Lycoris

He was born with fingers as white and still as the petals of an apple blossom, a promise of fleeting life and of sudden death. With the opening of his eyes, however, that promise was as quickly broken as it was made. His piercing blue eyes were stunning to his parents, stunning and terrifying as it faded as red as a field of spider lilies. Their stillborn albino child had been brought to life, a life that he would later on despise himself. They loved him unconditionally nonetheless, yet as he grew into the man he was, he couldn’t seem to grasp that love no matter how much they showered him with presents and hugs.

It was during the years where he had left his family in escape of their hesitant love and was forced to live in the midst of many other dragons his age where he started blooming into the individual he is today. He was always shunned, always ridiculed by other dragons for being so different from the others. They bullied him, excluded him from activities, and gave him no privacy when he needed it. How his heart ached those years for family, for comfort, for a new exterior to cover his bland paleness.

Yet there was one girl, one person whose hand seemed just in reach for him to grab. He grasped at it desperately, giving his all to please her, whose face seemed kind enough to give him that much needed comfort. She complied, systematically giving him what he needed, and promising forget-me-nots in return for his entire being. And he complied without a second word. He lost it all, all of his secrets, all of his individual will, and all of his body to her.

He found himself in a dark hollow room chained down by his one and only love, a lost white light in a cage of shadow and gloom. He couldn’t feel the biting needle thread wrapped tightly around his pretty little bare neck, and he certainly couldn’t feel the searing pain in the middle of his chest as he was bombarded with everything he never wanted to hear. He screeched, mind numbing as he watched the words coming out of her smiling mouth aim directly and precisely at his weakened heart. Her fingers pressed lightly over his heart, her entire body draped on his as she continued her relentless assault until his eyes glassed over. Every day for what seemed like centuries to him, her fingers would dance over that spot over his chest until he was terrified of being conscious. He wanted to fade, to die, to stop thinking, to stop everything. But he couldn’t, she wouldn’t allow it, and so the onslaught continued.

He doesn’t remember how that hell disappeared, and he doesn’t remember how long it took for him to scavenge what pieces of his mind was left after it. He couldn’t remember the shame and feeling of being alienated by others. After it all, he couldn’t even remember her face nor her fingers on his body, yet he remembers the burning and crushing pain of a gentle touch to the flower engraved on his chest as a gesture of twisted affection. What does remain were the lying promises by her flowers, and of the fate of death she so earnestly promised to him.

In an attempt to preserve what was left of himself, he permanently etched everything he knew onto his scarred body, a reminder for himself that he has lived and is living. With his life under his own hands, he refuses to fall victim to himself and to others again, closing his heart permanently to all. With his emotions shut off, he surrounds his weak white flower in a field of red death hiding his weakness in strength. Now, he struggles to live, finding a meaning in all of the incomprehensiveness life offers while biting viciously back at those who threaten him.