Chapter Text
I was five when I first met Death.
Funny how it happens, isn’t it? One moment, everything’s fine.
The next, everything goes up in flames, burning through the life you thought you lived.
I remember parts of that moment. Snippets. Pieces of shards of memories, shattered, laying about on the ground of my mind.
I don’t try to go near there if I can help it; every time I do, the glass rips through my skin and I end up bleeding tears.
I couldn’t let you see me like that, Snow. I buried those memories under my hatred for you, stuffing them down.
You don’t really want to remember the expression your mother makes as she dies. Or the expression she makes as she watches you die.
You knew that all along, didn’t you, Snow? That I was dead. That I was less, I was wrong, I was evil.
I knew that. Of course I did.
I was a vampire. Still am.
The thing about Life is...it doesn’t quite work the way you think it does. I guess. I wouldn’t know; I’m dead, after all.
I started seeing things differently after that. Like..like Life is just a tiny seed growing inside you, and Death is the fire that burns it all up.
So I met Death, and he didn’t burn me.
(Because I’m wrong. Because I’m a monster.)
Death was the rot that grew on that seed, and I was just a five year old little boy with a dead mother and absent father and a molding, disgusting heart.
I wasn’t even good enough for Death to take me.
You must wonder why I’m telling you this, Snow. After all these years, when it doesn’t really matter.
But it does. It matters to me. Because if you’re reading this, you’re dying, or you’re almost dead, and I’m not by your side.
I’d tell you to yell at my future self for that, but I don’t know where the bloody git’s at this time.
Maybe I’m dead. (Wouldn’t that be a blessing?) (Wouldn’t you be so happy?)
But I’m here to tell you that it’s okay you’re dying. It’s okay. Because at least you went out strong, unlike me.
Your heart is too pure for mold to ever take root.
Maybe that’s the reason I love you.
Because you’ll eternally be too good for me, as you always were in life, as you’ll always be in death.
Because sometimes things aren’t meant to be.
Sometimes dreams can’t come true, not even the one that grew in my own mind when I first saw your face.
When we shook hands, and my molding heart beat fast in my chest, because someone was willing to touch me, and I realized that, for a moment, to you, I wasn’t a monster.
Too bad I proved you wrong.