Occasionally it's the moments we wish we could forget that linger with us through everything, no matter how much we yearn to forget them. At times they can make us stronger but more commonly they can be the reason we break.

I still cannot tell if I even belong within either of these groups and though I am often glad of this division from the norm, it is in my darkest moments that I feel that it would be worth the hurt and sorrow that belonging would inevitably cause me, just to eradicate my own feelings of emptiness but more presciently the pitiless yearning that I can no longer hope to comprehend.

I long for a touch, an essence so dazzling that I fear it would sear my own blackened heart into oblivion. I desire that which I had always been denied. Nevertheless it was only as my body lay in tatters on the cold, desiccated ground that I came to realize how much I truly wanted it, how I had always been waiting for an angel to save me from my own poisoned desires.

The hive had been abnormally hushed that day but we chose not to question why, our only thoughts were that we had to keep moving. Probing blindly in those dark catacombs for a foe so terrible it was said to have the power to make even the most seasoned warrior fall to the ground in despair. A demon we had only ever heard stories about. On that day I feared that such a creature would be able to look into my soul and sense my own failing, my undisclosed need.

When they came for us it wasn't fear that froze my blood, not then, nor was it fear I felt when they seized hold of me. Instead I was filled with a great sorrow; I had lived and died for the Church and yet the Church would not morn me, God would not save me. Perhaps it sounds strange as I had witnessed death so many times before but I had never allowed myself to entertain thoughts of my own demise; for fear that I would be paralyzed by the realization of my own limitations.

We had been so close to the sunlight; to safety that I remember thinking how could I be afraid now. We would live. Maybe this is true, maybe if I had been faster it would have been.

When I felt their claws tearing into my flesh I knew this was my end. Upon reflection I am sure he knew so too yet he had not let go. A man I knew only as a fellow warrior chose to risk his life to hold on to me. There was no hope. Those people were my brothers and sisters, warriors chosen by God himself to protect the innocent and vanquish the corrupted yet all but one of them turned away from me, too fearful to risk leaving the security of the light.

I don't understand why they chose me, I don't suppose they understood it themselves, possibly they sensed what I could become or maybe their queen truly did sense the shadows in my heart. More likely it was a choice made out of necessity and I was their only remaining candidate. That was when I felt the first pangs of fear.

I can't remember if he let go or if they ripped me away but that moment was the beginning of my end and what an ignominious end it was. Pleading with the very creatures I had hunted for it to end as they sliced into my naked flesh, ripping away my mortal tissue yet it did not end, not then.

I don't know how long it continued in this manner except the moment she was finally revealed to me was forever scorched into my mind. Like a vision of a fouled angel, so unlike that which I had prayed for yet so alike myself that I finally understood, under the ever present observation of the Church, how far from grace I had fallen. As my life began to fade away she offered to make me strong, to allow me to live the life I was born for. I chose to join her.

My queen.

The Church taught us that they were monsters, soulless demons that came at night to spread despair and carnage. This is a lie. They are not creatures of thought but creatures of instinct. Pure and unyielding my kin desire only what they need to survive. It was them that freed me. Not my family, not the man that I was never able to know, to thank. It was her that showed me love. And as I was reborn it was this love that held on to me, poured into my veins in the hope of reviving my wretched life.

Maybe I do not belong to any world; I am neither human nor otherwise yet maybe I do not need to belong, perhaps it is enough to be loved unconditionally by one half of my world than forgotten or worse, rejected by the other.