#sebina

   When our eyes first met across the room…I knew there was something there. 

   Something magnetic. Something dangerous. Something beautiful.

   Something familiar.

   We’d never met. But the moment I saw you, I knew we’ve known each other our whole lives. It was like looking in a mirror, distorted and broken. And in its reflection were my old friends. Pain, sorrow, and anger. They have followed me again. Yet how strange to see them in eyes that are not my own?

   I found myself distracted the rest of the ceremony. My mind was already a raucous cacophony from all the events that had transpired leading up to this point. But within the dissonant chorus joined a new note. His note. I could hear it buzz in my head every time I glanced at him.

   I checked again.

   …He was gone. 

   Sebastian Sallow was an enigma to be sure. Charming and charismatic on the surface….but I knew the truth. It was there, plain as day; whenever he laughed, whenever he joked; whenever he so much as glanced my way. Even when he looked his way, it was still there. 

   It delayed every sound, slowed every step, weighed him down like the chains I myself found so familiar. 

   And it was….intoxicating. 

   Though I couldn’t quite explain why. Perhaps it was because of the reason he’d given: a “kindred spirit”, he’d called me… though friendly banter on the surface, I could always discern his underlying meaning. 

   Perhaps it was because he wasn’t like me. Because even though he carried the pain that I did, he also possessed a strength I find I did not have.  A sort of certainty. A sort of drive. A sort of….Self. 

   But my Self was gone. I’d lost it when….

   No. 

   Don’t think about it. 

   It’s time for class.

   Pain. 

   It wasn’t something I was unfamiliar with. It had been with me for as long as I can remember. It whispered in my mind, and crawled into my very being; scratching and gnawing and clawing away until there was nothing left.

   I found myself no more than a wraith, aimlessly floating through timeless days that blended together. 

   Pain was there. It was always there. Full, numb, and aching; a pain I could no longer feel.

   Until him.

   Oh, how he made me feel.

    How his words alone seemed to sear into my thoughts, etching permanent memories there. How the simplest touch could crack through the porcelain of my shell and leave me bare. How a single look could so effortlessly unwind every doubt and every fear that clouded my vision. 

   He was like a star…scalding, unmerciful, and blinding in its intensity. So much bigger than I….so much stronger than I…..so much more than I…

   …and so far away. 

   For when he was absent, it was as though the sun had died out and left me in darkness.

   And the cold, quiet despair would creep up on me again, blinding me from the world; blinding me from myself.  

   And in that blindness….it all came back. 

- - -

   Forget. Forget. Forget. 

   He is getting worse. So am I. I find I don’t mind. Why should I? 

   I finally feel alive.

   For the first time in years…it was gone. It was always gone when I was with him. He makes everything clearer, everything sharper. 

   I found my own body responding to what my mind willed. I found each slice of my wand delivered the spell I’d intended. I watched as the eight-legged creatures would shriek and writhe under the flames.

   My flames. My fire.

   My power.

   Mine. And he was mine too, wasn’t he? 

   How he would always stay up reading with me, traversing texts forbidden to us. 

   How he would sit with me out in the night, watching the cloudy skies and searching for stars that weren’t there. 

   How when he called me by name, I could feel my heart beat against my ribcage, proof of me being alive. 

   And how alive he made me feel. More so than I’d felt even Before. 

   He is mine. And I am his. 

   I won’t let him go.

   He is dead. 

   ….thats fine.

   ….I never liked him anyway.

   ….hide it. Bury it. I know how to do that. 

    …..I will not betray him….Sebastian…..