Chapter 3: A Single, Burning Coal

Chapter 3:  A Single, Burning Coal

A low, grinding sound of iron moving against iron fills my room as my lantern seems to grow a small base on which to stand.  The manacle disappears from my right wrist and reappears on an ankle, and the chain linking me to my light immediately shifts to latch onto it.  A few feet of additional links seem to grow outward from the middle, giving me enough distance to sleep without keeping it in my bed.  I sit on the edge of the mattress, staring blankly at the thing.  I'm not watching it necessarily; I'm not looking at anything.  It just happens to be the anything that I'm not looking at.

The flame hanging in the center has diminished to barely a spark - a yellow-orange dot of light floating an inch off of the iron floor.  It neatly mirrors my own desire to disappear.  Dammit.  Dammit dammit dammit.  There's a momentary twinge of vertigo as I flop back onto the mattress.  Ah, ceiling, now it's just you and me.  And from the looks of things, we're probably going to have all night.

My thoughts are slow in coming to me.  At first there's only silence and the constant soreness in my chest, reminding me of the past few minutes.  It took a while before I was comfortable coming to my room at all.  The same fantasy of just running off keeps playing through my head.  There's no way I could survive on my own.  I know that.  I don't have any means to support myself.  I'd end up as another missing human, lost to random ferals.  There's no way I could do it.  Still, on nights like this one, I find myself indulging in the fantasy again.

It's been what, five times now?  There was the first time with Sister, which I can't even be sure was going to turn into anything else or if she was just using me as a guinea pig.  There was Safi the first time the full moon really hit her, but she still had enough self-control to respect my decision.  Then there was the one slug when I was out shopping when I was twelve, and the Nekomata last week.  Each time, I had to hurt them - physically or emotionally - in order to keep my own freedom.

The incident with the slug is the first thing that comes to mind.  The adrenaline spike must've been way more than I thought it was, considering how clearly I remember the incident.  I still remember the stonework of the alley walls as I was waiting for Vee to finish her shopping in that clothing store.  Having turned down helping her decide on clothes (since how would I know what looks good on her) I had opted to hang out at the side of the store.  I was texting away on the phone when I heard the crinkling of a can being crushed behind me.  I turned around and there she was.

It took a few seconds for the expression of lust-filled joy to slowly collapse into one of horrible realization at what had just happened.  The blonde woman, coming up to almost four feet tried to lurch forward in order to reach me, but she was still about twenty feet away.  Her abdomen was three different shades of yellowish green, and rippled and oozed as she advanced on me.  The grungy, sticky, throwaway shirt she wore stretched taut with each movement.  It clung to her skin without shifting.  Behind her was a trail of slime that more closely resembled snot than anyone would be comfortable with.  I don't remember what my expression was, but I can guess.

I took a few steps away from the thing, but stopped when I heard her speak.  She spoke so slowly that I barely recognized it as speech, rather than a moan.  "Do~n't-," she called out, one arm still outstretched.  There was so much frustration in her voice.  There was so much pain.  "Plea~se!"  She shifted forward another few inches, trying to close the eighteen feet as quickly as her unfortunate form would take her.  For a few seconds I simply stared, brought to a stop by the mournfulness of her voice and the weight of a younger self's sympathy.

I could help her.  The thought crossed my mind as I stared.  For at least a little while, she'd be happy.  But then, what would happen when I left?  I would have to sacrifice my every hope and dream if I stayed with her, and then there would only be more of her kind to live miserable, lonely lives.  As I watched, her face brightened so much.  Slowly, ever so slowly, her expression changed to one of purest joy.  There was devotion there, too.  Love.  Absolute love.  It took me a few seconds, or another foot of her traveling, for me to realize the cruelty of what I was doing.  She thought that she had found someone who would wait for her.  Someone who wouldn't turn away in disgust, or else would run away to avoid being near her.  For a moment in her pitiable life, she had found the truest happiness she could ever hope for.  Because I had stopped.

"I'm sorry."  That was all that I had to say for myself.  All I had to plead her forgiveness for crushing her dream.  I called the Feral Hotline and I walked away.  I didn't look at her face.  I couldn't.

