It was all for him: Short Story

I shrieked once more, filling my lungs with as much of the blood-soaked oxygen as I could before having it tear my throat with its force. I screamed like a banshee, a siren, a blood-curdling shrill that echoed across the death-ridden battlefield as my arms brought down the slippery blade with a wrench. Blood spurted up my arms, squished around my fingers, sprayed across my face, and soaked my torso.

I stabbed, again, and again and again. My tears blurred my vision, streaming down my cheeks so profusely it was overwhelming. Hot liquid drenched me, I bathed in it. Clear salt and red iron mix to make a beautiful cocktail of revenge. Of avengement.

The small body underneath me choked. Blood gurgled over the young woman’s chin and her oculus rolled incoherently across the scape of land. I bellowed once more, and yanked the dagger I held out with the sound of wet stone grating against my ear drums.

The cartilage between her ribs resembled a massacre after a nuclear explosion. Yellow and covered in gore, pieces all over the place. I stabbed at her heart again.

She couldn’t make sound anymore, her heart had amassed several stab wounds within the past 40 seconds. The height of the blood spurts lessening with every blow. From great fountains of rubies to my hands only sinking into puddles of crimson. The tender flesh made me excited.

Oh, Solstice. You shouldn’t have chosen the losing side. How could you think that I... Solstice...

I screamed again. Her limp body became a mess of blood and gore. Ruby rivers flowed and ebbed around me, surrounding me in a sea of red.

Shrill cries and moaning wails filled my ears in a background roar that rivaled and compromised my own like that of the lioness and the lion.

I nearly drank her blood, pouring it over my face... slathering it over my skin like a woman applying lotion to her delicate flesh. To taste the iron like liquid pennies. It dripped and sprayed over my skin like rain. The foul smelling solution made my stomach churn with hatred and disgust. It was so hot. It steamed. It steamed and smoked from her horrible tainted body and made my throat contract.

Thiswas forhim.ForAimeri. For...For the love of my life. In which she stole from me... she snuffed him out like a candle whose scent had no longer lingered. Shetookhim. Shestolehim.

I twisted the knife in her carcass. The sound of the bone-crunching made me want to scream. She was long dead. Her body a mutilated and mauled mess, the black natural armor of the Igachi protecting her most vulnerable parts now looking like it was blown apart. Black and red mixed to create a deep beautiful color of violence.

I let my tears flow freely... for this was my friend, my love, my person whom I trusted my everything with... and yet... she... deserved...to die.

I slashed at her face, creating a bloody fissure that exposed her tainted white bone. My hands flew across her face, ripping, shredding,maiming. I screamed, I don’t know how long I had been this way but... I flinched at a soft voice.

And with the soft voice and hand caressed my shoulder.

“Solstice,” it whispered with the sweet velvet breaking in emotion.

My heart flew into my throat, my stomach disappeared. I turned around and smiled, my bloody teeth making me look demonic.

“My darling come to see me?” I giggled, “Look my love... I’ve avenged you. She’s gone now,” my voice cracked and I wiped my left forearm against my face.

“She’s gone now...” I whispered. And I hoped the hallucination of my lost life would go with her. Now that she was dead, he would truly die as well. Only living on in my memories. He would no longer torture me. No longer haunt me... I would finally be able to sleep. I would finally be able to rest... I would befree.

Free...

I clutched at my stomach and held myself as I slumped over my best friend’s dead body. Her horns the only thing moderately left unharmed. I sobbed. Salty streams trickled down the curves of my stained skin.

“You can go now, you can leave,” I croaked. “I can finally be free.” I put my head in my hands... I would kill myself after this. I couldn’t take it anymore... if Aimeri left my dreams then surely Solstice would take his place.

Fuck.... FUCK I CANT TAKE THIS ANYMORE.

I sobbed harder, I screamed and I let my ocean of emotions flow out of me like a river. It seeped and spread across the blood, across the bodies, it touched and consumed everything. The anger, thepain. The relentless never endingpain.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t. I’ve lived long enough.

“You can’t leave!” I screamed at him. “I’ve avenged you! I’ve avenged you after EVERYTHING you’ve done to me. Leave. ...please... just leave me alone. You don’t have to be here anymore. Just leave me alone.”

This sadness, this loss. It cut into my heart like a cold blade. Like a dagger made of thorns. I wanted to rip it out, I wanted to stop it. I punched at my chest wishing the pain would go away. Wishing that the fire would just fucking die. Please.Please. Just fucking die. It tore me apart, ate its way through my nervous system. It sent fire through my blood stream, it made bile rise in my throat. It made my eyes see black...

But the hand... it only grew warmer. It grew more firm... and it shook with fear. This hand on my shoulder was different. This hand... it felt more real than any of my other hallucinations. It felt more present than before. It felt so comforting, so achingly real. It felt so goddamn real... why... why can’t I run away?

"Solstice,” Aimeri whispered. “What have you done?”

I sobbed again, the wave racking my body with emotion I was not capable of holding by myself. The colors of my emotions danced around me, creating an aura of depression and fury. It swirled like a storm screaming and raging through anything that stood in its way.

I turned around to look at the memory of him and... and...fuck. He glew so fucking brightly.

“Aimeri,” I murmured through my sobs. I traced his features. Remembering the last time I would see him; even if it was all in my head. He was so different this time, a sign that I really was going to die soon. I was getting even more delirious...

He... he didn’t look like that in my hallucinations. He didn’t have that armor that shined darkly and caressed his figure. He didn’t have the cuts and bruises and brokenness about him. He looked so worn, so battered, so... so... soreal. I stared into his eyes finding yet another new thing.

The spark oflife. The light in his eyes wasn’t fantasy. It wasn’t a dream, a cheap copy of the thing that was so desired by man. It wasreal. It was real.Itcouldn’tbe real... god fucking damnit why doIdo this to myself?

He couldn’t be real... I watched him die. I watched him crumble to the ground like he was nothing... a pile of meat... but his eyes.

Hiseyes. His face, his waist, his shoulders... his voice. Dread filled my stomach to the point I felt hot acid seep out of my mouth spilling over my lips.

And as I realized the handsome fatigued face I looked into was truly present. I looked back at the remnants of my friend’s carcass. I had killed a part of me trying to avenge another. And now that I had Aimeri back...

I had just murdured my one and only best friend, over a man who wasalive.