I am my own special creation

A serial killer may leave traces of one or both of the following behavioral characteristics: MO (modus operandi or method of operation) and signature—the personal mark or imprint of the offender. While every crime has an MO, not all crimes have a signature.

Damon calmly watched the life leave the boy’s expression. He took his time. There was no need to rush. This was his domain. He was in full control. 

The last blink, the last breath, the last twitch of pain.

The boy lay still. He was white and red. He was gone. Nothing left but the carcass remaining to rot in the dying world. But before it could begin to decay Damon had a job. He had to make it into art. 

He didn’t see it as a body as such. To him it was just another object, another medium at his disposal. It was no more disturbing or sickening than a leaf blowing on the wind. Damon retrieved his knife again and picked up the wound where he’d left off, dragging it open as much as possible until the blade hit the chest bone. He pushed his left hand inside the lifeless chest, reaching up to locate the lungs. 

It was hard work. Blood filled his finger nails and the internals offered nothing but resistance. Damon was determined. He would release this butterfly from its cocoon. 

Taking hold of the lungs he began to ease them down as though he was coaxing them out. Like they were shy. He egged them out of the cage they were in. He pulled them free and taking the blooded collar of the body he pulled it forward into a heap across its legs. The lungs were cut free and placed across the back of the body.

The wings of a butterfly finally able to breathe.

Damon sat back. It was beautiful. True art. It was a shame though - that it all had to go to waste. With the knife in his hand - his hand gloved in blood from tip to elbow - he turned the blonde head to the side so that he could see the lifeless, staring right eye. 

They really were pretty eyes.

He’d always had a fascination with eyes. They were a window to the soul. If blinded they lost colour, but in death they retained their vivid streaks. Death was to lose life, not sight.

He placed the knife under the eyelid and pushed it into the socket with surprising delicacy as he expertly popped it out and snipped it free. Yes. This one would go well in his collection of sins. For now he looped it through his belt by the nerve tubing at the back to be added with the others later. There were more pressing matters at hand. 

Damon stood, his shoes splashing in the blood pools. What he really wanted to do was scrawl the masterpiece’s title on the wall in blood, but the city past the walls stifled that desire. He had to make the boy before the art disappear and unfortunately just being deep in the depths of the Red District may not be enough. This was his domain though; his playground. He had learnt it and it had learnt him. They shared a mutual respect. 

The Red District wasn’t just a hunting and burial ground for Damon, it was also a place to stash what he didn’t want Benny to find and he’d learnt that runners from the city tried to avoid the place at all costs. It was perfect.

Turning on his heal Damon jogged off down the street into a nearby house only to return to his art work within a few minutes carrying a canister of petrol. He had weird and wonderful ways of obtaining what he wanted and a lot of it came down to his ruthlessness. Stashing his goods had always been something he’d done ever since his arrival in Benjamin Butcher.

With one last look at his masterpiece Damon turned the canister upside down, shaking its contents over the body and the pools of gathering blood. His aim was to make Toby unrecognisable. He wanted to put the doubt into people’s minds that - if this was even found - it could just be another infected that was long down the line. He’d seen burnt infected before, maybe it was to do with the threat of spores, but whatever the reason he didn’t much care. All he knew was that he could use it to his advantage. 

Taking a step back he drew a match, swiping it alight and flicking it onto the butterfly without a hesitation. Another piece sacrificed. Another job well done. 

The stomach in Damon’s palm was heavy with the boy’s burdens of life. Little of that remained, but it was still one of the heaviest he had felt despite its emptiness. It was a small organ to match the teen’s small frame and it fitted well into the palm of man’s hand.

The boy was lathered in bright red blood so bright in the moonlight it was almost an orange colour. That was an observation Damon had made over his collection of masterpieces - the younger the victim was the brighter the blood seemed to be. It was untainted from the toils of survival. It was unspoiled by poisons killing its cells. 

The blood moisturised Damon’s hand. Thick and gloopy. He absorbed the nutrition it held. 

He gave another squeeze, clenching his hand into a fist with the stomach at the centre straining like a balloon about to pop. 

