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| a.connor a.doyle a.lindsey a.oz a.spike a.wesley a.xander a.other three.somes het.fic character.study |
| Title: Tower Author: Queen of Cups Rating: R A/N: Prose-poetry Turn the card. The Tower. Struck with a lightning bolt from the heavens, the once impregnable edifice crumbles away. Old certainties are swept away. What was once so solid and ageless disappears. The walls of lies and facade crumble to dust. All that is left is the Fool, stripped to his naked self. She's dead. Lifeless and broken. Bloody and savaged. Such horror. Such evil. Such pain. Who am I? Where am I? I ... can't remember. Tidal wave. Fear. Pain. Mnemosyne tortures me and laughs at her work. Was it me? That creature? Magnificent and arrogant. Cruel and twisted. Laughing. Feasting. I feel it. I was there. But I swear it was not me. Help me. Kill me. Wandering now. Memory heaped upon memory, each bringing a fresh evil. The gloating hideous face of the demon haunts me. His voice cries out to me Sleep where I fall. Can memories of past horror kill a man? Can the shame of a century of evil kill the body as readily as it tortures the spirit? What I have done can never be undone. Why did they not just kill me? The knife cuts deep. Not deep enough. Never deep enough. All the blood of my body will not wash away the sin. Wave rushes in. Oh God...Katherine. Katy - my beloved...forgive me... Knife cuts deeper still. All the pain in the world is not enough. Who am I now? Angelus is dead. No - not dead - sleeping. Buried alive. I can feel his horror at the tomb in which he resides. He rages and screams inside my head. Release me. Free me and I will be avenged on this agony. NO. Never. Shaking. Weeping. He rails against the weakness. He stiffens my spine. Stand up you pathetic piece of shit. Stand up so I can knock you down again for this indignity. Home. Must go. Home. Darla - soothe your childe. My dreams are bad. I need your touch to make it good again. Will. William. It's my turn to beg for comfort now. The pain is mine. I need blood. No. Not again. Not like before. I want to find them, I must feed. Release me. I cannot. I don't know how. I want to. I want to feel...nothing but the joy again. I was happy then. But the blood. Oh my Lord, the blood. So much of it. So many lives. So many nights. The passion and the joy and the ecstasy and the love and the heat and the pain and the horror and the evil - oh God - oh, no - please - make it STOP. All the voices. All the screams. Their pain times a century. What did I do? What did I do? Every scream has a face and a name and a mother who weeps bitter tears over a child scarce off her breast whose life's blood poured away to feed a monster's whimsy. All the kills that were just for pleasure. All the times that I would fill with heat at the death of a beauty and find myself rammed inside Will or Darla or the fucking corpse just to get it out - just to feel...anything. Now I feel everything. All the passion, all the sex, all the death. It meant nothing until now. It was all visceral. Nothing lasted. Nothing mattered. Now it's inside of me and it's bigger than my head and it's tearing me open like a bloated sack. Heaving. Retching. Did I really do ... that? Mother of God, what am I? I am an abomination. I should be dead. I am dead. Long ago I lived. Now I am dead. It was my doing and I regret nothing. You hear me, you putrid little excrescence? NOTHING. Sunrise. It BURNS. It's what I deserve. But it HURTS. Everything hurts. This wasn't what they wanted. Not what they meant. Get inside. I'm dying. You're dead already. We must eat. I know. Animals. Animals could sustain me. They were all animals. SHUT UP. Just...shut up. Pigs Fitting. Grotesque and unclean. Rutting in filth. Still worth more than me. Tainted Enough She leaves the scent of roses He leaves the scent of passion They left They left me As they should We are weak I'll find them I have to find them Travel by night. Following a trail of screaming death. They're close Sleep by day. The dreams, oh God the dreams So many lives, so many bodies. One, two, three a night for a century. Closing in around me. Rotting faces and matted hair. Dirt and blood and fear. You stole us away. The children. Will. The poet. The gentle boy. The savage. The killer. You stole my life. You took away what I should have been to make me what I am. Your fault. I hate you. No, my Will. You love me. You always loved me. You kissed me and thanked me and loved me a thousand nights. Not me. I hate you. Drusilla. Sweet girl. Precious and pious and gifted. Twisted and mad and cruel and crushed Forgive me my love No. What did you do, Daddy? You said I was bad. What did I do wrong to make you say that. Where's my Mama? Why don't I cry any more? Why don't I feel any more? You took it all from me. And you laughed. And laughed. Glint in your eye, and I was gone. Gleam of white Flash of pain Now I'm no-one God despises me All your fault I hope you burn I hate you No pain can pay me for what you stole I can't hurt you enough in return for what you gave me But, love... No. Enough. Die The stake drops from my fingers. The wood falls with a clatter. I cannot. You mustn't. I won't allow it I thought you wanted to die as much as I do. Not at your hand, you stinking corpse. Let me die with dignity, at least Why should I grant you anything but the death you deserve? Because you're a fucking coward. Snivelling prick - look at you. If it weren't for me you'd still be sitting in a puddle of your own puke, pissing yourself over what can't be changed and grizzling for your mother. You disgrace us Good. A century had passed Angelus like a heartbeat. Two years stretches into eternity. Every day, more dreams, more faces, more voices. Every night, more degradation, more abasement. Not enough. Never enough. Every day I watch the sun rise for a little longer Let it burn STOP IT! No. The heat and the pain and the stench of crisping flesh. It heals. Until tomorrow. Stand in the church. Get OUT. Tremble in fear. Lord of love and forgiveness? Can't forgive me. It HURTS! Stop! Still the shaking hand and feel the pain in my head and my heart and my body and my mind. Not just your pain - MINE! The font Strange The burning is different from sunlight. This is from within, blistering, reddening but not flames - not heat. Lay the other hand on the cross Angelus' screams are too loud to contain so I let them out. Kneel Weep Torturer - you may be my jailer, but you'll never silence me Panic and war. Ideal for such as us. Already I have met many of my kind ~no, not your kind - MY kind~ on the streets of the burning city. They are here. I feel them. I see them. Mother, help me. Beloved - kill me. I can't stand this slow suffocation any more. Such weakness. It is worse than death. She welcomes me home. No - she favours you with the benefit of her doubt. She'll kill you if she knows the truth. I know. Good But to be home again... Will is angry. Forgive me, my most favoured boy. I didn't want to leave you. He scorns me. I haven't the heart to argue. I would have flayed his skin from his bones for such insolence. He's running wild... I would never have allowed it. I cannot. He is right to hate me. I am a monster from a fairy tale, waiting to be slain by a handsome knight. Like him Perhaps. Try to remember how it felt to be free from guilt and pain and fear and horror. Mother has lost her beauty. Replaced by ugly truth. Find a man who's life is worthless if you must Is there such a thing? Kill them They don't matter They're as worthless as - We are? I cannot. Their blood tastes bitter and makes me retch. They mustn't know Comfort is grown cold. She suspects me too much. Please, Mother. Don't forsake me now - I'm so afraid. Pitiful wretch. Where is your spine? She tests me and I must fail. She knows before she even begins. I know it pains her. If it were in our nature, she would weep. We sicken her. She chases me off. Mother... No. Alone. No place, no succour. Just me. And the pain. And the creature within. Still alive. Do you understand 'forever', boy? You will. -End Feedback |