Thread: Oh Ye Of Little Faith (darkangel76 & Erit of Eastcris)

It was a sin. Grotesque, violent, deplorable. The soft squelching as his hands dug into their carcasses, the scent of fresh blood and raw meat making the part of him that remained want to gag, but his body moved beyond his control, seeking nothing but to fill the vast, unfathomable emptiness inside him. The feeling of blood and sinew sliding down his gullet was life-giving and self-destructive, made him feel alive and yet killed him inside nonetheless. The flesh which kept his heart beating slowly ate away at it, the blood which warmed his throat promising to one day choke him. He, who had once knelt at the feet of the Father, now feasted on the pungent corpses of mere mortals whom once he had watched over at the behest of the Lord, the faint echos of Providence's sustaining light providing him enough to survive but nowhere near enough to feel whole. The ceaseless need to feed egged him on as pound after pound of flesh passed his lips, until the sound of a door latch opening, the melody of hinges creaking as a passageway opened to permit ingress, caused him to tense. A voice rang out, though he did not stay to hear the words, leaping to his feet and fleeing through the same window he had shattered to enter, without trace but for broken glass and a smattering of charred feathers. Mortified screams followed him through the night, golden eyes watching the house as authorities came with their sirens and flashing lights. A young woman was questioned and interrogated, the remains of his dark deed taken away in bags and bright yellow stripes cast across the threshold, forbidding passage into the house from all but a select many. She wept at the doorstep, silent but pained, and the howling hunger within him was silenced for that moment by the piercing scream of remorse. They would claim the deed done by psychopaths, a ritual double-homicide perpetrated by lunatics. It would be featured briefly in the news, but he would never be caught and tried for his crime. Nonetheless, he would be punished, doomed by his own volition to spend his days as her shadow. Her footsteps echoed by his own, unknowingly followed by his ghost of ashen pallor. He watched over her from the darkness, warding her from danger with subtle bumps or noises. He did not feed, nor did he sleep. Only reluctantly did he even blink, never daring to break his penitent vigil. It had been the birth of summer when first he saw her. That summer came, and went, as did the next. On the dawn of the third he slunk, invisible to the world's notice, through her wake, golden gaze unceasing in its intensity. The eye of God was never cast over less than the whole of humanity, the Almighty uninterested in the affairs of the few, and though he was poor substitute he could at the least watch over this girl whose happiness he had stolen from her with his reckless surrender to the hunger. Hunger which had never abated or relented, which never would. Hunger which he had ignored since that day, refusing to feed lest she come to harm through his negligence. The thought struck him with illness, laid the creature low with emotions he had cast aside his creator to feel. Once, he had not felt these things, these emotions of fear or regret or sorrow he had simply served and been rewarded with the fulfilling light of his Lord. But in daring to think, to try and understand the minds of these creatures for which the Father held boundless love, he had been deemed unworthy to serve further, cut away from that sustaining grace and cast to the earth, wings seared from his back and halo torn away. The radiance which once suffused his flesh had been stripped from him, leaving an ashen-grey shamble, half-dead despite having never truly lived. Even his name had been stricken from him, dooming him to wander the world of man bereft of all but the need to consume eternally. He had tried to quell the ache by feeding first only upon the wicked, but they were the least capable of dulling the craving, their imitation of divinity muddied by sins unabsolved. So it had ended up that he found himself at the house of that husband and wife, and the hunger had overtaken his control. An incident which lead to this day, in this moment. She was leaving the studio she attended regularly, having finished the intricate dancing she practiced despite her fluency. Her partners, he knew, were victims of vice more than virtue, but that did little to diminish the splendor of their performance. After every visit to this place, however, she would walk the short distance to a small, homely cafe and order the same drink, before leaving for home as the sun began to set. Today was different, however he noticed she had forgotten the small piece of plastic used to facilitate this ritual transaction, leaving it forlorn in her home. It was as she fumbled in her bag, trying to find that which was not there, that he suddenly appeared beside her, lusterless and extending towards her with an offering of currency, a smile contorting his thin lips in an expression which did not touch his eyes and of which he knew not the true meaning. Sallow cheeks and narrow jaw moved, a voice once-holy and wholly enchanting welling up from his slender throat, Here, I'll take care of it for you. Ardently he pressed the money upon her, spun-gold hair bereft its divine light swaying as he shook his head in the face of protest. It's the least I can do, he explained, it's fine. Take it.