“Do you believe yourself yet…?” It was years before he heard that soft voice again.

 

Yoongi would have assumed he was imagining it but he didn’t think his imagination would be so annoying as to repeat the question for a whole twenty minutes until he finally gave in and answered, “What are you talking about?”

 

“She’s killing you.”

 

“If her only joy is my suffering what sort of son would I be to take it away?”

 

“How boring.”

 

“You remind me of a boy I used to know.”

 

“Do I?”

 

“You sound like him…  Come into the light.”

 

There was a shuffling next to his bed and Yoongi wondered how the other person had gotten so close without him hearing.  A weight pressed into the bed and then a face emerged from the skin colored blur, two brown eyes, full lips, and round cheeks.

 

“What do you think, do I look like him too?”

 

“I don’t know what he looked like. It doesn’t matter much though… He has been dead for a long time.”

 

“How do you know?”

 

“Because it was my fault.  I told my mother of him.”

 

“Would you like to see her for what she really is?”

 

“What do I have to do?  I don’t have much strength… I can barely walk.”

 

“You only have to die.”

 

“I’m doing that already, she remains just as much of a mystery.”

 

“Faster.  Quickly.”

 

“Alright.”

 

-

 

Over the years the number of people he saw had dwindled down to only his mother. When he noticed the change he had started making up lies about people coming to visit him, and the lack of concern from his mother had told him everything he needed to know. There was no one left in their home to visit him.

 

“A boy came to see me today.”

 

“What did you talk about, Sweetling?”

 

“He told me I need to die.”

 

“We all die someday, but I hope you live a long and happy life.”

 

“What will happen to me when you die, Momma?”

 

“I pray we are taken together, Sweetling, so neither of us should suffer without the other.”

 

“Do you believe in heaven or hell, Momma?”

 

“No,” she answered simply, sitting beside him on the bed, “Take your medicine.”

 

Yoongi swallowed down the acidic mixture and closed his eyes to speak through the nausea, “He reminded me of the boy who disappeared, the cook’s son. He got so close I could see his face.”

 

“That must have been scary.”

 

“No, because he wasn't real. That boy is dead.”

 

“Yes, he is.”

 

-

 

“She seems more at peace now,” the boy’s voice came from the darkness beside him, but he was certain he would throw up if he looked.

 

“You smell like she does,” Yoongi whispered.

 

“Blood,” the boy answered softly.

 

“My very own monster.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Have you come because I killed you?”

 

“At first, that was part of it.”

 

“But now?”

 

“I want to help you again.”

 

“You weren't much help then.”

 

“But now I’m a monster too.”

 

“What happened to that boy? Did he die quickly?”

 

“He is dying slowly, every day, like you.”

 

“Still? We are very similar then.”

 

“In some ways.”

 

“Will I smell like blood too?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I will be a monster then too.”

 

“Yes.”

 

-

 

“Momma, what’s it like to have power?”

 

“Power is very good,” she answered, “Power inspires others to listen.”

 

“People listen to you.”

 

“They used to, yes.”

 

“Where did everyone go?”

 

“They’ve all moved on without us.”

 

“Will they be happy to see us when we go too?”

 

“They seek for someone to tell them what to do.”

 

“They’re lost?”

 

“Yes, but we will find them.”

 

-

 

“Are you ready?  She senses the change in you…”

 

“Oh, have you been waiting on me?” Yoongi asked, rolling over to face towards the voice, “I thought you understood I’ve been ready to die since you met me years ago.”

 

“That wasn’t me.”

 

“You remind me of that boy though.”

 

“I’m wearing his skin.”

 

“Did he give it to you?”

 

“I ate him from the inside out.”

 

“Is that what you’ll do to me?”

 

“I’ll eat my way in first, but then, yes.”

 

“Will you let him go after that and be the monster in my skin? Or will I be a new monster?”

 

“We will both be monsters.”

 

“Will you leave me? I’ve never been alone.”

 

“On the contrary, I think you’ve only ever been alone.”

 

“Please let me join you then.”

 

“Yes.”

 

-

 

Yoongi thought he was a connoisseur of pain, but the fire that had exploded in his neck was unlike anything he had ever experienced. He tried to scream but there was nothing left, no air to push out, no throat to make sound, only pain.

 

The next time he surfaced from the pain he could hear his mother’s voice asking for him. Calmly at first. Then curiously. At last worry started to creep in. Then panic.

 

He tried to reach out, do something to let her know he could hear her, that he was there, but fingers slipped between his own. His hand was pulled back close and he sunk into the pain once more.