Blood like a cure to Damon; shrieks of agony his lullaby. 

Vomit ran down the boy’s chin and stuck in the creases of his neck. The chunks of excreted food made islands in the lake of blood that he filled. It was a creation in all senses of the word. God created the earth, the Devil created sin, Damon created the beauty of pain and death dancing as one hand in hand.

Damon’s death seeking eyes latched to the boy’s rolling ones and a grin overcame his blank expression. 

“It is time, child. Let the flames engulf you as your vessel becomes ‘Relieving Red Toby’,” he said, quoting the name he had chosen for this piece of art. 

It was as simple as that. At sight of those blue eyes struggling to focus through the pain and his body giving way, Damon knew this stage of the process was complete. 

Gripping tightly on the stomach, Damon yanked it. He pulled it up into the night past the liver, the kidneys, the intestines, the muscle, the fat, the skin. Past it all and into the cold air of the new world. He ripped life from the kid and all he did was hold it aloft for a moment, observing the curves on the mass and the way the moonlight caught it. Then he threw it aside.

It landed with a splash in the blood by the victim.

Damon turned his gaze back to the boy’s face. He looked at him not like a human would to another human - but how Van Gogh would have looked at his paintings that no one else understood.

All Toby knew was pain and encroaching darkness.

His vision was slowly fading as blood continued to pool beneath him, the stream gradually slowly as his body started running out of the essential liquid.                                               D A R K N E S S                                                                             began creeping into the corners of the teen’s vision and shapes started to fuzz into masses of colours. The monster in front of him now only blobs of colour only vaguely resembling the human that he’d possessed.

It was almost more fitting, seeing it in this form. It was almost more believable that it was this unidentifiable thing was the being that had reduced Toby to his current state. At least it made him feel better – about himself, about the continued existence of the human race – to believe that, anyway.

By this point the blonde teen was slumped against the floor, too broken to be able to move, too worn out to even be able to scream properly in pain. Only whimpers and whines escaped the boy’s lips as he lay on the floor, his eyes slowly starting to cloud over as he moved closer and closer to the white light that would greet up upon his departure from this world.

The teen’s body convulsed as another set of sharp pains wracked over his body when one of his organs was squeezed into what felt like a vice grip. It felt like it’d explode within him and poison him with rancid flesh.

And then, it was gone.

The  p a i n.

His  s t o m a c h.

All he knew was darkness as his final shaky breath departed past his lips.

People were complex. Everyone different. Some blonde, some brunette, tall, short, fat, skinny, pretty, ugly, healthy, diseased. Some were nice, some mean, some strong, some sensitive. 

That was the beauty. 

Every person Damon selected as a victim was like a brand new toy that he could play with.

Damon was the child that would pull a little girl’s barbie doll apart limb by limb and throw it from an upstairs window or flush it down the toilet just to see how long it would last. He was the child in the playground that kicked sand into other’s eyes just to see how much it would take to make them cry. 

That’s what he did with this boy as he twisted the knife into his gut with a sickening squelch and rapidly dragged the blade up to the base of his rib-cage. 

He opened like a gutted fish as Damon peeled the flesh back. Skin, muscle - they were unnecessary layers in Damon’s aim for his art. This art did not require it aesthetically but they were needed to retain some life in the boy’s body. Just enough life to witness his last dregs of it. 

No. It wasn’t like a a fish - gross and rancid. To Damon, Toby’s body was a cocoon to the beautiful butterfly that resided within. 

It was his job to release that glamorous, sparkling creature of red into the night. That was why he walked the earth in the body that he did.

Damon placed the knife back into his belt and put his hands to the boy’s bloody wound. The blood spread onto his pale hands, dying them red in the moonlight. “I do this because you are troubled and I am sent by Lucifer.” He pushed his hands inside and began carefully rummaging through the skin, flesh and organs while he explained himself over the shrieks of pain. 

“God gives pain and offers false hope because even the most favoured are to fall to the pits of hell. They suffer the flames of purgatory to achieve salvation only to end up burning in hell for eternity. I’m here to acquaint you with those flames,” Damon’s fingers found what he recognised as the smooth exterior of a stomach, “so you may meet them an old friend and see the beauty of eternal damnation. I want you to feel that in your gut.”

