The crunch of snow under my feet as we staggered down angled streets. The buildings yawned open, disgorging their contents. We could feel their steel gazes piercing my soul, penetrating me. Our secrets were on display, an angry scrawl carved in the air, letters drifting, trailing our every move. The voices in our ears howled. They were us and we were they. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time. The consumption of selves. Was there anything left?
STOP. turn back. Whisper. RADIATE. Tell me what I are, what I know. I call you from the dark! CONSUME. I cast you out! I love you. I hate you. Thousand times, thousand dies. CREATE. The crack of bullets whizzed overhead, the snap of chaos, the madness it's MADNESS in me it's drowning me i'm falling and i'm stumbling and why won't it stop why won't it stop why won't it stop please no HOLD take the line take the reigns stop FIND cast a vote please take me please kill me please do anything RUN
Worlds overlapped. We saw the people and we saw through their disguises, we saw the shadows and tendrils and carved knives digging through pallid souls. We saw how they gazed upon each other jealously guarded behind doors closed like eyes. We blinked a thousand times. The light stabbed at us because it was always light. We could stomach the outside occasionally during winter, clouds fighting against the sun but the screams of streetlights and neon sides, the stench of rotting food from restaurants long closed. We stagger onwards, through traffic and cars, hands on our back, the smack of movement, of motion, of apologies mumbled in one of our voices, one our my many voices, one of the many, we are one of the many.
When was the last time we were in control? When was the last time we knew what we were? What was stability?
A memory flashes helplessly, uselessly. A face. A moment. A whisper, a voice, "what are you?", a shadow of a face, a face seen clearly, the most human human, the only one who didn't blend into the others.
Stupid. Always stupid. Just had to go and lose, had to go and try and fight and kiss and die and lose and it's always it's always, what's wrong with us, why?
It pours out of us and it is only via luck that no one sees us, that no ones notices the shadows and teeth and acid filled tongues that ripple over the streets, licking legs and chewing on lost pets. No one feels the rage, the consumption the shifts of reality throughout the crowded winter road. We stagger against a building, the stone stabilizing us, holding us up. It is old, we can feel the strength of age, of endurance, the promise of respect and peace. We brace ourselves for what happens next, the eyes of passers by skipping over us.
We touch the handle of the blade gently, gingerly. It burns. Whatever they coated it with, whatever runes it was carved with were powerful, were strong, were maybe stronger than us. Our hands break the spell for a moment, and a passing mother glances at us. Her kids are in a stroller and thankfully they don't see, but she does. She sees our eyes and our teeth and the wrongness to our existence, the failure to be human that defines us. We try to smile, we think. She screams.
The voices are louder know. They know that time is limited, that stability is nothing compared to the risks. The knife slips out slowly, dripping blood gushing from the hole in the side of our head. Reality flickers for a moment. We're home. We're dead. We're alive. We're in the moment again, fighting, kicking, screaming, holding on to everything. Self definition is an art we fail, we lose, we cannot, we're pushing at the boundaries.
The collection is screaming. The knife clatters to the ground. We feel the form shimmer and ripple. We feel isolation beginning. We feel the rejection.
Eyes open on walls. Keys turn in doors. The rules break themselves open. The twisting of rage, the sharpness of teeth, the existence of the banes. It hurts.
We flicked. We can see her face dancing in the wind, in the breeze. We see her as she was. She hates us. She loves us. She doesn't know us. Should we know her?
Is there peace?
We listen to the roar, hesitating on the edge of the abyss. Never take knives out. It keeps the blood in. It keeps the us in. We don't have bones. Just an infinite darkness, a constant consuming void, the terror inside. Roar. Scream. Cry and beg. How many years has it been? How much time slipped by? When did we stop? Where did we come from? Why human? Why here?
The sounds were sharp. Our ears were hollow. The hissing whining of us within. We were snakes crawling beneath skin. We were veins pumping blood. We were mouths cackling with glee. We were becoming this alley.
A piece of us fixates. A piece of us remembers.
A man swaggers into the alley, following the pointed fingers, following the screams. We stare at him with our dozens of eyes, our dozens of creeping tentacles. He is small. He is nothing. We eat him whole. We devour his little soul until there is nothing left, not even a new voice in the choir. Not even a new self. Meaningless.
His fist impacts our face to the cheers of the crowd. The freak gets what it deserves.
The flesh crumples. Control fades. We descend into nothingness.
There is nothing left of us but a bubbling black evaporating puddle, a dark stain, the sense of victory in those who saw.
I am a shade. I am a wisp. I was once part of something greater. I am a memory. I go to the one place I recall. I go to the one human I recall.