[The last time someone touched them, they wound up in the hospital, hooked to life support while they slept endlessly in a mysterious coma.]
[It could have been a horrible incident, just one, had it not happened multiple times to any friend Ryou had made. For a while he could tack on "and brought home to play," but it gradually became apparent that the only requirement for sudden comatose state was to be his friend, touch him, agree to play a game to pass the time. He hadn't understood, at first, that it was all Zorc's doing, but he gradually came to understand that the demon didn't need to reach out to touch someone to strangle their soul.]
[He once had a happy life with his father, mother, and little sister. They lived in a comfortably sized home with a second story and basement, and they would all talk of maybe getting a pet dog someday to keep the bad things away. Ryou, now, sees that a dog would do no good, but it had once been a comforting hope. The downfall of his familial happiness happened seemingly all at once; his mother and sister were out doing errands in London, maybe chittering about his father's plans to visit his side of the family in Japan for a month the upcoming summer, when they got into a terrible car accident. Ryou hasn't cared to find out whose fault it was, his mother's or the bus driver's, only that he's had to identify the corpse of his mangled sister and sit, shaking and crying, at his mother's hospital bedside until they agreed she had to be let go.]
[It was around then he met the demon, but Ryou felt as if he'd been near him many times before.]
[Zorc, he calls himself, perched on his back and clinging to his shoulder. He's been there for years, now, claws sunken into his mortal flesh and appearance fading from horrid monster to frighteningly human. Ryou thought once that maybe he could bear to look this demon in the face if he looked more like him, like the people surrounding him; but as Zorc gradually took on Ryou's height, his weight, the color of his eyes, and finally his face, he was a darkened room reflection and Ryou couldn't bear it. The demon has horns, yes, atop his head and protruding from each side of his jaw and from behind his ears--which were a transformation over time, they weren't there before--but all Ryou can see is himself masked in dark gray.]
[Ryou's had the misfortune of being plagued with this beast, yes, but he can't deny his luck that it hasn't tried to destroy him. It sinks into his body sometimes, uses him as a puppet to break his fingers and swallow his screams, but broken bones and impaled limbs are nothing like the Death he's seen and touched. Death is cold, it's watching everything in life slip away, grade school eyes glazed over, doctors inquiring about plugs needing to be pulled. Ryou is fascinated with death and the very sort of horror that surrounds him, but there is nothing worse than the reality of the end and he's been force fed it until he choked too many times.]
[He once tried to find help from armies of words in multiple libraries, poured his attention all over them, researched culture after culture, absorbed as much as he could before he passed out on the table. He tried everything short of human sacrifice to expel the demon from him, tried again and again; Zorc played along each time, would shriek and howl in his ears, drag his claws all over his body, acted as if he were finally dying, only to rise up cackling and tapping Ryou's chest with a single talon. "You cannot kill me," he taunts, "for I am the shadows, and the shadows never die!"]
[His father abandons him after Ryou tries to tell him about the demon as the fifth friend to collapse in their living room is taken away in an ambulance. He leaves for Egypt, a sudden excavation more important than his last living family that requires his attention and help. Ryou doesn't dare seek refuge in an orphanage or any public place where his demon might thrive upon the souls residing there, and instead lives alone in an empty house, where the bills are paid from Egypt and grocery money appears in his bank account every two weeks. This has been his life for two years, and he wishes he could say it's been just him and the empty hallways that beckon his darkest thoughts.]
[Amane remains pressed in his head, the only light he can cling to in all his shrouds of shadows, and he writes to her everyday, puts the letters in a box decorated with a crucifix he's unsure actually does anything. He remembers how his mother would cling to her rosary during bad times, and how his father, despite his own beliefs, made sure she had a cross above her bed while she drifted away from them. It must do something, anything, and it couldn't hurt to put his trust into a symbol that could possibly send his thoughts to his dearest sister and mother in Heaven. Zorc, of course, whispers horrible things into his ears while he does this. "Heaven?" he barks, "There is no such place! There are only angels less than kind and gods who only find pleasure in their creation's worship and suffering."]
[Ryou's ability to ignore him has strengthened, sometimes he can talk back without feeling as if he's been impaled through the stomach, but nothing helps except for his hope that someday he'll be free from this hell he's living. He's given up on having friends, pushes people away when they get too close; he sighs hopelessly at those he admires from afar. He's given up on normalcy, or having his father back, or ever having a family again at all. All he has are his wooden sculptures, his scriptures and texts, and the lonely home full of memories and abandoned promises of a better life.]
