head. "Okay, that's not what I meant...."

"Look, churchie," I snapped, looking up at him, "I don't care about your fucking religions. I'm just not exactly sure who I am right now, so don't pester me about becoming a Christian right now."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to convert you into anything. I didn't mean to imply that to you," he chuckled.

I sighed, blinking and then stared at my drink....

"Mocha," he told me. "Don't worry, I normally put extra chocolate in it. Should wake you up a bit, you look beat."

I flinch slightly at his last word. Certain words that he said and how he said them made me shutter a little bit. Reminded of me back then.... My thoughts wander to look up, watching a fly flutter around the ceiling. My eyes gaze at it, and the feeling in my hands suddenly go numb. I hear Cameron saying something, but my focus one what little action was going on above me had driven all of my thoughts away, so I just...didn't care, I guess.

And then a tap in my shoulder. I turned, and quickly all of my senses rushed back at me, and pain ran up my hand. I yelped, jumping back, and setting the cup onto the table.

"Was trying to tell you that you were spilling it," Cameron said.

"Yeah, I was a little distracted...sorry."

"A little?" he barked out a laugh. "Oni, you were completely gone."

"Yeah...I guess I was," I said dreamily.

"Look, obviously there is something on your mind. Can you at least tell me some of what happened to you?" Cameron asked, almost begged. "If you don't wanna talk about it, I understand, but I just would like to know that you trust me. I'm not going to do anything to hurt you."

"I know that," I said quietly, holding up my burning hand and start rubbing it. "I could tell just by looking into your eyes the first time I saw you. But too much has happened...some things that's best for me not to go into detail."

"Tell me, please. I'll get you a rag, hold on," he stood up and walked into the kitchen. I stared off into space, holding my hand like a child would to their candy. Cameron came back with a towel in his hand, giving it to me. My eyes shift, as I take the towel and run it across my burning hand.

The cloth pressing against my skin only made the irritation worse, but I learned to deal with it. After all, from going through all that pain I had endured for the passed few months, a slight coffee burn never hurt anyone, right? And while I was cleaning off the staining liquid from my arm, I was thinking of ways that I could start my story. After this, I was sure he wasn't going to want to know. God, the pain in my hand...just made the thinking less tolerable.

"You are aware of the cult...umm.... They had some association with some kind of bird.... I can't remember...."

"Owls?"

I turned to him, shocked. "Yeah, how did you--"

"Been hearing it on the news, lately. I don't watch that personally, but everywhere I go, it's on. They had been talking about the Cult of Owls, some morons who'd kidnap families and take them in, they thought of themselves as nazis, leaving swastikas in the houses that they would raid. Sickening, really," he sighed. "Anyway, Oni, please go on."

"I was one of those people who were taken," I said nonchalantly, yet quietly.

"Oh my god," he muttered. "What did they do to you to make you look like that? I mean, not that I am judging you by your appearance, I am just wondering--"

"No need to ramble," I told him. "No need. Though I have to say they did a lot to me while I was there."

"I heard they do common criminal things, like assaults and--"

"Rape? They did that."

"To you?"

I shook my head. "Wouldn't let them. And they wouldn't be able to do that as long as Strider was still alive. If it weren't for him, I'd probably be dead."

"Bet that's what you wished for while you were there. Heard some reports of where those...camps had been taken place. The reporters said they found bodies laid on top of other bodies, bloodied, shot, and beaten. Those idiots even had the nerve to show some of their footage off. Most of them were men and children, though."

"Yeah, specifically women, because...they liked to...." I closed my eyes, trying to get the horrifying visions out of my head. "They wanted to, but they couldn't. For everyday I asked for death to come, and it had left me there crying as I had to kill people in order to survive. I killed people.... I FUCKING KILLED PEOPLE!" I cried, clutching my fingers through my entangled hair. Before I could stop myself, tears formed down my cheeks. God, was I a fucking idiot!

Why was I telling him this? Would he ever understand my situation? Would he abandon me at the slightest word that escaped my tongue that started with the word "kill?" People don't normally accept murderers into their lives, why would Cameron think of me differently? Maybe I wanted him to hate me, and maybe I didn't want to become friends with him. I feel as if I am caught up in a game that I cannot escape from. I can see me as a pawn, and Eycalipsia now as the player...the puppet master who pulls my strings and makes me do things I don't want to do.

Now, the screams I hear from me would be different. Instead of me begging Strider to stop, I can see myself pleading on my knees to that bitch, Eycalipsia, and her looking down on me with a contented smile, telling me that she won't spare me. No one ever would. No one would spare me. Not life, not death, not even my own friends. They won't spare me. They hate me, and I don't blame them.

Eycalipsia isn't playing this game like chess, nor any other type of game. Clearly I can see myself being the puppet.

Amazing Grace

How sweet the sound

That saved a wrench like me

I once was lost

But now I'm found

Was blind but now I see

I see...I see...I SEE NOW!

Still, I am but a puppet, a pawn for the player to bring me into battle and kill. Eycalipsia can decide whether to kill me, or save me as the last peice, the one who will be protecting the kind. The king? But who is the king? Who am I supposed to be protecting?!

A hand rests on my shoulder again, and he looked at me in a way that told me that I could listen to him. Believe him. I believed in him.

"Maybe you had no choice," Cameron told me.

"I had a choice," I muttered. "I always had a choice. I did reckless things that would be considered a sin in your world. I will never be able to live like you had, nor like any other girls. While I was in there, I didn't worry about how I looked, but working in the dark of tactics of survival. I have been completely raped of my childhood and lost memories of when I was still innocent."

"I cannot relate to what you are feeling. But I can say that I understand."

"No, you don't. You don't know until you are actually there. Until you are stood up in a line and told whether if you will live to see another day, or abruptly see the world in darkness. You hide and cringe in fear in the dark, wishing for death. Have you ever wanted to die, Cameron?"

Silence. No, of course he didn't. He didn't understand, and no one would understand.

"Oni, can you tell me how you got away?"

"I can't...tell you that," I said softly, standing up. "I can't."

"Well, okay. You don't have to," he replied as I started to walk away, heading towards the door, and then burst out, "Where do you think you are goin?"

"You won't want me anymore."

"Where did you get that."

"Look at what I did to your face!" I exclaimed, turning to him. "Thanks for everything, but I don't think you want to be my friend. After all that I had done...I can't."

"You have been saying that."

"Huh?"

"That you can't," he said solemnly, standing up also. "Then why don't you show me that you can't, instead of saying it. Show me it, I have always been that kind of person. Show me, Oni, and I'll believe you. Tell me, and I think you are lying. Most of the time, at least. Tell me why I can't be your friend."

"After all that I had done--"

"Screw that! It doesn't have anything to do with that, okay? Right now you need a friend, and while that happens, I guess you are stuck with me. It may not be much, but it's the best I can offer."

"Yeah, if you like shits for brains," I grinned. "Fine, I'll stay here...for now."

"That's a girl. Now, off to church we go!"

I sighed, frustrated. "Can't I just stay here?"

"Because, I don't want you to get bored."

"You have cable?"

"No."

"Shit."

"Exactly," he grinned. "Like I told you before, you're stuck with me."