With that Damon pushed in his hand a centimeter further and gabbed his stomach, curling his hand around it and squeezing the life out of it. The blood level in the wound raised and bubbled. Damon wore Toby’s paint like it was his uniform in his craft. 

Pain unlike any other he’d felt before erupted from the stab wound in his stomach. He didn’t see how anything could be worse than this. It felt like a thousand hot pokers were being repeatedly jabbed into his abdomen to send burning pains spiralling through his body, a deadly dance that he’d been roped into being a part of.

Already he could feel his breathing get shallower as the blood oozed from the wound and leaked into a puddle onto the floor.

Already Toby was beginning to feel slightly lightheaded as his brain was slowly being deprived of the precious oxygen it needed to be able to continue functioning properly.

In that moment he just wanted it to be  o v e r.

He wanted to be free from the agonising pain pulsing through his body.

He knew there was no hope for him – none at all. Even if he managed to get away from this encounter – as unlikely as that was – he was sure he’d end up succumbing to an infection sooner or later that’d finish him off.

Toby knew that the only escape from this torment would be death and that was something that he was sure he wouldn’t be granted until the demon in front of him decided it was the right time.

Before the blonde teen could even comprehend what was going on even more pain was sent flooding his body and he could feel more blood rushing to escape his fragile body.

He could  f e e l  the puddle below him growing steadily larger as his life essence streamed out and collected.

The teen’s eyes were closed tightly as if that would somehow allow him to forget about the situation – as if that would manage to block out the torture that he was suffering through.

Of course it didn’t work though – his agonised wails which echoed against the few buildings that were still standing would’ve told him as much if he didn’t have to endure the experience. He could feel the steady leak of tears as they paved trails down his cheeks and dripped from the end of his chin in response to the pain.

Though he didn’t want to see – neither the man nor the injuries that he’d been dealt – Toby couldn’t stop his eyes from opening as he glanced down at his chest. He couldn’t stop the vomit that spewed from his lips to the ground as the pain he felt mixed with the visual evidence of what had become of him.

His skin and the little muscle he had had been peeled back to reveal the organs and bones that were meant to be hidden beneath.

It was  w r o n g.

The monster’s response to the blonde’s question went mostly unheard as Toby’s screaming only intensified at the feeling of something rummaging around inside of him. He had a feeling that he knew what it was but he didn’t want to know. He couldn’t look down to either confirm or deny his thought – in part because the sight that’d meet him was one he didn’t want to have to remember in his remaining few moments and in part because he didn’t want to have to see if his suspicions were proven correct.

As the unheard words stopped spilling from his assailant’s lips, the teen felt something inside him mercilessly squeezed and his body began spasming in the pain flowing through his body.

A wry smile etched itself into the stone-like flesh of the devilish man. He was a gargoyle carved from rock, terrifying by sight and foreboding by nature. No - he was a grotesque. No water from the heavens above ran through him because he was not pure enough.

He was corrupt.

Corrupt to the ways of human nature. Corrupt to sanity and the stable mind. Corrupt beyond the recognition of the other man dormant inside him; a sleeping facet to the entirety of the being.

A look of deep satisfaction was carved into the grotesque’s features as the boy fell onto his shattered limb, a shriek of agonising pain telling all the story needed. 

Hearing the cries of emotion from others was the closest that Damon could get to truly experiencing them. They fascinated him. They were obscure and unnatural to him.

“I’m going to reveal you for what you really are - deep down inside,” Damon finally replied with a dry, empty laugh to accompany his words. “People are always so much more complex inside than what is shown on the surface.” Another step forwards so that he stood right beside the boy. “And they always show who they really are in these moments.”

Reaching down Damon roughly grabbed the boy by the front of his shirt so he couldn’t crawl away anymore. Then, crouching down, Damon pushed the blunt of the blade of his rusty old knife to the boy’s cheek. He pushed it to turn his head to face him properly, not drawing blood but letting it be known that he could. Damon stared critically at Toby’s chosen body part.