Vee didn't ask what had happened.  I was grateful for that.  I had just turned twelve, but I still had pride as a guy.  I tried to ignore what I had done, at least until I could get back to the isolation of my room.  I couldn't.  Instead I simply sat in the car with her, buried under the weight of what I had done.  Even now, my chest still tenses when I think about what happened that day.  The wound isn't fresh anymore, but the scar still aches.

The ceiling seems foreign to me, as I realize that I'm staring at it.  Does it always look that way?  It takes a while for me to realize that it's simply the lighting that's changed.  I turn for the first time in a half an hour and stare at my light.  It's still barely a spark.  I could make it bigger, brighter.  It would take the slightest effort of will.  A minute passes before I turn back to the ceiling.  I don't have that kind of mental energy right now.

I recall an old fantasy book I'd gotten as a birthday present some years ago.  It was a story about a world where the planet had been shattered, and now everyone lived on floating islands powered by the ancient technology left behind.  That wasn't really unique.  What was unique was that there were neither monsters nor mamono.  It was just humans, fighting against the environment and against other humans.  An evil empire was set on taking all of the other islands, wiping out the people already living on them, and collecting them all together into a singular floating continent.  For a while my mind wanders, and I fantasize about being the protagonist of that story.

It only lasts a while, though.  I don't remember too much of the book.  At the time I hadn't found it terribly interesting.  After a while I remember that I never really used to fantasize about it.  I didn't find it interesting or engaging enough to fantasize about.  I dreamed about living on floating islands, at first.  Now, though, I dream about living in that small village of only humans.  It doesn't have to be in the sky.  I don't have to have a noble purpose and steadfast friends and allies.  I just want to live somewhere with only humans.  I once again wonder if I'm not just as racist as any of the bitter old men on TV.  "I don't think they're inferior, I just don't want any in my neighborhood."  The inward cringe of disdain tells me I'm wrong, but the doubt remains.

Safi was easier to deal with.  It wasn't like dealing with a fully grown mamono.  She'd just turned eleven, which meant I'd just turned eleven.  I was somewhat careless at the time, leaving my room despite the full moon.  Sure, you hear horror stories, and there was that Arachne that went after that nine-year-old, but most mamono won't target boys until there's at least some hint of secondary sexual characteristics.  I think there was some name for that effect in psychology.  Maybe I'm just too tired to remember.

I'd just been really hungry, so I figured I'd just sneak out, grab something from the fridge, then slip back into the safety of my locked room.  Nothing major, and nothing I'd ever had trouble with doing before.  When I bumped into Safi in the hall afterward I wasn't even concerned.  I hadn't seen her blush before, and her face was lit from below anyway, so I didn't notice the deeper shade of purple she had taken.  What I noticed was the deep, labored breathing.  I was young, she seemed to be having difficulty breathing, I think anyone could've made the mistake I made.

"Whoa, hey, Safi, are you all right?"  I moved right up to her and placed my hand on her forehead.  I remember the sound of chains rattling, an extraordinary pain on the back of my head, and then the painfully loud crack of ten pounds of iron forcefully striking polished wood.  Then there was hot, humid breath on my neck.  "What-," was my most eloquent response, before I saw her in the full, flickering light of a then-roiling flame.  There was confusion painted on her face - the kind you get when you can't think straight, but you know that you're supposed to do something.  She leaned forward, and she kissed the exposed skin of my shoulder.

Then again.  Then again.  Her look of confusion grew as my addled head slowly pieced together what was happening.  She placed her lips where the shoulder meets the neck, and then slowly, inexorably began to open them further.  It was only when I felt four long, thin teeth begin separating along my skin that I spoke.  "Stop."  And she did.  The feeling of fangs held motionless against my skin held the entirety of my attention.  "Safi, please.  Stop."  It wasn't until she pulled away that I felt the movements of her hips as they futilely pressed and squirmed against mine.

She pulled her face back and stared at mine.  "Val," she said, pausing for several more breaths.  "Val.  Val."  Each time it was more insistent, as though she was explaining something terribly important to me.  When I spoke it was only slowly and with emphasis.  "Safi, I need to go now."  For a moment there was no reaction, but then her brow scrunched inward and she shook her head emphatically.  Her hands pushed back on my shoulders as she repeated her request.  "Val."

