Falls

I flinch, I cannot help it. The snap of his teeth is so visceral it makes the invisible bugs on my skin skitter even faster. Tears gather on my lower lashes but I refused to let them fall. I would not cry in my final moments, not now, not ever.

Even so, I feel almost as if I am outside my own body whilst also being locked into it. I fear that even if I do make it out of this alive, I will never stop reliving this moment. Will never stop seeing the deadpan malice in his eyes. I do not know if something has happened to him lately, or if this monster has always been under the surface, but I fear I may never stop seeing it again.

And I wish that scared me more than it did.

I was terrified, to be certain, but I was terrified of death, not of him. I was angry at him for being the vehicle, but not angry at him for the darkness he carried. I do not know his past, and may not even see his future, but I trusted that he had the ability to choose, no matter how often he complained to me that he was a mere pawn.

You do not want adventure, he murmurs and I blink, confused. Of course I did, didn't I? I kept trying to leave not because I hated the Lagoon (which I did, but for reasons even I couldn't explain), but because I wanted something else. I wanted someone to see me. To hold me and love me and appreciate what I was. Not to stuff me back into a hole over and over again simply because he didn't want someone else to touch me.

His next words, however, stall whatever line of thought I'd been previously following. You do not choose me.

My gaze, which had gone slightly unfocused as I thought, refocused on his face, confusion wrinkling my brow. "Do not turn this on me," I snap, accentuating this line with a flick of my tail. "You chase me back home and then won't even look at me. Won't talk to me. Won't spend time with me. But I'm the bad guy?"

The self-preservation that had kept me suspended in a state of terror, that had inspired me to speak up, now retreated as the sense of indignation and anger rose in its wake. "How dare you." Fury winds its way through my veins and I step forward, still trembling, and glare at him. I am not prone to violence, I will not mark his hide, but I have never in my life wanted to do such a thing more. "How fucking dare you, Garmr."