“You do have nice eyes,” Damon said, a deranged sort of excitement edging his gravelly tones. “I can see why they’d be your favourite. They’ll work nicely. Yes, you were a good choice. Don’t worry, I will be sure to make a spectacle of them in this master piece.” 

Damon mused for a moment longer, idly turning the blade against the teen’s cheek. His eyes were perfect.

Without warning he removed the knife from the cheek and drew it back before plunging it into his gut. There was a satisfying pop as the blade pierced the skin and began to sink into the boy’s bloody flesh. The muscles resisted his metal, but Damon revelled in that. Using his brute force he drove it home, watching the boy with an emotionless expression as he pinned him to death’s door.

Yet another sharp jolt of fear pricked away at the teen’s spine upon hearing the monster’s words. He could feel the throb as the terror mingled with pain and coursed through his veins, burning away at his blood until all he knew was fear and pain. Pain and fear.

The sound of his blood pumping to his ears was the backing track to the horror story playing out in front of him. Unfortunately for Toby, this wasn’t a story he could walk away from and forget about.

This wasn’t a nightmare that he could merely wake up from.

This was a reality that would stick with him forever. This was a reality where the consequences would actually mean something.

“Please- I- I’ll- don’t- please,” Toby begged, wanting everything to stop though he knew that the chances of his words being heeded were slim. In fact, he was almost certain that his words would be completely ignored and, if anything, would probably do nothing but make the man more intent on causing him pain.

Watching as his attacker took yet another step forwards, Toby knew for sure that he’d be granted no escape from this. His thoughts were only clarified when his shirt was roughly grabbed which stopped him from slowly squirming away from the situation and a rusted knife was held against his cheek.

Instantly the teen froze up as an icy hand clenched tightly around his heart and rendered him unable to do anything. If he moved he was certain that the man would move the knife to his neck within seconds and leave him on the floor in a puddle of his own blood.

Upon hearing the monster agree that he had nice eyes, Toby let out a short sigh of relief. He hoped that it’d mean that he’d be let go to continue living – well, either that or at least whatever would happen to him wouldn’t be drawn out.

Oh how wrong he was.

When the knife was removed from his cheek the teen once more foolishly had a moment where he believed he’d be safe and began to let out another sigh of relief. Of course he wouldn’t be safe though. He was an idiot for even considering as much. His sigh of relief caught in his throat as he felt the knife plunged into his gut as his blood rushed to the surface for freedom and garbled noises fell from the teen’s lips. Already the teen could feel his breathing coming in lighter as he tried to suck up the oxygen which was being drained from his body.

“Why- why are you- doing this?”

A symphony to his ears. An elegant piece complementing itself with the pitches in the harmony. It was in intricate act of vocal work expressing deep, excruciating emotion and pain. Wasn’t that exactly what music was? A collaboration of acts to demonstrate the strongest, most exciting part of a human; pain.

P a i n .  A highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by illness or injury, mental suffering or distress. Caused by triggering certain chemical reactions. It was all in the head. The treacherous mind telling itself that you were hurting, that you were going to die. 

It was fascinating to a man you didn’t process pain in the same manner. Pain didn’t make him fear. It made him angry. Pain wasn’t a warning to him. It was a reason.

A sadistic grin was chipped without skill into Damon’s rigid features as he watched the boy’s temple trying to explode to relieve the needles that jabbed his brain. Oh, it was so entertaining. 

The boy was to be Damon’s medium and the Red District was his canvas. He would paint his death into the concrete streets. He would put the RED into the district.

He would turn the teen into a sculpture for Fall City to demonstrate just how far they had fallen. It would be art on their doorstep.

Art was meant to trigger emotion. It was to be shocking, thought provoking. 

And provoke it would.

“Relieving Red Toby. That’s what I’ll call this piece,” he said thoughtfully, dropping his grip on the boy so he’d collapse to the floor. Breaking legs was always a clever and exhilarating move. It stopped the prey from escaping and he got to watch them squirm as they tried anyway. 

Damon reached to the back of his belt and withdrew a knife as casually as if it was a handkerchief. The knife was rusted and caked in dried, flaking blood. It carried a terrifying beauty in the crisp shadow that cast onto the boys pale, quivering face. 

