#keeva04

They said violence was like something snapping inside you. It had never been like that for Kirian. It was a peaceful, all-consuming, like drowning and finally taking a breath underwater, letting it fill your lungs.

It was tranquil. All thoughts went silent, no sound but the pounding of his heartbeat.

No connection to this world at all, save for his fist cracking open skin. Save for the blood seeping through his knuckles, the man he’d pinned to the ground begging for mercy.

But Kirian had no more mercy left. He’d already been hollowed out. He had only had hatred, coursing through his veins like fire. No. Like power. Like magic.

Sadness made you cold, but hatred? Hatred cradled you.

And how he hated. How he hated the world for taking and taking. How he hated the rebellion for hurting Josefin, for hurting Avi. How he hated them for taking the little love Kirian had ever known and poisoning it. How he hated them for taking his home, for those two years on the run, like an animal.

You beat an animal long enough, it’s going to bite your fucking hand off.

He knew more than he heard it that people were screaming, voices blurred in the background. But they felt it too -- that he couldn’t be stopped. That he wouldn’t be stopped. That there was only one end to this, and it was when he’d left nothing but a bloody smear on the ground.

But then someone broke the spell. Someone ripped him away, even as he struggled to get back to the twitching man on the ground, the grass red with blood. But the hands around his waist were iron bars. He made a sound almost like a growl, too raw to be called anything human, venom dripping from his lips, kicking and struggling to be freed.