Darksome Devouring - Part 1

Disclaimer: Muraki and Oriya belong to Yoko Matsushita. The Corinthian belongs to Neil Gaiman. This is a very alarming crossover.

Rating: R, for violence, blood, non-con, and eye eating.

It's been a week tonight, seven days since I first caught sight of him. He's a mirage, a memory of a shadow of ghost that you once saw out of the corner of your eye. By the time I turn to face him, he's already gone. His hair is soft and silver; his smile is cruel and reptilian. His body is coiled and taut, as though there are tripwires stretched just beneath his skin.

And his eyes…

I've never seen his eyes.

As I laid down to sleep, my mouth was dry and when I licked my lips they tasted like fear, bitter and metallic. Perhaps it had been too long since I was afraid, and I didn't recognize the sensation anymore. Perhaps it wasn't fear I felt at all.

There was nothing to fear. They were only dreams.

I had tried to coax myself to sleep with thoughts of an early class to attend, with the rhythm of Oriya's breathing which I couldn't really hear through the thin walls of our apartment, but could imagine well enough. However, in the end, when I slept, it was out of my control. I didn't even remember closing my eyes, but when I opened them again the hazy edges things have when I'm not wearing my glasses were gone.

I slid from beneath the covers, and I stood. I had no choice in the matter.

What I see in my dreams is a distortion of the truth. Truth too tight around the center, so long and slender there's nothing for it to do but break.

I take a knife from where there was no knife a moment ago. The weight in my hand, the curve of my fingers around an ivory handle, are more real than any dream. The blade is perfect: curved, sharp, polished, eager. It's been waiting here for me.

They say you aren't supposed to be able to smell in dreams, but I can.

I smell blood.

The air tastes anxious, like the moment after lightening strikes. Already I'm moving, crossing the floor in slow, even strides. The carpet feels warm against my bare feet, like skin, but when I look down I can't quite see that far. The world ends in a ripple of black around my ankles.

I'm dressed, I notice, in jeans and white tee shirt, though I know I was wearing nothing when I went to bed.

Such a prudish nightmare.

Before me, the air shimmers and slowly the dim light surrenders the silhouette of a man. I've seen him before, but his name chokes in my throat. I can't recall where I met him last, but it wasn't so long ago. As I draw closer, the corners of his mouth pull into the approximation of a familiar smile, but the expression never quite reaches his eye.

I stop just short of him, but all my questions fade away, unasked. And as though in a dream, I can do nothing but watch.

In his right hand, he holds a dagger, and he lifts it so I can see the dance of light over metal, the fine tapered edge of the blade. His smile sharpens a little, like film fading into focus, and he brings the point of the knife to the hollow beneath his eye.

I can tell by the way his lips part a little in anticipation, by the way a hint of color creeps over his cheeks, that he's been waiting a long time for this moment. Ages. A drop of blood wells around the point of the dagger as it bites into the soft skin beneath his lashes.

My vision tints red, and as I blink to clear it I feel at last a little ripple of pain.

With a gasp, I force my fingers to uncurl, and the blade I have been holding to the corner of my eye falls away to be lost in the darkness that licks at my feet. My hand snaps forward, anticipating a throat to curl around, but my fingertips are met only by the cold certainty of glass.

A mirror.

My reflection.

It looked so familiar because it was me all along.

My heart is hammering against my ribs, but I draw my hand back slowly. Already, the thin trickle of blood is drying on my face. There is nothing worse in this darkness than me. There is nothing more inexplicable or more terrifying. But then, I've known that all along.

"So be it," I say, and in that dark mirror my lips move as though in confirmation.

But then the surface of the mirror ripples, as if there's a layer of water just under the glass. A pool deep and cold and unforgiving. As I watch, my reflection changes. It's as simple as the shift of cheekbones, the thinning of lips, a subtle change in the fall of hair away from sharp features.

He wears dark sunglasses, so even after all this I can't see his eyes. His smile is shaped like a razorblade, and I know I've pleased him.

"So be it," he says, and grins broadly to show a row of perfect teeth, each sharp as a needle.

He hooks one finger over the bridge of his glasses and slowly drags them down his nose. My mouth has run dry, and I swallow hard, leaning forward a little. In his eyes, I'll find all my answers. I know this without knowing why, because that's how things are in dreams.

He pulls his glasses down, revealing the arches of silver brows, the softly shadowed places above his eyes.

And then…