“Tell me, Toby, what body part is your favourite?” The blonde man with eyes as dark as the night walked towards the boy again, towering over him and holding the knife aloft in his calloused grasp. 

Sparks of pain from his shattered knee were sent bolting through the teen’s wiry frame as he was held pinned against the wall, his blood was pumping quicker than he’d ever have expected it to be able to. His heart working overtime to calm the                                                                                                                                                                                                                  sheer  f e a r,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          the overwhelming  p a n i c, that had been swarming his body since the beginning of his encounter with this demon.

He just wanted to be free.

He wanted to be back in his bed, suffering from the nightmares in his unconscious state rather than having to live with his nightmares in person.

He wanted to be back with those who he cared for and who cared for him in return.

As that latter thought crossed his mind Toby briefly considered how maybe this encounter was for the better; maybe it’d let him meet those people sooner rather than later. He was convinced that the majority of them had died so if he did too then he’d join them, right?

It was only the one thought that began worming into his brain before he managed to stop himself. He couldn’t just give up. He couldn’t afford to think like that. He had to try and live for them because they’d died trying to protect him.

At the sound of the monster speaking, using a voice which seemed so wrong to be coming from such lips, Toby found himself fully brought back to the present. The fear that was already flooding his body only seemed to intensify as the words settled in his mind.

“What- What are you- what are you going to- to do to me?” Toby asked, the fear he felt more than obvious in his words. He found himself released from the tight grasp of the man in front of him almost before he could finish speaking, found himself falling to the floor on top of his shattered leg.

Yet another pained scream escaped the teen at that as he took in deep breaths to try and steady himself once again. It was only as the shadow of the beast drew closer to him that he tried to drag himself away. He’d do anything if it’d save him from this.

Cold fingers danced across his spine at the next words which came from the man’s lips, seemingly answering Toby’s previous question. “Uh- I- I don’t- I don’t know,” the teen said as he hoped to stall for some time. Hopefully if he could drag this out for long enough then somebody would come over and find them, somebody would stop this monster from carrying on.

“I- I guess maybe, uh- maybe my- maybe my eyes. People always say that- that they’re nice...”

Beige. 

             Pink. 

                       Red. 

                                Purple. 

                                              Blue.

Damon watched the transition of shades in the boy’s flesh through his emotionless eyes. A pulse thudded in his finger tips that didn’t belong to him. The digits dug into the flesh of the neck like he could rip the throat out with his bare hands if he wanted to. 

The flesh was so tense, with straining muscles, livid tendons and protruding veins as he crushed the space they tried to occupy. It was beautiful how easily the human body collapsed when it took so many years to develop. 

Life was time consuming effort. Death could come in seconds.

Damon released the boy’s throat before he was close to losing consciousness. Where would the fun be in that? This boy was his toy. A thing to be played with. He was a crudely made rag doll that could fall apart in seconds if not treated correctly and everyone wanted their toys to last at least for a little while. 

“I’m going to turn you into art.” Damon pinned the lad across the chest with the hand that had been strangling him and he lifted his foot only to bring it down on his victim’s knee to shatter the cap and knock it out of place.

“Tell me, what is your name?” he asked curiously in a tone out of place for what he was doing along with a casual lift of his shoulders. “Every master piece must have a name.”

S T A R V E D   of oxygen.

                                        D A R K N E S S                                                   crept into the corners of his eyes.

His lungs were burning, his throat screaming at him to inhale clumps of oxygen as if it were the nectar of the gods.

His hands were frantically searching for grip against the man’s muscled arms, wanting nothing more than to be free and feed his feeble attempts for survival.

Toby wanted to kick out at the man, wanted to do anything to escape the vice-like grip around his neck. He wanted to do many things but none of them were possible as the little strength he had in his muscles was rapidly draining as he got ever closer to the oncoming darkness.

Suddenly the grip around his neck was released and the teen was able to breathe again. Suddenly the grip around his neck was gone and the nightmare was over, it was done and would be easily forgotten.

