Into the Dark

by Dana Isaly

This little thing that very much resembles a drowned rat is the first person to catch my eye.

And they say romance is dead <3

I was born with the most mundane brown hair and brown eyes. I’m average height—not too tall, not too short. I’m not overly muscular or a twig. I am insignificant in every way possible.

“Whiskey neat,” I say in the blandest of bland American accents I have perfected over the years. It took a while to get the Southern lilt off my tongue, but it was eventually erased.

She is mine. Ours, my demon reminds me.

She smells like flowers. I like it. It reminds me of funerals.

She’s bold, my Little Rat.

Stop calling her a rat bruhhh

I never go for men. Ever. I don’t like them. I don’t like our breed. We are dirty and foul-minded. Our bodies are made of muscle, where women’s bodies are soft and supple. There’s less resistance when my blade slices through their skin. I can’t imagine how hard and unsatisfying it would be to try and cut into the muscle of a man.

I struggle to understand human attraction. I can mimic it. I know what it looks like on someone. But I’ve never known what it feels like or what people look for. Everyone seems to have a different type, and that confuses me. What makes one person attractive to someone but not someone else?

“Because if you’re going to love me, I need you to love me with every single fiber of your being,” My head swivels and looks back on her. “I want someone’s full and unyielding attention. I want someone to look at me and only me. That way I know that person will never leave me.” “That’s not love, Lyra. That’s an obsession. Love is forgiving and always evolving. There’s room to grow and change where there’s love. But with obsession, it can only go one way. Obsession will consume you in a way that you can’t come back from.” “Then I want obsession.”

This is another thing I’ve never understood: getting lost in someone else’s words. It seems like such a waste of time. It would just make my own life seem more miserable. I don’t need a reminder that I’m fucked in the head either. I’m always the villain. And rightly so. But I still don’t want to see that written out on paper, plain as day.

Today, in her flat knee-high boots, she is stupidly short. How does anyone function at such a short height? “You’re extremely short.”

“Elijah,” I say back to him, and he smiles so big I realize he has dimples. My heart does a soft little kick.

The only way I know to blow off steam the way I need to is to drive this fucker like I have a death wish. Because if I go home right now, feeling how I’m feeling, I won’t have a present for Lyra. He’ll be on the receiving end of all of this energy. And I want him to be on the receiving end of her energy.

True love <3

“I just need to find someone that will obsess over me the way I obsess over them.”

I really did want to try my hardest to keep him alive for my Little Rat.