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He’s terrified. You can see it, smell it, taste it. It’s honey-sweet and electric and dazzling, and you want to reach into his chest and watch his heart beat beat beat as the fear sinks in, better than any drug. The blood is thick and cloying, bright and brilliant. Red stains. Red scars. Red means blood means death means hollow spaces in the universe that can never be filled. Red means beautiful. Red means terrifying. Red means what do you want from me what did you do to me no it can’t be please please please go away it’s just a bad dream they aren’t dead they can’t be dead it wasn’t me I didn’t kill them. Red means you.
He knows what red means just as much as you do, and the space between his fear and his awe is just thick enough to cut, just thick enough to bleed, just thick enough to hurt. He’s yours entire, your influence scarring his mind and staining his soul and taking root within his heart until you are everything he is. He is who he is because of you. He is what he is because of you. Even in that impossible world where you abandon him, he is shattered and rebuilt around you, your knife tracing intricate lines across the very core of him, marked as yours forever. He’s yours, and he knows that now, knows it like a knife in the chest, like a knife to the throat.
He backs away like the wall will protect him from anything. He backs away like you are something he can flee from. He backs away like he doesn’t know what you are. He knows you. You have made sure of it through nights and days and heartbeats, clawing your way into the space inside his skull and staining it red. You have made sure of it through voices and screaming and blood. He has been told that you are not real by therapists, by doctors, by professionals. You have proven that you are through blood, through pain, through covenant. His family was not meant to be a sacrifice in your name, but you took them anyway and delighted in the taste.
The quiet terror that lives in his head is the best thing you’ve ever known. He dreams of you when you aren’t there, throwing himself on the knife you so gently pressed inside his ribcage. You broke him, yes, but he breaks himself too. You plunged the knife in deep, and he leaves it there to ruin him. He has learned that trying to forget you with drugs and therapy and getting help is useless. He’s yours. He’s yours, and nothing can ever fix what you’ve done to him. Nothing can ever bring his family back. Nothing can ever erase the sight of bodies on the floor limp and lifeless the blood still warm and in every reflection a smile jagged and wide enough to swallow the sun.
He looks at you like you are what he thinks of when told to imagine the worst thing in the world. He looks at you like you are what he drinks to forget. He looks at you like you are the gun at his temple, the noose around his throat, the poison in his veins. He looks at you like you are the only real thing in a world of fantasy and daydreams. He looks at you like you are everything. He looks at you like you are burned into his very soul. He looks at you like you are every bad thing to every happen to him. He looks at you, and every bit of fear in his eyes is well-earned.
His terror sings like a broken bone, and if you could live in this moment forever, maybe you would, just basking in the siren’s song of his fear. It’s beautiful. You could spend eternities unravelling him and never tire. He’s yours, and you killed for him, and you kill for him, and you’ll kill for him, and were you any less of a monster, the look in his eyes as he stares at you unblinking would be enough to satisfy. He doesn’t scream. He hasn’t screamed at you in a long time, not since the resignation in his soul grew too thick for even his fear to pierce through. He doesn’t try to run. He knows there’s nowhere he can go where you won’t follow. He knows you. You have let him know you.
He knows that you’re calm. He knows that you’ll always find him. He knows that you’re a killer with his face. He knows that you have followed him for a very long time. He knows you. He knows you better than he knows himself, and he doesn’t know you at all. You know him. You know his fears and dreams and shuddering tears in the night and heartbeat fast fast faster the blood in the air oh god he can taste it oh god not again not again not again please go away make it stop make it stop make it stop. You know him. You know him so well.
Oh, the things you would do to him. Oh, the things you have done to him. Oh, the things he has become. He’s special. He’s special. He’s yours. He’s yours and yours alone, and he knows it because you have carved it into his flesh and blood and bone, etched it into his soul. Your eyes shine bright as you watch him shudder before you, undone by your presence and your actions and your bloody footsteps. There is very little as beautiful as perfect fear. The red lights glow in silent counterpoint, and reality bends to fit you lest it shatter. It is good to see him again, though you never left. You will never leave him. He’s yours, after all. No force on heaven or Earth could ever change that. He’s yours. He’s perfect.
“He͜l͝lơ, ͜C͡h҉a̢s͠e͟.”