At least that’s what he’d been hoping until he felt a hand against his chest, once again pinning him to the man’s will. He was both the voodoo doll and the victim, waiting for the moment that pins would be stabbed into him and pain would explode from the entry point.

“I- I- don’t- I don’t want to-” Toby started responding to the man before he was cut off as a scream began tearing away at his throat when he felt the impact at his knee as the cap shattered beneath the man’s foot.

        P A I N was the only thing that Toby could feel in that moment.

Unimaginable pain which sprouted its roots and spread up his leg was the only thing that the teen could focus on. He barely heard the request which left the man’s lips over his own gasping breaths.

“To- Toby,” he replied, hoping that the answer would be enough to appease the man so that he’d be released. Deep down he knew that’d never happen.

Deep down he knew that he wouldn’t be seeing another day.

Damon carried darkness on his shoulders and he breathed it like it was lithium.

Lithium compounds are used as a psychiatric medication. A number of salts of lithium are used as mood-stabilising drugs, primarily in the treatment of bipolar disorder. 

Only Damon’s lithium stabilised him, and not Benny. He drew power from the night that exerted his drug, his route into existence. It filled him and clad his muscles with a steroid he could not refuse. 

He darted across the street like the shadows swirled at his feet transported him towards his destination: the nervous boy. He asked no permission and he gave no courtesy. This was his domain, his playground, and the youth was trespassing. 

“From dust you came, and to ashes you will become.” The words repeated on his tongue were reminiscent of a chant said in a sermon to let God know of your presence or a piece of learnt scripture muttered over and over to assure oneself. Here Damon wielded it like a warning or a curse. “It’s your destiny,” he growled through the gravel that lined the tubing of his throat as a reminder of the earth from which he rose. 

In two more rapid strides Damon honed in on the boy and made no hesitation. The palm of one hand made rough contact with the boy’s stomach as he thrust him back into the wall he had leant on while his other hand launched for the base of his neck with a constrictor’s grip.

“No one ever rises from the ashes.”

Darkness weighed down the air as the man closed in on him. The man was like a starved wolf hunting down another meal and, unfortunately for the teen, he was said meal. He was sure that there’d be no way out of this, he was sure that he was going to be seeing his end very shortly and nothing he could do would help.

He would bet anything that no amount of talking would dissuade this man from whatever was going through his head and Toby knew more than anybody else that he wasn’t strong enough to attempt to fight off whatever advances were coming.

The fear that was pulsing through his veins only intensified when the man did nothing but repeat the words that he’d spoken previously.

Toby truly was a fly stuck in the spider’s web.

There would be no escape for him unless the spider chose to free him and somehow Toby doubted that’d happen.

He was little more than a snack. All he could do now was wait until he was torn apart and devoured piece by piece.

Upon being told that something was his destiny, Toby couldn’t help the cold shudder that travelled down his spine and settled in his gut. The teen wanted to be able to run, to be able to hide anywhere and get out of the open but he couldn’t. He was rooted to the spot as if vines had sprouted from the floor and wrapped around his feet and ankles, leaving him completely helpless against this man.

The feeling of the man’s hands impacting him startled Toby from the terror clouding his thoughts and brought him back to a painful reality. As the first palm struck against his stomach Toby let out a harsh wheeze before that was cut short as another hand gripped tightly around his throat and started staving him of oxygen.

Even if he’d wanted to reply to the words the man before him had spoken, the teen would’ve been physically impossible as his throat was slowly crushed and his face reddened due to a lack of oxygen.

How is it that a dream of such nature  could hang here in my heart, suspended here – twirling, turning, blinking – like eyes in the sun? A once shadowy dream – now more real than my own flesh, more real than                             my own  beating heart?          – SEGOVIA AMIL

Oh, how the streets whispered his name in hushes and hisses; a dirty rumour passed in shadows and behind closed doors. It pumped deadly toxins into his heart that only the dead could thrive on. He was death’s master and God’s greatest critique. He was a plague set to break families and friendships. He was the devil’s creation sent to earth in the body of blonde haired Benjamin Butcher to do his bidding, his dastardly deeds.

