05-21-2010, 11:22 AM
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He couldn’t remember. Everything—it was all gone as madness consumed, stealing away his soul and leaving behind a hollow shell that was nothing more than an imprint of his former self, like a ghost unable to depart from where it was cursed to haunt eternally. He was a prisoner on this plane; the demon Matanbuches, for he could recall nothing else. He was Belial the worthless, and nothing more. Shadows scratched and clawed at the inside of his head, threatening unholy, ungodly shrieks to burst forth from his lips. His body was wasting away, laying tepid in a pool of his own bile as a single chant echoed through his consciousness, becoming a mantra of sorts that consumed his entire being: you failed. What, who, why, where—he could piece nothing together. Alone, he wandered the landscape, allowing his body to drift as a paper boat on an endless ocean, so fragile and powerless as to be swept away and beneath the waves at any moment. There was no mind behind hollow eyes—a walking corpse that barely breathed, inhaling only the slightest traces of air to keep the skeletal limbs in unending motion. Blood, excrement and bile burned his senses, melding into a nauseating sea of sickness as the earth swayed beneath his feet, rushing up to meet him as darkness fell. The boy, so small and delicate wished to destroy him. But he brought with him something else, and he followed, allowing himself to reach out toward a black-winged angel with eyes of flame and hellfire. A sense of self crept to the surface, but he was no longer who he once was. The archaic name of Belial became his title, brushing aside what was presented to him with open hands. He couldn’t be who he’d once been, for that man was dead. He’d died long ago on the burning plains, dragged back down into the depths of hell raging and screaming like a banshee. They told him what he needed to know, and he played along—the elegant actor starring as the hero of the play, yet cast as the villain in the eyes of others. Cheshire smile, wicked and broken graced his lips, imagining the blood of the innocent on his hands. But was that who he truly was? He refrained, questioning and desire to learn more, yet afraid to unlock what lay hidden away just out of sight. He wasn’t who he was, and yet they wished to call him such. He didn’t wish to think anymore. Darkness was his only escape, though it was tinged with desperate nightmares, tearing him apart with devilish figures and haunting echoes. He was a coward of the highest caliber. But what was it that he was so afraid of? |