Enigma

by RuNyx

The wound is the place where light enters you. —Rumi

Death was a curious thing. Planned or unplanned, mitigated or unmitigated, cruel or comfortable, it was the only universal truth that everyone lied about. Most adults she’d encountered spent their lives not thinking about it, trying to outrun it yet heading straight to it. She didn’t know if they realized what she had at such a young age—death was inevitable. It chased everyone from the moment of the first drawn breath and caught them at their last.

“That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence.” —Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. —H. P. Lovecraft, “Supernatural Horror in Literature”

She had looked like a goddess, a mystical creature hovering over the dead, come to life from the sea behind her. And in that one instant, she had become his muse.

Salem had given up speaking for years and no one in her own flesh and blood family had noticed. And yet she had gone off her regular routine for a few days, and this man, the one who confused the hell out of her, the one who wasn’t a friend, wasn’t a foe, wasn’t anything but something, the one who inspired so many ugly, not so ugly, feelings in her … he noticed. He noticed her breaking her pattern. He noticed her being off. He noticed her looking tired. She hadn’t said a word to anyone about the things weighing her down, and yet, somehow, he had noticed it.

“I don’t know what happened but think about it before he goes on a rampage threatening everyone and burning the place down just because you’re ignoring him. He’s deranged enough to actually do it. That hunky chonk of a man doesn’t take being ignored by you well.”

I want a hunky chonk that goes rampaging for me!🤭

When does a war end? When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind? —Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

“Try it. Try walking off a cliff, I will block you. Try making yourself bait, I will catch you. And try being with another man, I will use his blood and make you the canvas.”

So savage 😍

“I might not have a say in what you do,” he declared, his eyes fierce on her face. “But I damn well will have my hands in it. Understand that.”

“You’re insane,” she wheezed out when she could manage, still chuckling. “Totally insane.” “Over you?” he mused, relaxed like a king in her bed. “Yes.”

“You could bring gods to their knees, you know that?” he murmured softly, his hands tightening on her hips, before drifting to the corners of her eyes, tracing them like he did. “Just one glance from these eyes would have driven men to murder in old times. Still might.” Salem tilted her head to the side. “Would it drive you to murder?” He pulled her closer. “Oh, little asp. It would drive me beyond.” “What is beyond murder?” “Damnation.”

🥹🫠

She had been hurt by life, rejected by the world, abandoned by the ones she’d loved, and so she’d built a shell around her so hard it looked impenetrable, making anyone who looked her way think there was nothing worth knowing there, that the wall was all there was. But it wasn’t.

I felt this…

She was off-limits again. She was his. And coming for her would make them all understand why they’d called him Death in prison.

🤭🤭

“I’m too heavy,” she whispered, not wanting to break the silence but aware that her whole weight was on him. She didn’t want him to die, not yet. “You’re perfect,” he murmured into her hair in an equally low voice.

“You’ll sleep in a bed every night till you die, no matter what happens between us. I promise.”

“And you’ll be in that bed with me every night till I die. I promise.”

The mind is its own place, and in it self Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

People can take our lives, our homes, our reputations, but they cannot take our names. No matter what tragedies we face, what we lose, this name stays with us.”

“Because life with you feels greater than death. Because you make the artist in me burn with the need to create, make the man in me burn with the need to possess, make the killer in me burn with the need to protect. You make me want to live, Salem. You give me a modicum of peace in a world of chaos. Is that reason enough?”

He pulled his hand back, landing a punch right on the man’s nose, a spray of blood gushing out on impact. The guy screamed as people gasped. Then Caz took out the pencil that was always on him, and put it right on the guy’s jugular. “Come within ten feet of her and I will put you in the ground. Got that?”

🫣

“You.” He thrust inside her. “Will always be mine. No matter what secrets you keep, no matter what secrets I keep. There won’t ever be another for you or for me.”

Everyone knew it was her on the canvas, on the two paintings he had displayed and was keeping for himself, letting the world know that she was his, immortalizing it for the times to come, even long after they would be gone. The thought made her eyes burn. Even after they would be gone, future generations would look at his art and know she had been his muse, that she was his lover, that she was his.

Salem had always thought nothing could beat death, that nothing could be immortal. She’d been wrong. Love, deep, true love, was immortal.

Why should you love him whom the world hates so? Because he loves me more than all the world. —Christopher Marlowe, Edward II

“Because I saw you smiling at another boy and didn’t think going to prison again was too bad.” “You’re crazy.” She shook her head. “About you? Incredibly.”

“Just so there’s no confusion, you want us to…?” “Marry,” he stated simply. “Not right now, but someday. But I want my ring on your finger and yours on mine. I want the world to know about it and I want you to know you always, always belong. To me.”

I do Caz!! 🤭😆🥹

a dark goddess shining so bright she could blind a mortal man, and she did. She had no idea how many men he had glared at just for daring to look at her too long, how many threats he had given over the years, and how many lives he had almost ruined for coveting her. They could look and want and covet all they liked, but she looked at him, wanted him, coveted him, and that soothed the ugly beast in him some.

I want to go into it with you knowing you’re getting the best me I could be. You … you’re okay to wait, right?” Caz had pressed a soft kiss to her upturned lips, easing the line between her brows. “I’d wait forever if you wanted me to.”

One of the things he found so attractive about her was her brain, the keen intelligence with which she examined the world, the singular focus of her mind when she was analyzing something. Her thought patterns were so vastly different from his, more logical, more rational than his creative, emotional ways, it never got old trying to imagine what was going on in her head.