Slipping from shadow to shadow Damon stalked the unsuspecting, unfortunate youth through the night. 

Satan wanted souls and the devil would deliver.

The boy looked like a wraith in the moonlight. His innocent paleness luminescent in the foreboding darkness that threatened to corrupt him, to crush him. Damon carried that darkness on his shoulders and he breathed it like it was lithium. 

Leaving the walls of the city, Damon entered his play ground and as he stalked his prey he simply waited for the swing to stop - well - swinging. The youth leant against a wall. 

A jovial whistle ripped through the eerie silence of the Red District and the devil made himself known. Light cascaded his unholy body in irony as he stepped from the shadows. The whistle continued to resonate as he moved forward, stride after stride, rapidly closing the distance between them.

The happy little tune drew to a close and was replaced by uncomfortably calm words: “From dust you came, and to ashes you will become.”

The Red District was a place that Toby hated. He’d wanted to avoid it as much as possible, wanted to just remain behind the sturdy walls of the city and have nothing more to do with the infected. He’d had to deal with them since the outbreak; he’d thought that at last he’d be done with them and would be able to have some peace.

How, then, did he end up in said district? Even more so, how did he find himself coming face to face with what could only be described as the epitome of darkness?

It’d started with the teen falling backwards into the wall, his hands grasped tightly within his hair as he tried to rid himself of the lingering nightmares which had plagued him the previous night. He’d thought himself alone from human and infected alike. He’d thought he was relatively  s a f e  there – something bizarre seeing as the Red District was known to those in the city as being a hive of infected activity.

That had all changed at the sound of cheerful whistling breaking through the almost silent air. The sound was so wrong given the state of the world now, it sent beads of fear trickling down Toby’s spine as he lifted his gaze to come face to face with another boy – a young man who couldn’t have been that much older than himself.

Their age was the only thing that was seemingly similar between the duo; where Toby was scared of the world now and felt pathetic in everything he did, this other boy seemed to thrive in the chaos that had become the world.

The calm words which came from the man’s lips once the whistling had stopped did nothing to calm Toby down, if anything they only sent more fear coursing through the teen’s body. “Uh-w- what?”

They ran as wolves chasing the beasts, hunting for their dreams.

God’s unwanted children.

The lad in which he conversed was no wolf and Rory saw this from the first moment he had laid eyes on the timid fellow. There was no self-belief, no freedom in his soul. The boy seemed to be locked inside himself and he didn’t realise that he was the only one with a key.

“Few do, buddy, but that don’t make nought any less,” he replied with a nod. It was like that with many things. Just because someone else doesn’t know what something is or know of its existence doesn’t make it any less.

Oh, he had been asking how to be unapologetic? Rory frowned for a moment as he considered his response. “I think ya gotta find that out on ya own, laddie. Ask yourself why ya sorry and whether there’s a need to be. Like, what good is gonna come from bein’ sorry? Nought. Might as well move on ‘n’ forget 'cause nothin’ gonna change from sayin’ the ruddy five lettered word.”

Upon hearing the teen opposite him begin speaking about parkour once more, Toby nodded slightly. He could actually somewhat understand where the other was coming from.

It was like him and doing drag; few understood why people wanted to delve into drag and even fewer understood the world of drag. Just because it wasn’t understood by the majority of people did that make it any less than other hobbies? No. If anything Toby thought it made it better, it was more unique. Fewer people were involved in it so those that did were a more tight knit group because of that.

Once more the words which came spilling out of the other guy’s mouth only baffled Toby even more. How did someone so seemingly similar in age to him get so wise? How did he manage to acquire such a unique outlook on life? “I- I guess that makes sense. It just- uh, I guess it’s just like- like it’s a habit that I picked up as a kid,” Toby said. He was reluctant to bring up memories of his father’s treatment of him if he could avoid doing so.

