#by asphyxiation i mean cutting the blood stream to the brain or so i tried im not an anatomy expert

[the-acid-pear]

Got so bored with the 30 seconds ads I tried out erotic self asphyxiation. I guess I'd get behind it if I had to.

[eterneli]

ACT 4 - [THE TRIALS]

she summoned him when the sun had found shelter beyond the horizon, fully clothed by the warm blankets of a black void, peeking through the fabric in the shape of bright stars.

he bid goodbye to his lover with a kiss and an embrace that did not last too long. the pang crushing his ribs held him hostage to the fear of not being able to let go if it did.

they met again at the entrance of an unknown building. the door was matte black, the trims gold and the spike-like details meticulously carved out of iron. the structure itself was made out of tiles, white ones, standing tall at two stories and a chimney that breathed out puffs of burnt logs. she invited him in through the long hallway, decorated with large portraits of distinctive creatures and objects, the walls of marble reflecting each and every one of their steps. he didn’t register much other than the white decor, save for the remarkable scent emanating from the room across the living room. she, however, cut the moment short then, leading him into a blank room with nothing but mirror walls and a single bed in the middle.

“lie down.”

he did.

“close your eyes.”

and close them he did.

her cold palm settled upon his forehead and he was unsure if the split of second of panic that burgeoned at the back of his throat was her fault or his own. there wasn’t time to question it.

”we will now commence the trials. remember, if it takes too long there is no way i can reach to pull you back. do not stray from your true self, byun baekhyun.”

he fell asleep to the sound of her voice in an ancient chant and the last flares of warmth lingering on his lips.

i.

he woke to shivers clawing down his spine and the howling wind creeping by his ears. his surroundings were foreign, a strange set of hallways, one to the right and one to the left, leading into a blinding mass of dense fog. the skies were all but grey, consumed by an anomaly of disfigured clouds.

it was only when he attempted to get up that it hit him. across his right arm there was a large and ugly gash, shredded muscles on display through the open crack as warm blood pooled over and percolated along the lengths of his fingers. the blood loss was no stranger, but the fact that his skin refused to regenerate was.

by the pool on the floor he assumed it had been at least an hour since the injury, enough time to drain him significantly, thus making it harder to proceed with each step. his left palm was the only support, dragging across cement walls.

at the time he assumed it was a mirage, a figment of his imagination perhaps.

chanyeol stood tall with open arms as he turned the corner (of the then identified maze), a smile plastered across his face and silky locks falling over long lashes. “let’s go home, lovelight” was the mantra that echoed through the empty corridors, the sweet voice that set calm to the storm. and that was when he ran. he ran right into a firm chest and a set of warm arms embracing his collapsing figure. “it’s okay, i got you” and all he wanted was to breathe his lover in, to find solace the way he always did at the end of the day, when they curled up in bed and limbs intertwined in a comfortable mess.

but it didn’t last because “you can use me, baek. come on, i know you’re hungry” had him frozen on the spot. because his body had already betrayed him to the point that, when he came to it, sharp canines were already on show and hovering over a patch of flesh he knew all too well. to say he abruptly pushed the taller away was an understatement because he flew back a few feet and landed on his bottom. baekhyun wanted to apologize, to rush forward and check for any additional external injuries. but he couldn’t, so he ran.

where? as if he had a fucking clue.

each turn was a blurry discovery amidst tears streaming along his face, and each breath was a new spear perforating his lungs. left and right and right and left. endlessly.

the first time chanyeol turned up on a new corner he had been overridden by a grotesque and savage nature, where irises were dyed ruby and his system urged for proximity, to rip life out of golden veins. where his slender fingers had coiled around his lover’s neck, pinning the taller figure against one of the two walls caging them in. “go ahead” was the latter’s voice tugging at his heartstrings. he would negate the desire blooming at the pits of his stomach while the scent of unholy blood permeated as a threat, flirting, alluring. he would pull back like that, with ache suffocating his lungs and blood loss proving itself to be a treacherous factor.

seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned into hours. or did they? he couldn’t identify the passage of time anymore.

run, encounter chanyeol, run. do and repeat. over and over again.

