previously:

"What do you want then? If I belong to you what the hell do you want me to do? Just tell me so I can do it and get you out of my life!" I shout, throwing my arms up.

My head's starting to hurt and the cut on my arm is too. But I find some sort of relief from it, like the pain is keeping me grounded. I've always taken strange, twisted comfort from pain. Whenever things get too dark and I find myself drowning, the pain from the scraps and cuts are a comfort, a familiar pain, one in which I can deal with. Physical pain is so much easier to handle than the indescribable feeling of loss.

"Oh, you seem to be under a misunderstanding. You're stuck with me until the day you die."

~*DD*~

My mouth drops at this.

No. He can't be serious.

"What?" I gasp.

"That's the deal. In exchange for your life, I own you until you die. I may have forgotten to tell you that part but I didn't think it needed to be stated. I thought it was obvious. Apparently not though, since you seem honestly surprised."

"Of course I'm surprised! For the rest of my life? Are you serious?"

"Oh don't worry. I'm only a figment of your imagination." He says in a playful, mocking tone.

I inhale sharply and clench my fists into tight little balls of furry. I wish I could punch him. Hell, I wish I could just hit him in whatever way. I breathe heavily through my nose as he stands there in front of me, arrogant as ever.

A god that's arrogant? How surprising, my own mind sarcastically adds.

"Then what do you want?" I ask through clenched teeth.

He smiles and looks away, as if losing himself in thought.

"I've always been curious. But the day your sister died I was being extra curious. Maybe because it was Halloween, I don't know," he shrugs. "But I was. I wanted to know, to try and understand human and their emotions. I want to know what's so great about life. Why you hang onto it so desperately. Halloween is a busy night for me. So many dying... And even in other places, so many remembering the dead and lighting candles for them. Why?"

What he says doesn't make sense, but it does at the same time.

I look at his pale skin and it looks so very lifeless. He is lifeless. There's no life coming from him, nothing but death and terror. This is the same creature that people spend their whole lives fearing, the creature that even the most intelligent doctors and scientists can't beat.

"You never answered my question." I mumble, still angry but slowly trying to calm down.

"Which one?"

I slowly exhale. "What do you want from me? You already took my sister and made my life a living hell. What do you want?"

"Oh, I was getting to that."

"And?" I demand.

He smiles. "Would you let me talk?"

I huff, but I don't say anything. I just cross my arms and wait.

"Well, there are some things that I need a partner for." He walks up to me and places a hand on my cheek. I have to fight off the urge to slap his hand away and scream in his face...or lean into the touch.

"Some things I'd like to experience are physical."

I raise an eyebrow. "And just how 'physical' do you plan on getting with me?"

"I want to experience everything. We have a whole lifetime to do it all too." He grins and before I can say anything more, his lips are on mine.

I try to move away from him and when that doesn't work, I start shoving at his chest. He grabs my wrists and soon my back is against the tree he had been leaning on earlier. He presses his body tightly against mine when I try to kick at him, trapping my body against the tree.

The kiss is not a gentle one. His lips are hard on mine and cold too. There's no life in him at all.

What makes him think he can experience why life is so valuable to us without actually being alive? He can never understand, no matter how hard he tries he'll never know what it's like to live, to breathe, to fear death. And no matter how many times he kisses and touches me he'll never understand the passion of two lovers.

And now I may never know either.

He bites down on my lip, hard. I inhale sharply when his tongue runs along my bottom lip and then dips between them. My lips now parted, he lets his tongue slide into my mouth. He grabs me by the hair and angles my head so that he can reach farther in my mouth. He seems to be making a mental map of it, massaging my tongue, the insides of my cheeks, my gums and the roof of my mouth.

As he does this, I can't help but wonder if this is really what death tastes like. It's not a bad taste, like I thought it would be. The second he started kissing me, I kept imagining a taste that
would make me gag. It's not that bad, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to enjoy this.

Normally I would search this sort of thing out when depressed, but now that I have it, I want nothing more than for it to stop. This is all just happening to fast.

After awhile of trying to get him to move, I give up and slump back against the tree. I don't think
I've ever felt so powerless in my life.

The fact that I'm not responding seems to drive him to kiss me harder. As if trying to prove that I'm his now. Or show me.

When he finally moves away and breaks the kiss, I gasp for air. It soon turns into a hiss when I feel him bite the crook of my neck and start sucking harshly on it. It feels like I'm being branded and I'm...not even sure how I feel about that. My mind feels too foggy. I can't get a grasp on anything but the back of his cloak. Once he's finished, he moves away from me - I release his close as he moves - and he looks fairly satisfied with himself.

"Since your sister is dead, I don't expect much from you." He says, as if I care. He moves closer to me so that his lips are at my ear. His breath causes a certain chill to run through my body. "But next time you'll participate. It's not much fun otherwise."

I feel a tinge of fear go down my spine but ignore it. It's nothing compared to the throbbing pain in my head and from my wounds. I haven't completely recovered from the accident and his rough treatment doesn't help a bit.

"Your mother's coming. I'll come and see you again later." He whispers and pulls away from me. "We'll have some real fun then."

"Fuck you." I hiss.

"I'd love for you to." He winks at me, then blows me a kiss and disappears from my sight.

Good riddance.

"Faith?"

I start when I hear my mother calling my name. Looking in the direction of her voice I see her walking up to me. When she's within touching distance, she pulls me into a tight hug.

This is the type of affection I was looking for.

Warm and comfortable.

"You disappeared without saying anything."

"I'm sorry mom." I return her embrace, knowing she probably needs it just as much as I do.

"I can't believe Kaela and your father are both gone." She whispers, sobbing against me.

I feel my eyes begin to moisten at this as well. "I know..."

"You're all I have now."

"...I know..." My voice is getting weaker by the second. My anger quickly melts to misery.

Standing here, in front of my father's grave and being held by my sobbing mother. This is all too real and I wish it wasn't. And that's when it really hits me.

I'm all my mother has left.

Me.

Just me.

If something, anything happens to me, she'll really be alone. Our relatives came for the funeral but they all live in other states, countries even. They all have their own lives to live. It's just us now.

No matter what, I can't let myself die.

Notes

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