InsaneJournal

She could feel it burning within her, twisting like some living thing in her guts. Which it was but that wasn’t the point.

For a moment it seemed like it was at the back of her throat and ready to roar forth out of her body. Then she forced herself to swallow and it receded but only momentarily – it was always only momentarily. Within a few hours it would be back, pressing at her with all the force of its dark and twisted being. And the moment she acknowledged it…

Shuddering, she pulled her tattered trench coat tighter about herself, hugging closer to the wall. There was some warmth radiating off it from machinery within and she huddled there at the side of the building just trying to draw a little of it in. It made some relief from the freezing rain pelting down from the sky, which loomed above like some great dark monster.

Just like the monster that twisted inside her.

She tucked her head against her chin, rain dripping off her nose, and after a few moments her eyes drifted closed. Then there was the sound of boots scuffing across the pavement nearby and she twitched upright.

I see you, puppy.

“Get away from me,” she snarled, pressing herself closer to the wall. The warmth of it was comforting and she set her freezing hands against it as her eyes raked across the rain-drenched scene before her.

Despite the sound of the boots, there was no one around. But she had learned well that just because you couldn’t see anything didn’t mean that nothing was there. There were things in the world that could kill you without you ever seeing them and there were things that could turn you into the same sort of monster.

Why? Hissed the voice, speaking not aloud but straight to her mind. You’re my puppy after all. I don’t see why you struggle so much against what I made you.

She bared her teeth at that, anger roaring up within her at the words and the dark beast followed. Shoving it back, she flung her head back to feel the pitter pat of the rain on her face, and howled, “I did not want to be this!”

It wasn’t your choice.

“It should have been!”

But it… “…wasn’t,” purred the voice, coming suddenly from right next to her as it faded from thought to reality. A warm hand found her face and she couldn’t help but lean desperately into the touch, her body craving the heat it was deprived of. “You can only fight this for so long, dear Lucia. Eventually you will fail.”

“I won’t,” she snarled, jerking away from the hand. Every nerve screamed at her for moving away from the warmth and the beast howled it outrage, thrashing in the depths of her being. It sensed its maker there and was trying so hard to break loose of the chains she had bound it in. She did not want it to escape, however.

Shoving away from the wall, Lucia spun to face the creature that had made her. He stood there, all elegant and handsome in his rain-proof coat with the tailor-made suit underneath, the eyes like the sea studying her from under dark brows. All the while he smiled at her – that knowing smile he’d had every time he found her and they had this discussion.

He knew that she’d fall one day.

She knew it too; but it wasn’t within her to give up without a fight.

“Leave me alone, Kendin.”

He sighed, shaking his head, and took a step towards her. She immediately took two away from him and he smiled, the rain somehow not even touching him. That smile was turned her way again – the smile that once made her heart light up with joy.

Now it only ached with pain because she’d loved him once. This…this monster that was trying to turn her into the same foul creature.

Kendin sighed and purred, “You know I can’t do that, puppy. I do love you…”

“LIAR!” she roared. The beast swelled into her throat and she collapsed, choking, as she fought it back down. His hands were on her then and she writhed away, screaming, “DON’T TOUCH ME!” But his hands followed her unerringly and she struggled desperately against her body as it both wanted to give in to the warmth of him and the beast tearing her apart.

“You’re only hurting yourself, dear Lucia. Come. Let me help you through this change.”

She slapped him away with a snarl, the beast suddenly in her throat again, and scooted backwards across the slick pavement. As she slowly rose to her feet and just barely held the monster at bay, she spat, “I don’t WANT to be helped through this. You know that.”

He frowned and said gently, “I can’t help my loneliness, love.”

“YOU COULD HAVE ASKED!”

“Would you have accepted?”

Lucia glared at him and hissed, “If you had given me time to come to terms with it, perhaps. But this? What you have done to me can never be forgiven, Kendin! NEVER!”

“Lucia…”

“I hate you. I hate you with every aching cell within me for what you’ve tried to turn me into. For what you WILL turn me into.” Shaking, she turned away from him and forced the beast back down. “I hate you for making me a monster.”

“We aren’t monsters, Lucia,” he whispered. There was something like pleading in his voice but she had learned well what a trickster he was. He had fooled her once…but never again.

“Fool me once, shame on you,” she breathed, lifting her face into the rain again. “Fool me twice, shame on me. Kendin…” Slowly she twisted her head so one eye could see him and smiled grimly, “You won’t fool me again with kind words and your smile.”

Kendin scowled and spat, “I could take you now and force you to accept it.”

“That’s not how you want me and we both know it. You want me to allow this to happen – and I won’t. I never will.”

“It WILL happen.”

“Oh yes,” agreed Lucia. “But when it does, I will have it on my own terms.”

Whirling, she faced him with her face full of sudden fury and defiance. And, to her surprise, the beast roared up but in accordance with her, not a fight. With a great deal of luck she managed not to let that surprise show.

“And I will never be yours,” she hissed, enjoying the shocked look on his face. “I hope you rot in Hell, Kendin.”

As she turned and started to walk away into the storm, he called out, “You’ll be right there with me.”

“Will I?”

“We are both monsters; you said it yourself.”

“Yes,” mused Lucia. “But there will be one great difference between the two of us then. Do you know what it will be?”

His silence answered her and she turned to smile at him, the motion bitter but with some hope lingering in it. For she was still partially human, the beast not having taken her yet, and human hope is one of the most powerful things in the universe.

“I will hold on to what I was,” she said softly, staring straight at him. “To my humanity. You, Kendin…you abandoned humanity a long time ago for the monsters. If I see you in Hell, it will be with pride in my eyes that I kept that shred of myself despite what you’ve done to me.”

Turning, she continued to walk away from him. From behind her, he screamed, “When you change, we’ll see just how well you hold to those words, Lucia!” and then there was the crack of his shift, his bestial roar vibrating the air. She smiled and bowed her head against the wind and rain as she walked down the road, feeling the spark of hope within her chest of a sudden for there is always some hope for the hopeless.

The beast was curled up now, shifting restlessly but not fighting to take over as it had done before. But she didn’t let her guard down, even though she turned inward and smiled at it, earning a growl in response.

She still hated it.

But it was HER monster. If anything, she would rule it and no one else.