An Ancient Heart

Flickering lights… countless… endless see them stretch away. Away….

Structures stretching skywards, vehicles streaming through these many roads – so many lives… blissfully… ignorant.

Up here I see it all… under this sorrento moon, its milky light basking you all under her wonderful glow while my Lady continues to shimmer around you. But once more you ignore it …pitiful creatures not realising how truly blessed you are.

I drop down from my high perch and even gravity bows before me – a fallen angel I am, floating down to your level… to give you a taste of immortality. Of me.

Do you see me as I walk beside you along these sordid streets, my glimmering eyes – do you see them… no… no you don’t… but I see you. Oh yes I see you… that skin… those lips…. your neck.. no it’s my neck, everything you have is mine.

Let me tell you a story...it happened last night ever so late… a few hours before She fades away once more leaving me out of her embrace so that I must find the darkness for those few hours. Sometimes I walk… I walk as far as these legs take me, my fingers touching the buildings and the city realising all those gone before, all that they have seen. The walls have eyes.

Time flows in all directions but it depends on the observer and usually your kind only watches it flow one way and even then does not realise how fast it moves if one does not look deep into its waters. Yet your lives are extinguished so fast… a blink of an eye yet you do not see this. What do ‘you’ see? That’s right – you see ‘nothing’.

Just like those three that night… they didn’t believe in me but they did in that brief moment before it all ended.

I saw them within that alley – my alley far into the shadows. I heard her screams… that soft voice pleading to be released but they would have none of it. Two were they? Three… no more.

I can’t help but smile – I walked in to my alley and they did not notice me at first. And then when they did, they muttered some obscenity… whatever was fashionable that day. They asked me to leave. I did not respond.

So then they came at me – animals, thugs… one had a knife another had a pipe but still I did not react. No, my eyes were looking in the corner at the woman holding onto her clothing, fear in her eyes. I saw her neck and I could feel that pulse so much faster than mine.

He stabbed me in the gut, one quick push and then he twisted.  The other hit me in the head with the pipe, which promptly bent under the force. They disturbed me.

One hand to the knifeman’s neck and I threw him into the nearby wall face first like a torpedo of sorts. Such a wonderful crunching sound…a symphony of cracking skull and breaking neck – I snapped my fingers and pointed to the other one. He was already charging me but I grabbed him by his shoulders stopping him in mid run.

Then I sent him to the heavens with one throw skyward – his closest glance of heaven surely. I stepped forward a couple of meters focussing on the remaining thug and heard sickening noise behind me a few seconds later as he met the ground once more. Ah the last one… such glorious fear. He looked at me as if I was a monster yet the look in his eyes was the same he had been instilled in the women a moment ago.

I laughed… I laughed loud enough for the sound to echo through the alley and along the street outside – even disturbing some birds nearby that fluttered away over our heads. He begged me for his life. I think he called me ‘man’ or something to that effect – I am not familiar with the slang on the streets these days.

I am no man. I told him so as I held him against the wall, my hand on his neck. I asked him why he had done this, gesturing to the female in the corner and he croaked a response of never doing such again. I told him that he was right.

Evolution – survival of the fittest – I am all for that. The world is for the taking – and here were three lives that were on my list.

The last he saw were my eyes. My shimmering eyes looking into his – into his soul. And then I let the darkness take him.

She was as scared of me as she had been of them. I had saved her… do you ask me why? I do not know the answer – was it her beauty that pulled me to her and made me take her from the others? Was it some sort of purity that still lies within this ancient heart that exacted bloody revenge on those creatures? Was is simply because they were in my alley… although truth be told you could apply that idea to any part of the city… the fact it is ‘mine’. Perhaps I was not going to do a thing but they decided to attack me. You see the answer really need not matter. The truth was simply this. I was ‘there’

Even though I had removed the threat…still… the fear flickered within but I moved slowly closer and placed my hand on her cheek. It must have been so cold – my flesh, but my eyes looked into hers… and she was mine. I would take her away from this, away from it all – but at the last moment I noticed something about her.

She seemed weary, tired… as if life had strained her… just so much more that the walls had finally started to come down. And as I looked on I saw something different. That is all I will say for your mind would not be able to comprehend more on just what about this mortal captured me just so.

I whispered in her ear asking if she wished to come with me, my lips on hers, one hand stroking her hair, another around her. I told her she would be away from the lands of men but would enjoy Lady Night’s sweet caress forever more. She said ‘yes’.

The world froze around us as I tasted her and she tasted me – and then there were two that rose to the twilight skies, not one. Away from the all the pain – she was saved… and now for the first time she would ‘really’ see all there was to see.

She came with me to the true world of dreams and as the sun rose one final time, we found the shadows nearby to protect us and shield us. That is until the Lady would wake us once more.

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The End