he lost count of how many times bloody palms found themselves around chanyeol’s throat in temptation. of how many times liquid crystal burned paths down his cheeks. of how many times he bit down his own lips and cheek to prevent fangs from ending elsewhere.

he cannot recall just how he ended on his knees, begging ”please stop” at his lover’s feet. or how every cell on his body screamed and implored for the opportunity presented before him. maybe even how he managed to remain conscious despite the inner war and the constant exchange between two personalities. how he did not advance when the other’s warm palms cradled his cheeks with such tenderness.

he cannot recall how, in the end, he stood before the taller and slit his own throat with sharp claws with a “i’m sorry” breaking at the tip of his tongue.

or even how much an "i love you” could hurt. how utterly and painfully devastating it could be. how it bloomed a restless, burning and agonizing sentiment within his shattering heart when chanyeol whispered it, rough fingers running through faded silver locks.

what he can recall was a smile. dazzling, bright, serene and heavenly.

and then nothing.

ii.

he woke in a strange room. a white box, so to speak.

to the right there was a black wooden table, a set of four people sat behind it. a middle aged male, unmasked, a middle aged female, a male teenager and a little girl, masked. to the left he could make out another table, a woman in her late twenties sat alone, unmasked, with a child in her arms, masked.

he stood before them, a few feet away, aligned in between the tables.

it wasn’t hard to recognized the set of faces that had been haunting him for years on end. the two humans whose lives he had claimed in the face of starvation.

“do you remember? what you did to us.” the man was the first to break the silence.

”i do.” he bit his inner cheek.

the lights flickered and in that fragment of time in which he was blinded the scene transmuted. across their necks were bizarre gouges, each unique in their own way, blood oozing from open wounds, as it also dripped from the tips of his elongated nails & mouth when warmth made itself present on his palms and lips.

the memories had always been like lucid dreams. breathing down his neck, haunting, tripping his steps, lurking in the shadows, asphyxiating him during night terrors.

”murderer.” the woman had stood then and he could see the thick liquid now staining the baby’s blanket. the sight was unsettling to say the least and he wanted to kneel and beg for forgiveness. but his feet were rooted, unwilling to move.

“you ruined their lives.” they said in unison this time and it somewhat felt macabre.

”i’m sorry. i am so sorry.” his words oscillated.

“that won’t bring us back.” the man had stepped out from behind the table, standing a few feet away from baekhyun. the woman joined him soon after, the sound asleep child in arms.

“i took care of them. i did.” he could not, however, bring himself to face them, to meet the pair of eyes he so viciously drained of life. “i made sure to take care of them, i promise. i...i looked over them.” it sounded dismal and he abhorred it.

”to make yourself feel better? my child had to grow up without a mother and a father.”

“no!” he didn’t mean to shout. “i just--i know nothing i did could ever replace you, either of you, but i did the one thing i could do. i helped them get through the tough times, to stabilize their lives. maybe not emotionally, i could never, but financially. i tried...” speaking of it for the first time out loud felt odd. it hurt. did atoning for sins always feel like this?

”did it work?” the man bit back.

it did. it did...did it?

money doesn’t compensate the loss of a loved one. so what did he do? give money to a couple of families? what did it do for them? what about their mental state?

he couldn’t bring himself to answer. there was a discomfort mauling the inner content of his ribs as his brows furrowed and bloody palms clasped the fabric of his shirt over the left side of his chest.

”would you exchange places with us?” the woman’s words were the ones that lead him to glance up, to properly look into their eyes for the first time.

”would you die so we could go back to our families?” the man added and he was frozen.

time stood still then and there.

thoughts ran a million miles per hour. too fast for him to catch on.

would he? what about his life? what about his friends? what about his work? what about the promise to his parents? what about haru? what about his lover?

the truth is, he wanted to say no. because taking everything into consideration, in that present time, it wouldn’t change anything. would it? it had been so long. people moved on, right? but there was also still that sliver of doubt. the predicament, the dilemma. and that was when the brain stepped in, when logical and rational thinking took him by the gullet.

in the end, he would. if it meant giving back a father and a mother to their rightful families, if it meant rebuilding homes, if it meant taking back the horrid memories he left in his wake, or all the excuses made to cover up murders.

