Post by Paroxysm on Oct 22, 2016 1:22:59 GMT -5
Ascendancy
There he was. Crawling, begging to me on the dark wooden floor. I knew how this hurt him. Every pleading word he spoke affirmed that I had the capacity to destroy him and his future. I could see each pitiful plea for help cut through him like a serrated knife. Ripping through his pride and painting my walls with beautiful red specks of humiliation.
Me. It was me he was asking for help. And that’s why it hurt him so much. Me.
For the first time since I met him, he had no tricks up his sleeve. He had fallen to the last resort he didn’t even know he had until it became time to hit the rocky bottom. The man was earnestly in need of my help.
That’s why it hurt him so much.
I was the only one who could provide help.
That’s why it hurt him so much.
And it wasn’t because he cared for me that he was asking for my forgiveness. It wasn’t because he once had. He never had. If anything, to him I was that itch on the back of his hand.
That recurring itch that won’t go away, no matter how hard you scratch it.
He should have realized that the more you scratch, the more inflamed the itch becomes. Even geniuses can be dense, I suppose.
I barely knew him when I became that itch. Though looking back, I can remember what caused his hatred.
Any doctor is willing to tell their patients what is wrong with them, but when the patient points out what’s wrong with the doctor… They tend to not like that. And then I escaped. Out of his asylum, under his watch. Of course he could never stand for that.
That was before I knew what the man at my feet was.
He was like me.
Psychotic. Insane. Brilliant.
As his patient, this man had intended to use me for his mental experiments. His torturous games. As his escapee, he wanted revenge on me for avoiding my doomed fate, and he had been very close to getting it.
He set these games on others as well, not just me. Everyone knew of him, they just didn’t know who he was. His games were cruel. His games often resulted in incurable insanity or death. I am well-versed in the subject of death, but do not care for it when it could be my own.
And now he was begging me to save him. To save him from the police, who had finally caught on to his trail. He was at the mercy of a psychotic, intelligent victim of his torture. His every beseeching word towards me desecrated the arrogant pride that he still held within him.
That’s why it intoxicated me.
His every imploring lie hurt him more than he ever hurt me.
That’s why it intoxicated me.
Every beg he sang brought a cold joy, ringing through my throat. Every pained look that shot through his eyes. Every time I could see his inner self whisper in soft undertones that he was better than me, and every time I saw him force it away, brought me close to dancing.
And all I could do was grin. I wanted to dance from my joy. I wanted to watch him suffer as he was. I wanted to cause him pain. I wanted to see him crumble and fall.
I started to laugh. I laughed. And it was cruel. It shocked him, and I could see the trepidation behind the cautious warning in his eyes. My laughter carried the wonderful, exhilarating, bursting power inside me. It let him see that power, and released the overwhelming emotions I was feeling towards my supremacy.
And it wasn’t because I cared for him that I held my hand out to him.
It wasn’t because I once had.
It was because I knew it would hurt him more than anything else.
Supremacy
Though I held out my hand to him before, that did not mean that the urge to cut, to tease, to break, was gone. He had hurt me, and had thought nothing of it. Now I know that like this it sounds like I was simply holding a grudge. That is not true.
I had forgiven him long before he came to me. Why shouldn’t I? He was just like us, after all. Just like me. Psychotic, brilliant. He only did what he did out of the same cold desire we all harbored.
The hunger, the ache for dominance, for ascendancy.
What better joy than to take someone, once so strong, so feared, so powerful, and make them beg, cry.. scream?
What I did that day came from thought, not from instinct. I had hurt and broken him mentally, and the reward had been sweet. I had watched him drive himself insane, trying to psychoanalyze every little thing that I did, trying to understand how a fool like me could achieve so much.
Happiness, laughter, things like this are signs of stupidity to him. They are unprofessional, not frightening or powerful. That’s what he’s all about of course: what’s frightening. What are you scared of? How can I turn your fear into something greater than you thought it could be?
I prefer confusion to fear. Fear is something that comes after I’m through. He starts with fear. He thrives on fear. For him, fear is power.
I thrive on power. Not just in one form, but in all.
When I laughed, it confused him. He became wary, brought up his guard. Once his guard is up, he is fearful to let it down.
Why bother with torturing a man who will only torture himself?
He finally snapped. He gave up, when he discovered that all this time, we were testing him like this. We wanted to see what he could take. We didn’t have any desire to actually hurt him. Oh, no. It was all a test.
Oh, what a liar I am.
He broke when he believed it. I acted that way. I let everyone think: Yes, I do still love him. I do still want, just to live together, a happy family of psychos. I let them think that it was a game, and now that it was over, I could continue my ignorant foolishness.
Little did they know, I dreamed about his cries, his begging.
He thought he was so strong.
And though watching him crumble beneath our “test” was satisfying, it was nothing like snatching the raw power out of someone’s hands.
He was finally back in the game, with a little prodding. Willing to go along with our heists, and attacks, almost acting like he was okay with being one of us (of course, he would never admit that to anyone.)
I had to admit, I had my respect for him. I enjoyed his company, I enjoyed taunting him, and his snide remarks always returning. But still, deep down, my stomach would get a kick of excitement if I ever thought of bringing him to his knees.
We were not alone in that home of mine. Along with us, was someone I cared deeply for. She loved taunting him more than I did. I loved to watch. She was closer to me than he ever was, or would be.
Her taunting became enough for him, and in a swift movement, he attacked her, bringing his weapon out to leave her screaming in terror on the floor.
My love for her was strong, and protective rage filled me in a second. The decisiveness with which I moved to grab him, startled him. I could see, in his eyes for a second, the shock he had upon seeing my face, so cold, so unforgiving, so very much like his.
For a second, I was graced with this shock of his, before I attacked him. My toxin sucked in through his lungs, then carried through his veins.
Pain, of the kind nobody knew, except those who had encountered me.
The pain of torture cannot compare. It can’t even begin to scratch the surface. The sting of a blade, the burning of a bullet, the ache of a hit, all crescendoing within. No.. a crescendo implies that there is an end, or a peak. This is more like the never ending story. The sting, burn, ache, any kind of pain imaginable spreads through the whole body. Every orifice, every internal and external place, fills with all of this pain at once. The whole time, one is brought to believe that it cannot become any worse. There is a limit to how much pain a mind can imagine.
Imagine your body, filling with pain, the worst you can think of, filling it to the brim. And now, imagine if it didn’t stop filling. You thought you were full. You thought that every nerve in your body was jammed with as much pain it could take, but it keeps rising. It keeps increasing. The pain does not stop.
This is what he breathed in. He crumpled to the ground, his eyes watching me for as long as they could while I stood over him.
They closed in agony as a scream rended him through.
The screams rise, and rise. Gasps come and go as the body clenches every muscle it can to restrain some of the pain. The pain becomes so great that screaming becomes a chore.
He held himself close, curled on the ground, this monster, this master, this king, curled on the ground, holding his arms, stomach and chest all at once with his hands and knees.
Tears fell from his eyes. I had never realized how much I desired that. I didn’t want his blood, or his screams. I wanted his sobs, and tears. The gasps and screams became those sobs. His cries rose in agony ever still.
When the opportunity arose, he would look up at me. No longer cold, no longer angry, but pleading, begging, please let me go, let this end. They would close tight again as another wave came, and a word would leak out of the gasping sobs and tears. It would come sounding broken, defeated, and utterly, utterly alone. The only one who could help him, who could hear him, was the one who had put him where he was. The word he spoke identified his endless suffering, and everything I had stolen from him in that one moment.
“No..”