The room blurs, and cold creeps up my limbs. My breath slows further.
I start to feel faint and wonder if this is how I’ll die.
I’m not scared of dying. I always knew that death was coming for me. I’m just glad it’s from being consumed in Abas’ arms.
XIV
ABAS
The instant Astaire’s blood drips upon my lips, a new world is laid before me.
The warmth of a summer’s eve, the glow of the setting sun on glass. A child sits upon a swing, his fawn-hued hair and eyes that gleam weld in the waning light ring with familiar recognition. His gaze is affixed to the grass as if there was nothing else in the world than the verdant earth beneath him. The swing does not stir; he does not stir as he watches the ground.
The cooing of a babe nearly too shrill to bear. Leaning against the entrance to a nursery, Astaire, now all but a youth in threadbare clothing, watches as two figures cradle the baby between them. The woman, fair-haired and brown-skinned, sings as the bearded man rocks it gently in his arms. The infant is the perfect blend of each of them, faces carved from the same rock. The babe, now a child, is swept up by its father and tossed into the air. Giggling and laughing, as they play games together. Astaire, in front of a large house, watches them impassively, his countenance unchanging.
An embrace. A mother’s love, clutching him fiercely.
“Remember you are loved,” she murmurs between kisses. Yet Astaire, young once more, does not return the hug, does not return the love. The boy is a hollow vessel, carved from love yet feeling nothing. A sickness grips me as I witness this childhood, parental love freely given. And then, a voice.
“You wanna play?” Astaire’s father asks. Yet Astaire denies the request and swiftly vanishes.
Memory after memory flashes before me, each of them a small crumb of existence. I see Astaire standing at the edge of life, watching everyone else live it. He never joins; he never enjoys. He only observes from afar.
I see lovers and friends pass him by, each one more distant than the last. People come and go so swiftly, their faces naught but blurred visions before me.
Then, suddenly, a familiar shape. A man of exceeding stature, clad all in black with crisp hair, stares out of a wide window. When I turn, something hitches within Astaire. My unnatural red eyes gaze at him too softly. Too weakly. But from him comes nothing, as if they were a part of the natural world. I can sense him absorbing me with his entire being, but still, I cannot help but recoil at the sight of myself.
The acrid smell of rot and dampness. Blistered hands holding a shovel between the earth. But his mind is not there; he is with me, observing me from afar as I slowly stroke my cock.
Then, a door groaning at the hinges, yielding to a figure wrought from shadows. I, wild and filled with fury, scream in Astaire’s face. Yet he does not flinch, does not shrink before me. He stands there impassively. Only staring. His gaze catches on my too-wide lips. But what is this? Is there something else that I feel?
“…Just sink in until nothing remains…” I hear my own voice. Quiet, almost a whisper. He repeats this to himself, again and again. Like it means something.
A mixture of sounds and colours tries to inundate me. The scraping of rock on rock, whispered words as soft as suede. A swirl made up of the darkest shadows, crimson rivers, and gleaming fire.
With each encounter, I feel him coming to life. Pulse accelerating, flesh agitated, mind loosening.
An eagerness grows within me. An urge to know more. What would it be like to see more through his eyes?
Would it be so amiss to hope that, within his memories, I am devoid of all that I am forced to carry? That there, I am neither weak nor monstrous, but something gentler, far kinder than I truly am?
Ordinarily, mortal emotions are too loud, too savage; even the most educated men can make no sense of it all. But within Astaire, it is as if it was whispered to me in the simplest terms. Through him, I glimpse something I had long thought lost: the thrill of uncertainty, the possibility of something beyond the dreadful sameness of my immortal condition.
Nevertheless, I have no power in this domain. The realm of the blood. No way to control the memories, to mould them to my desires. They fall and blur so quickly now. No matter my strength, I cannot grasp a single one. The life so vivid before me has collapsed into nothing but ghostly colours and faint echoes.
Then, I feel my body pulling me back into itself. Yet I resist. I wish to stay longer within the memories, yearn to live at the edge of life, silent and reserved. As my body revives, the thread that tethers me to this life is pulled so tightly, it threatens to rip under the pressure. I claw at my senses to obey, but unintelligible sounds subdue it all.Not yet,I groan, but my mind won’t budge.I drown in a sea of light—and then, a sound. It tugs at my soul violently.Listen to it,it screams,listen to the voice.
A small whimper coming from Astaire’s lips.
“No!” I gasp.
Terror grips me as I crash into my body, the hell that is my life flooding my soul. All at once, my senses return violently. Pain. Blood. Solitude.
My battered flesh reconstructs itself as every ingested drop reaches the farthest crevices of my being. Bones break apart and mend themselves stronger than they were before. The pain is so swift, it bears no resemblance to the agony I had to endure under my maker’s torturous cruelty. Then I feel every sinew filling with life, making itself known to me, greeting me like an old acquaintance I never had. My skin smooths back to its familiar hue of faded leaves, and my eyes blaze in shades of the very blood that sustains me. Breath fills my lungs, and a ragged gasp is torn from my throat as it restores itself. My chest heaves with relief as the pain fades into nothing but the familiar echo of what I have endured.
When I at last withdraw from Astaire’s wrist, he crumples in my arms, eyes closed in exhaustion. I lick his blood from my lips, revelling in his taste, unwilling—no, unable—to waste a single drop.
He is as he ever was, with translucent skin pulled delicately over his slender frame. The only thing betraying his state is the slightest change in the colour of his lips. What once was a pale russet has now faded into the dullest grey. I brush his hat away, tendrils unfurling, loosely draped around him like a crown. My fingers slip between the silken locks, longing to touch him, to feel every part of his creamy skin beneath my calloused hands. Yet I dare not. I am consumed by the fear that I have taken too much, that my own hunger has undone him.