”yes.” he finally mumbled.

“very well.” they spoke in unison once more and he only registered the cock of a gun before the loud shot hit him in the head.

he blacked out before his body could hit the ground.

iii.

(he woke embraced by a sheet of snow, cold and novice to the skin as the storm raged on.

before him was the silhouette of a house too familiar not to recognize it at first sight.

in the open field, usually blooming with a variety of flowers, was a figure striding across the snow. he still had her name engraved at the back of his mind and the image of her face terrorizing his every waking moment.

it took a minute to realize what was going on and that he was a spectator to the unraveling events.)

she came at the faithful night of his eight birthday. she was tall, her long, straight charcoal locks molding a V shaped jaw as her fair complex seemed to glow under the faint moonlight when reflecting against the layer of snow outside, lips meticulously sculptured, her frame as slender as one could be and ruby irises so captivating that one could drown in them, a void. absolutely beautiful, like a goddess.

the child greeted her by the door before the conflict was taken outside. she had called out his parents with baekhyun left behind on the snow, near the entrance. they had clashed into a fierce battle of shots, claws and fangs. mother had a pair of pistols discharged continuously on the vampire’s direction, although it had little effect when the blurred figured dissipated in the storm and materialized elsewhere. father had a shotgun, engaged in a similar form of combat. the vampire, however, had sunk its claws along the humans’ torsos here and there, casually blemishing the white snow with speckles of red.

(he watched from a tree nearby. intertwined with his right hand was a silenced pistol, two shots in it.)

mother wailed in pain when the female’s claws pierced her stomach with little to no effort, sinking further and with ease as her latter hand rested on the victim’s shoulder and eased the human body into it.

(he could make out drops of blood dripping into the icy blanket below their feet and the way his mother attempted to call for her son. ache came before rage that burgeoned at the back of his throat in a mute scream and toppled down over to the space between ribcages. his arm raised and he aligned the muzzle to the vampire’s head.)

the body fell to the ground in what felt like slow motion, numb. the female pounced in a matter of seconds, assiduously sinking its fangs into a pale neck as nails perforated her nape. she appeared to have had scratched a few other locations on top of it. the child couldn’t make out the exact extent of the injuries from where he stood, but the absurd pool of blood made visible from distance told him enough.

(his finger was hovering over the trigger, gritted teeth causing his jaw to clench. his entire body quivered in blind fury. shoot, his mind pleaded. save her.)

father appeared to have turned into stone as it all unfolded. it was as if he wanted to scream, to say something, do something, but his entire body had shut down at the sight of his wife, lifeless in a bed of blood. it was the child’s voice in a cracked “mommy” that snapped him back to reality.

a loud shot fracture the temporary silence, birthing a large lesion along the vampire’s back. the shriek it earned was torturous and raucous. father shouted something the child could not make out among loud sobs.

(he wanted to shoot. he wanted to end it because...because he knew what was to come next.)

the vampire stood with sharp canines on show and palms extended by her sides, displaying the culprits to mother’s death. she vanished with the niveous wind only to reappear behind father. one palm found itself around the male’s neck and, in the blink of an eye, her latter hand pierced straight through his chest, a pulsating heart in hand. he didn’t have time to shout in agony, or to react in any way. she had pushed the corpse down into a second pool of thick liquid, melting into the snow.

she consumed the flesh in hand as if it was an apple an the child could all but witness the horror.

(he should have shot. he still could. there was still time to save himself. but his finger couldn’t pull the trigger, or, rather, he couldn’t.)

she proceeded to turn the child.

(just as he remembered.)

and she left just like that, with the promise of a life of misery and loathing.

(he still had a shot then. and this time he took it...but it wasn’t at her.

i’m sorry. it is time to let you go. i held on for too long.

the small body hit the cushioned ground way too fast and the cries ceased. silence settled in.

lashes fluttered closed as he inhaled and exhaled all the guilt and ache.

his mind fell into an odd state of peace for the first time in forever.)