“Blaming yourself won’t change anything, it will only make you feel worse. You clearly didn’t want to leave him and you wouldn’t have if circumstances hadn’t forced you to,” Lyra shook her head lightly at his words. They were coated with barely-concealed guilt and self-hatred. It broke Lyra’s heart to see such an innocent and kind-hearted boy struggle so difficultly with his emotions. Personally, she had suffered a lot but she suffered as an adult; fully aware of herself and the unfortunate circumstances and provided with enough strength to cope and push through the complex emotional struggled Toby was going through. Unlike her, though, he was a kid, sixteen or seventeen years old, tops, and he was going through almost as much suffering as she had gone through. No wonder he was so broken. Sympathy caused a sad frown to itch on her face and Lyra bit her bottom lip to keep from saying something overly-encouraging that she would most definitely regret saying, eventually. “Don’t thank me, I was simply being honest. No matter what you did in the past, I’m sure you never deserved all the struggle you went through.” It was a lie; Lyra had no idea what Toby had done in the past or what drive he had had during his life. He could have been a horrible person, for all she knew. A horrible person who was forced by circumstances to end up the way he was. She didn’t know. She simply went with her gut which told her that Toby was as innocent as Isaac and Ivy and all those kids Lyra had decided to look after and protect. It felt illogical to assume that a kid like him had ever been a bad person.

He’d trusted too easily in the past and he knew he  c o u l d n ‘ t  just continue on like that, no matter how much he wanted to believe that things would be different here he didn’t want to get his hopes up just to be disappointed.

Lyra’s words were what pulled the boy from his inner turmoil and drew his attention back to her. As she spoke he nodded slightly in agreement. He understood what she was saying – he knew that what she was saying was true – but that didn’t mean the guilt within him would settle easily, especially not now it’d re-emerged. “I- I know. It’s just- it’s hard. I thought that- that I’d managed to- to, uh, accept it but then- then I got here and I just- I couldn’t help but think if I’d stayed then- then he may have gotten here too,” Toby said, his gaze falling down to focus on the floor. He didn’t want to have to face Lyra while he was going through what he was going through. He didn’t want to have to face the disappointment that he was certain would be in her eyes as he continued blaming himself for the entire situation. As the other woman spoke up once more, Tobias couldn’t stop the small smile from twitching up the corners of his lips. Though she didn’t know him at all, she didn’t know the things he’d gone through or the things he’d almost done, the words helped to comfort him. They helped show him that what the other groups made him suffer through wasn’t normal. The words made him feel like he could actually belong somewhere inside this city. Raising his eyes back up from the floor he fixated his gaze upon the older woman’s and offered her another smile, his gratefulness reflected within his innocent brown eyes.

“Oh, don’t mind me. Just enjoying the view.”

“You know, those/that (list body part) of yours are/is pretty distracting.”

“Hot damn.”

“So, you come here often?”

“Well, well. My night just got better.”

“Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

“You have got a great ass.”

“Hey, I’m open minded.”

“You enjoying the view over there?”

“Keep sweet-talking and this could go a whole new direction.”

“Don’t be bashful. You know you want to.”

“You can have me any way you’d like, baby.”

“You wanna move this conversation someplace more private?”

“I’m off in a few minutes, you know.”

“It’s been a long day. Why don’t we help each other unwind?”

“I think it’s about time we stop avoiding the obvious.”

“I’m gonna be honest with you. I’m really horny, and you’re really hot. Can we fuck? Like, now?”

“I wanna see you get naked.”

“You’re getting me all worked up.”

“What do we have here?”

“I see someone’s happy to see me.”

“Play your cards right, and I just might have to put you on speed dial.”

“You like that, don’t you?”

“How do you want me?”

“I’m sure we can put those lips to better use.”

“God, you’re perfect.”

“I really like a man who’s good with his hands.”

“You. Me. Sex. Now.”

“I’d be more than happy to show you a good time, if you’re looking for one.”

“I saw that. You just checked me out.”

“You look real good in that suit/dress/skirt/outfit.”

“You wanna help me out of this ___?” (Insert article clothing here.)

“Can I keep you?”

“You’re such a tease.”

“Oh my, looks like I/you dropped something.”

“I love it when you talk dirty.”

“I can’t stop thinking about your hands on me.”

“I think you’ll be happy to know that I’m not wearing any underwear.”

“I really want to take you home and get you out of all those clothes.”