[So he turns and stares at the girl who touched him, tapped his shoulder without a word. He tenses up, already fearful for her life. He smiles all the same, but it's strained and Zorc's claws sink into his shoulders.]
no subject
[It could have been a horrible incident, just one, had it not happened multiple times to any friend Ryou had made. For a while he could tack on "and brought home to play," but it gradually became apparent that the only requirement for sudden comatose state was to be his friend, touch him, agree to play a game to pass the time. He hadn't understood, at first, that it was all Zorc's doing, but he gradually came to understand that the demon didn't need to reach out to touch someone to strangle their soul.]
[He once had a happy life with his father, mother, and little sister. They lived in a comfortably sized home with a second story and basement, and they would all talk of maybe getting a pet dog someday to keep the bad things away. Ryou, now, sees that a dog would do no good, but it had once been a comforting hope. The downfall of his familial happiness happened seemingly all at once; his mother and sister were out doing errands in London, maybe chittering about his father's plans to visit his side of the family in Japan for a month the upcoming summer, when they got into a terrible car accident. Ryou hasn't cared to find out whose fault it was, his mother's or the bus driver's, only that he's had to identify the corpse of his mangled sister and sit, shaking and crying, at his mother's hospital bedside until they agreed she had to be let go.]
[It was around then he met the demon, but Ryou felt as if he'd been near him many times before.]
[Zorc, he calls himself, perched on his back and clinging to his shoulder. He's been there for years, now, claws sunken into his mortal flesh and appearance fading from horrid monster to frighteningly human. Ryou thought once that maybe he could bear to look this demon in the face if he looked more like him, like the people surrounding him; but as Zorc gradually took on Ryou's height, his weight, the color of his eyes, and finally his face, he was a darkened room reflection and Ryou couldn't bear it. The demon has horns, yes, atop his head and protruding from each side of his jaw and from behind his ears--which were a transformation over time, they weren't there before--but all Ryou can see is himself masked in dark gray.]
[Ryou's had the misfortune of being plagued with this beast, yes, but he can't deny his luck that it hasn't tried to destroy him. It sinks into his body sometimes, uses him as a puppet to break his fingers and swallow his screams, but broken bones and impaled limbs are nothing like the Death he's seen and touched. Death is cold, it's watching everything in life slip away, grade school eyes glazed over, doctors inquiring about plugs needing to be pulled. Ryou is fascinated with death and the very sort of horror that surrounds him, but there is nothing worse than the reality of the end and he's been force fed it until he choked too many times.]
[He once tried to find help from armies of words in multiple libraries, poured his attention all over them, researched culture after culture, absorbed as much as he could before he passed out on the table. He tried everything short of human sacrifice to expel the demon from him, tried again and again; Zorc played along each time, would shriek and howl in his ears, drag his claws all over his body, acted as if he were finally dying, only to rise up cackling and tapping Ryou's chest with a single talon. "You cannot kill me," he taunts, "for I am the shadows, and the shadows never die!"]
[His father abandons him after Ryou tries to tell him about the demon as the fifth friend to collapse in their living room is taken away in an ambulance. He leaves for Egypt, a sudden excavation more important than his last living family that requires his attention and help. Ryou doesn't dare seek refuge in an orphanage or any public place where his demon might thrive upon the souls residing there, and instead lives alone in an empty house, where the bills are paid from Egypt and grocery money appears in his bank account every two weeks. This has been his life for two years, and he wishes he could say it's been just him and the empty hallways that beckon his darkest thoughts.]
[Amane remains pressed in his head, the only light he can cling to in all his shrouds of shadows, and he writes to her everyday, puts the letters in a box decorated with a crucifix he's unsure actually does anything. He remembers how his mother would cling to her rosary during bad times, and how his father, despite his own beliefs, made sure she had a cross above her bed while she drifted away from them. It must do something, anything, and it couldn't hurt to put his trust into a symbol that could possibly send his thoughts to his dearest sister and mother in Heaven. Zorc, of course, whispers horrible things into his ears while he does this. "Heaven?" he barks, "There is no such place! There are only angels less than kind and gods who only find pleasure in their creation's worship and suffering."]
[Ryou's ability to ignore him has strengthened, sometimes he can talk back without feeling as if he's been impaled through the stomach, but nothing helps except for his hope that someday he'll be free from this hell he's living. He's given up on having friends, pushes people away when they get too close; he sighs hopelessly at those he admires from afar. He's given up on normalcy, or having his father back, or ever having a family again at all. All he has are his wooden sculptures, his scriptures and texts, and the lonely home full of memories and abandoned promises of a better life.]
[So he turns and stares at the girl who touched him, tapped his shoulder without a word. He tenses up, already fearful for her life. He smiles all the same, but it's strained and Zorc's claws sink into his shoulders.]
Um...may I help you?