Taste the Blood
The house district was close to so many forbidden zones, like the people who lived in it, the many houses and apartment complexes were forgotten by the city, which ought to give them housing and take care of its citizens.
Forbidden and Forgotten.
Much like what they had to her.
A forbidden topic, better left forgotten.
Just like the houses of those people who were labeled out of bounds and forced to live in poverty.
A lingering taste of foul and rotten bitterness caressed his tongue, like a lover’s lumbering touch.
Even that taste was but an afterthought, something that only existed in the back of his mind.
A smile soldered on his lips, messy and sloppy, a glimmer in his eyes like the afterglow of a burnt-up cigarette. The face of a devil masquerading as an angel.
A devil so broken and fragmented he had become a stained glass fractal.
Although his smile’s falsehood could fool others into thinking he was happy, he was approachable; his body language denounced his true intentions.
Rigid shoulders like a soldier ready to face his life’s battlefield.
Spasming hands, like a bear ready to go out into mindless violence.
A madman’s lurid hot breath out of his mouth on his self-righteous one-man crusade.
A pillar crumbling under the increasing weight of violence and sin.
A violin’s cord pushed to its limits, ready to snap at a moment’s notice.
Buildings faded into gray, and their shape mixed into each other, blending, melting, into one horrid mosaic in his mind.
A gray, nauseating mosaic that threatened to drive his mind crazy.
The nausea made his mind spin and spin, the world revolving around him as he walked by.
His cage spinning, as the beast within gnawed against the metal bars, grinding and chipping its teeth against rusted metal, its tongue rotting, falling out of his mouth, but no maggot dared to crawl as blood gushed out between its teeth and gums.
Muscles shredding and tearing for action, bones pulsating with pressure building inside his marrow.
A maddening screech into the depths of his soul, as the beast urged for the hunt to begin.
And to begin, it would.
He stopped right before a building.
Its form melting away, but the door was clear, like an invitation to the 5th circle of Hell, the foul smell of Stynx’ marshes right behind that door.
His hand grabbed the door’s knob. Its nails dug into metal, allowing the flesh underneath to touch the metal, a small dulled shock through his pain receptors, but that could no longer reach his brain.
The door refused to open.
He tried to open it harder, but it was for naught. It was locked.
He gritted his teeth so hard he felt the impact echo in his jaw.
He wasted no time. He retreated two steps and raised his leg.
His feet landed on the door, right above the knob.
Its locking mechanism went flying as the door was busted open.
His fingers twitched; they opened and closed without rhythm or meaning.
One hand held on the wall, like a predator invading a prey’s burrow.
He could not see the scenery, like it were all but a blurry photograph, but the people were highlighted in red in his view.
Before him, a table with men who played cards, but were interrupted by his actions.
They looked at him with surprise, and some with vengeance in their eyes. They wondered who that punk was who busted open the door. He smiled like the Beast.
A twisted smile of hatred and spite, with so much hate for the living, it dripped like poison out of his lips.
The Beast reached into his pocket and retrieved something.
His fingers were honeyed in blood in his messy pocket, like a well-oiled mechanism. The stickiness of the blood like webbing between his fingers as he retrieved the object.
An implanted tooth.
Ripped straight from the jaw.
“Your friend, Kenny, told me all about you. I brought it as a present for you. May we become good friends, like Kenny and I.”
He threw the bloodied teeth on the table, disorganizing some cards and making the stacks messy. The men stared at him and gnarled.
Before they could react, the Beast was before them. He sank his claws onto a man’s head and pushed him against the table. His mouth hit the table, its round edge against his teeth and mouth.
Teeth were shattered and splintered into the roof of his mouth,
The man cried and struggled against his touch, but the beast cared not. He grabbed the man by his head and used it as a bludgeoning weapon against the one nearest to him. He smashed their heads together, as his prey struggled against his touch, refusing to be used as a weapon.
But that choice was not up to him.
It was HIS choice.
He bashed their heads harder as the man struggled, crying in pain, angrier by his attempts at breaking free and struggling.
They continued to bash and bash, until their faces were just one head mess, and the prey stopped struggling…
But to make sure, he continued to bash their heads.
The other man was in a stupor, seeing such violence, but quickly recovered.
They picked up their chairs and attacked the Beast.
They broke the chairs against his back, against his face, and continued hitting in a vain attempt to make him stop.
Blood ran down his face, his clothes got tattered, but he didn’t stop hitting their heads, like he was trying to make a fire with two rocks.
As the chairs broke, the man tried to punch him, to kick him, to asphyxiate him.
The Beast cares not.
The Beast’s body got bruised, but it was of no concern to him.
He felt nothing.
Just as he felt someone on his neck, he finally noticed there were more attackers.
He didn’t know how many they were.
In truth, he cared not about their quantity.
The Beast would hunt, it would hurt, until there was no one left to hurt.
He dropped his weapon, letting the unconscious and messed-up man fall on the ground.
He saw a fist flying towards his face and answered in kind.
His own fist flew like a bullet and hit someone’s face. His assailant’s lip was burst open, it nearly flew out of his mouth, cheeks swollen and purpling with blood underneath the skin.
His hand went to the head of the one on his back, trying to choke him.
Nails dug into skin and scalp, and pulled forward, ripping out hair and scalp as it went, the man screamed and loosened his grip, a fatal mistake.
The Beast held onto his head and pulled him out, and smashed his back against the table, breaking its legs and collapsing the poor object.
A scream echoed out of that man’s mouth, and he quickly lost consciousness.
The Beast smiled as blood ran down his face, tainting his teeth and lips.
A smile of pure and unbridled happiness and enjoyment.
His victims quickly understood that it was not a fight they could win.
The first to run was the one who took the most damage.
The Beast clasped his hands together like in a prayer and smashed them against the runner’s back. A loud crack echoed as the runner stopped in his tracks.
The Beast quickly kicked him on the left knee and bent it in a direction it shouldn’t have been.
The Beast’s head started to lighten up, as if drunk.
His body enters autopilot, his mind losing interest.
Dissociation.
In the end, even if he didn’t remember a thing, he knew those people would give him information about that Lady Killer, a handsome Lady Killer who broke girls’ hearts and dumped them right after.
His target.
Itsuki would not relent.
He will taste the blood.
That person’s blood.
The thought was exhilarating.
Soon, his prey saw the man go from a Beast to a demon, as the light of humanity dimmed and fizzled out.