I grabbed her hands and pulled them away.  My every action was tense, but I tried to appear calm and move slowly.  I think even at that age, my instincts recognized hers, and I subconsciously knew that if I moved too quickly it would only trigger her predatory nature.  "I need to go," I repeated, slowly pulled myself out from under her, and left the hallway.

The moment I had slid the first lock into place I heard a loud slam against the door, followed by violent twisting of the handle on the other side.  By the time I'd stepped back up to the door and shifted the deadbolt into place it had calmed down into repeated, slow, rhythmic banging on the door.  "Safi, you should go to bed."  This was met with one more loud, two-fisted slam on the door and a frustrated hiss.

I sat down with my back pressed against the door.  From so close I could hear her scales as she dragged herself into a coiled up ball on the other side of the door.  Each long breath was let out as a quiet, breathy whimper of discomfort.  We spent the rest of the night like that.  Occasionally pausing for her to bang on the door again, pleading with her one-word request for aid.  Quietly asking me to help comfort her.  I spent that night the same way I spent the night after I encountered that slug.  The same way I've spent this one.  I stared at the ceiling and I wondered how much more pain I'm going to cause those close to me.  When morning came she simply left, and we've never spoken of it since.

I finally bother to exert some actual focus.  The flame responds immediately, growing to fill its casing and cast light on my room.  The absolute silence is suddenly unbearably frustrating to me, and a reasonably sized flame will at least give the occasional whoosh of air.  When it does, I find the light to be moderately uncomfortable to my eyes, and the slightest discomfort makes me just as angry and annoyed as the silence.  If I had the energy I'd hit something, but instead I simply glower at the ceiling.  I glower and I wait.  The ceiling doesn't help.  It never has.

It takes a while for the random bout of anger to pass, and when it does I'm left more tired than I was before.  It's been about a year and a half now, and nothing changes.  I could end their discomfort, and make some mamono truly happy, I'd just need to give up on the idea of personal freedom.  Or, depending upon the mamono, sanity, comfort, capacity for intelligent thought, potential to ever see civilization again, or my immortal soul.  I know that if I had the spirit energy of another girl on me that I'd never trouble them again.  I could be around my family regardless of the moon and they'd be fine.  Hells, I wouldn't even have to put up with Sister constantly trying to debate or seduce her way into my pants.  I'd just have to listen to her drag on about the ineffable and glorious Fallen God.  All I'd have to do is throw away my stubborn insistence on free choice.

But I won't.  "I don't love them enough to do that," some twisted, masochistic voice in my head offers.  For a moment I just chastise myself for having thought that.  But then I'm once again listening to Sister explain to me the sin of chastity, and how such a terrible thing can only bring pain and suffering to myself and others.  It's so obvious to her that she has no idea why it even needs to be explained to me.  "Even if you don't want to - which," she smiled further, "we both know you do - all it would take would be to just lay down and do nothing at all.  Just moan and bear it."  A dozen snippets of a dozen different, failed attempts at conversion are scanned over by my weary and bored brain.  The unnaturalness of asceticism, the cruelty of abstinence, the violence of a will that denies its own desires, the awful self-hatred that leads people to deny their own wonderful, sexual happiness - all presented in a dozen parables and arguments.

But I won't.  I'm stubborn.  I'm willful.  Hells, maybe I'm cruel.  Maybe my unnatural, cruel, violent, awful self-hatred will kill me.  Maybe it will just leave me completely alone.  I could deal with that.  I'd be fine staring at this ceiling if I didn't have to do it while remembering my every damn shame.  I could handle being alone.  I could handle a lot of things.

I just can't handle this.

As the light finally dims I notice the first bluish tinge fill the room.  I gaze out the window and see that I've successfully spent another night wallowing in my own misery.  For the briefest moment I can see the sun rising over the hill of a floating island, and I let myself sink back into that fantasy.

A loud slam echoes throughout the house, breaking my fantasy and making me jump into a sitting position.  Before I can think of how to react a second, much louder crash fills my ears as my door shatters inward and a bolt of crying green slams into my body.  Somewhere within the muffled wails being shouted into my chest I make out the words "nightmare," "giant scspiderscs," "took you away," and "thought you die-hie-hie-d!"

I rest my hand on her head, which rests in turn on a dozen bruised ribs.  I tell her that "everything's fine.  I'm all right now."

I mean it, too.