[ Back dated to the end of January ]
Three weeks. It had been three weeks since the carnival, and his bloodlust had not ended. Three weeks where he spent hours and hours in the Rift, bloodying his knuckles and shattering stone. Three weeks he had spent getting drunk off his a** and praying he would wake up and be free of it.
Yet even in his dreams, Jarosite was assaulted by the desire to kill and destroy.
It was always the same encounter, but the scenery changed each time. In the beginning there was nothing but an open space. Slowly things would phase in. Sometimes stones, sometimes trees. Sometimes petrified people. He would walk among them in a direction, never the same direction, for an endless stretch of time before finding himself in the halls of the castle in the Rift. Eerily quiet, his foots steps did not echo on the hard stone floor, the creatures within the walls mute and unmoving. He came upon a hooded figure as the halls spilled out into the large room used for meetings. Before it lay a person, though he could not determine if it was senshi, knight, or human. The hooded figure reached into the person's chest and pulled out their starseed.
It looked up without moving the hood and offered the starseed to him. Several minutes would pass silently, and the figure would then consume it them-self and he would wake up groggy. Yet something was different this time. The figure stood, cloak pooling on the ground over its feet, hands still out stretched with the pulsing object.
Jarosite did not eat them. He'd pulled one, once, and never touched the idea again. It was too easy, too quick of a way to kill. He wanted people to pay and feel his anger, not simply feel a hand in their chest and a crunch. He refused the star seed, even as the figure all but shoved it into his mouth. He'd heard what they were doing in that carnival, what they were trying to do with starseeds and those senshi. What they had done. He valued his humanity just enough to not do it.
Yet the figure persisted.
"I'm not doing it," he said firmly, pushing the figure away. He may have stopped referring to himself as Merric, but he still had morals. If he ate a starseed or even pulled one of some random individual, what was to say he wouldn't do it to his own family? It was the one piece of him he held on to, clinging to whatever was left of his humanity.
One could argue he didn't have much of it left.
"You want to... you hunger for it... you know you do," it taunted him, voice echoing in the emptiness. It came from everywhere, and yet nowhere at the same time. The hooded figure pushed the starseed towards Jarosite's mouth, and he almost caught the too wide flash of teeth in the glow of the object.
"I... do not," he said, conviction wavering ever so lightly. There was a certain allure to it, a curiosity gone unsaited. A tiny desire to know what eating a starseed entailed crept up the back of his mind like a spider. It nested there, creating a web in the darkest recess of Jarosite's mind, the places he dared not tread. Perhaps one taste, here in the dreamworld was alright...
He'd started to reach for it before he realized it. The Captain ground his teeth, jaw setting in a frustrated manor. "No, no I am not doing it. I will never do it." He glared at the hooded figure, who's wide grin grew impossibly wider under the hood. The figure rolled a shoulder in a shrug, pulling their arm back.
"Suit yourself." They brought the starseed to their own mouth, paused, and then pushed back the hood on their head. Blue hair ruffled free, deep blue pirate collar and headphones illuminated by the glow of the starseed. Devious grey eyes stared back at him, face split into a grin.
Jarosite's eyes snapped wide in shock. He watched himself - rather, a darker portion of himself - chomp down on the starseed. Pleasure rolled over his doppleganger's face, and he felt a pang of hunger shoot through his body at the sight.
"Ah... you do want it. They always want it, in the end. I do wonder though... how you'll taste... His other broke into a grin that morphed into something far more feral and sinister. He shoved a hand into Jarosite's chest and ripped the starseed from him. He licked his lips and sucked on the object, before setting it between his teeth and chomping down.
His eyes snapped open to stare at his ceiling. Yet he couldn't move, could hardly breath, and couldn't feel his limbs. A cheshire grin floated through the air above him, one disembodied hand extended for his chest. Jarosite screamed silently and slammed his eyes shut.
Terror flooded Jarosite and he shot upright in bed. Sweat dripped off of his body, plastering his shirt to his skin and his hair to his head. Each time he blinked, he saw that grin again, and panic boiled in his chest. The captain scrambled out of bed and into the kitchen, uncertain if he was actually awake. He opened countless drawers before simply grabbing a paring knife from the knife block. Shaking, he dragged the blade across his palm with more force than necessary. White hot pain shot through his hand and arm, and he gasped as blood coated his hand.
It took a long while for him to calm down. The knife was returned to the block after he coated the gash with iodine, wound closures, two layers of gauze, and enough tape to make it hard for him to close his fist. Jarosite made himself coffee and watched whatever mind-numbing show was on at five in the morning.
In the back of his mind, that deep dark corner he didn't touch, an ever dull ache of hunger pulsed. A hunger that was insatiable by the only thing he swore to never touch:
A starseed.
[ WC : 1018 ]
