5To Be Human
thanks to paintmyworlddarkblue and vintagecowgirl1010 for reviews, it's much appreciated :)
enjoy guys!
I want to thank him, but I know only one way. That's not special any more. I give myself to people, like people give sweets to children. I don't know how to say thank you any other way, I don't think I could say how grateful I am anyway.
But I don't want him to fall into my spiders web. There's something about this one, what's different.
"I keep telling you. No one saves whores."
"And I keep telling you, I must be no one."
His piercing stare holds me in my place. I don't try to move, I don't try to run. I just stand there. Watching. Waiting. My breath unfurls into tiny clouds, drifting off into the night sky. The train is long gone, but we're still in the station. We watch each other, like hawks and I have a feeling, that the lion has caught it's prey.
"I'm Joe."
His statement catches me slightly off guard. No one tells me their name. Then again, he is a no one. I just nod, and move past him. He catches my arm in his bony, skeletal hand. My eyes travel from his thin fingers, up to his skinny arm, to his pale face.
It's luminescent in the moon light. He looks like a vampire. I can see he's haunted too, the mix of emotions wash over him like rain.
Men always want the same thing, never anything else. It's just the way it goes. They say they love you, they need you and after you give yourself up, they leave. Every girl has the same story. It turns them into bitter, angry and lonely women and if they fell from grace, then they become bitter, angry and lonely whores. There's nothing they wouldn't trade to get back what they gave up. But it's too late now.
I am bitter. I am angry. I am alone. But I am whore, first and foremost.
"You going to tell me your name? I've saved you a few times and you've never said thank you. At least give me your name lady."
I open my mouth to tell him my name. It feels so foreign on my tongue, so alien on my bruised lips, but it rolls along and out of my mouth like no one had stopped using it.
"Persephone."
He repeats it, and I find I like the way it falls from his mouth. I nod, telling him he got it right and the vampire knight's face twists into a pleased smile. His grip on my arm loosens, but he doesn't completely let go. His hand slides down my arm, to my hand. It lingers there, like a kiss on the lips from a lover, before it falls to his scrawny side.
"You should get that looked at."
The vampire skirts my bruised and bloodied face with his bones and I shudder. Trying to cover it up, I pull my coat around me, tighter.
"No. no, they'd just ask questions."
"Doc won't."
"Who's he?"
Doc was one of the company medics. He wore the same haunted look on his face that Joe did. He was gaunt, pale and dark haired, just like Joe. He knew people were going to die in his arms. Knew there was nothing to do to change that fact.
Here was a man, who knew he wasn't god. Most men would think they were God. They believed life was theirs to take. But this one knew how people suffered, and couldn't do a thing. Maybe that's why he looked like he did.
He never asked questions. Never spoke. Just cleaned and dressed my little wounds. After, he just left, going back to his bed. I thought about my own bed. It would be cold, as usual and empty, save me. Cold and alone I would lay tonight. I didn't feel like taking someone in with me.
Joe, my vampire knight, walked me to my so-called home.
I looked at the Gate to Hell. Hades would be waiting for me inside, ready to lay into me, for trying to leave. I'd never leave the Underworld. Once you consume something from the garden of Hell, it consumes you.
My hand touched the door and recoiled, like I had been burnt. I didn't want to go back.
"I could come in with you." Joe suggested, his voice low and protective.
"No. Once you go to Hell, you never leave."
"I think I could find some way out. You could too.. if you tried."
"I was trying when you first met me."
"That's not a way out."
"It is for us."
He followed me inside and we creeped to the stairs. Every shadow had me jumping. It never bothered me before, if he beat me and I ran. But Joe had given him what he should have had a long time ago and now, I could feel more than pain. I felt fear.
It soaked through, right into my bones, in all the crevices and cracks of my soul. It sank into my skin, like a boat sinks into the deep, dark ocean, never to be seen again. It welled in my eyes, like tears, as we made it to the stairs to my attic bedroom.
I looked around, every sense on edge. I felt like I was the soldier and Joe was the one I was looking out for.
He gazed around my barren and ice cold room. Like Hamish, everything was withered and dead in it. I winced, as he picked his way through the room. I had acquired an old vanity and it now stood dishevelled in the corner, next to the mantle piece. He picked up a little handkerchief that sat next to my untouched make up and dropped it out of his fingers with an air of carelessness.
"Jeeze..." he breathed, almost shivering from the freezing draft that seemed to ebb your life and soul away.
"Welcome to my world." I replied, standing behind him, checking one last time for my Keeper. I swiftly locked and bolted the door. He looked at me, black eye brows raised.
"You think I want him to come in here while you're here? He'd kill the both of us."
Joe made a noise with his tongue, stuffing his hands in his pocket and leaning on my mantle piece.
"I doubt it 'Seff."
"What?"
"Your name. Sounds better shortened."
"No it doesn't."
He smirked and I felt my lips curve up at the corners. It had been a long while since I had smiled a true smile. Even if this was just a little smile, it was still there. His lips curved a little more, and, pushing himself off the mantle, he closed the gap between us.
"You should smile more. It makes you look prettier."
Now I smirked.
"I'm a whore. You don't have to flirt to lay in my bed."
"You're Persephone. You're a girl. You have lungs, you have a brain, you have eyes, legs arms, a heart-"
"I doubt that very much. The only thing I feel is pain and fear."
"Now, I don't think that's true.." he scowled.
"When you do what I do, you learn to get rid of feelings."
"Not done a great job if you still feel."
"Pain and fear? They're just there to remind me I'm still human."