Max is something different at night. Something different than his usual. Something more beautiful, something more risky, something more lovely. It’s easier to be himself in the dark. It’s easier, overall, to be… to be Max. He doesn’t believe in fate, after all. He doesn’t believe in that which he can’t see. He doesn’t believe. It’s the way he’s always been and it’s the way he will continue to be. Time drags on, and he continues to cut through the darkness of night. There was a moon out, but the clouds hung heavily in the air. It would rain later.
Pressurized properly, the creature would have been faster. Tonight, the air feels funny in his lungs. It’s nearly and electric feeling, and he loves it. He’s infatuated with it, nearly as much as he is with himself. The creature can’t really wrap his head around that, but he’d try. He’d always try. That was a lie, of course, for trying was so hard and so time consuming and so outright frustrating. Tonight was something else. Something different. He loves that difference, and he loves the fact that he can come and wrap his hands around the situation at his feet. How neat is that?
There’s a yip somewhere, and Max can tell it’s young. Someone else is out here-- and then the growl. Two someones. They come into view, and the dark creature barks once. It’s a short sound, and he doesn’t like the growl that comes to cut him off. A child and a man, a man bigger than Max. Too stupid to be scared. Max is never scared. It’s not his job. It’s not what he does.
“He’s but a mal'chik, he’s but a boy.” Max’s words are silver in the darkness, and his head cocks to the side briefly. One careful step forward, and then another, before he stops. How badly could this go, after all? How strange the evening could be? There was something else hanging in the balance, something else that Max probably wouldn’t believe in even if he knew.
That was for him to find out later. halo
and i will die all alone |