chapterthree

Sangria

***

He was a disjointed marionette, a souless puppet hanging by a thread.

His glass yeyes stared blankly at the swirling sacrlet mist, as red as the crimson blood that gave life- the blood that would never course through his wiry veins. Suho's mind wondered to the eeire recesses of Reminiscene, that mysterious haunt of crystal tears that flowed like blood.

His wooden frame quivered, the scarlet thread swayed. A mannequin in the land of dreams, between Slumber and Consciousness.

A dark, bottomless abyss lay below, challenging one to explore its fearful depths. Suho swayed precariously as the blood-red cord frayed. Drops of carmelian liquid dotted his face, which was contorted in a grotesque expression of extreme agony.

Lithe dancers of Remembrance unfurled the vermillion tapestry of painful Memory before his eyes. A thousand images of her embroidered iin the tapestry with threads of tarnished gold. She was carved into his heart of glass, etched into his mind.

"I love you."

Suho whispered, his voice reverberating through the deep void of crimson and ebony.

"In the land between Slumber and Consciousness, I am foolishly waiting..." He uttered hoarsely, overcame with the burning passion of affection.

"Impossible." She had cried, on that gruesome day. The horizon was tinged with the omnimous hue of cold, chilling indigo. The sky's fresh tears dripped like blood into the melancholy oceans so far below. 

"Because you are inanimate, a marionette, a mere mannequin!" SoonRi inched inched ever closer to Suho, her fiery coals of eyes blazing, juxtaposing with the inhumanly calm night. In her frenzy she struck him across his carved face. "Can you feel? Can you think?" She dug her nails into her quivering palm. Carmelian blood poured out in snaking rivulets from her thin veins.

"Do you have this?!" SoonRi exclaimed, unfurling her clenched fists to reveal dark red blood in sharp contrast to her delicate, milky hand. Suho stared at her vacantly with his black orbs of eyes. "I...love you!" He had said, meaning it with every fibre of his being, though he was but a mere doll.

His glass heart beat and his soul awakened. He truly felt. Ravaged by the wounds she had scorched into his soul, Suho grabbed her flower-like body swiftly. Their lips melded together for a crazed, distorted moment of angst and passion.

***

She had ran, had disappeared into the all-consuming night in the Land of Dreams.Suho's fragile heart of glass had shattered, the infinite gleaming of shards scattering into the indigo sky. Stars--mocking memories sparkling with sharp, cruel loveliness and blood-like tears.

The trance had ended, the dream was past.

Slowly, slowly, the slim scarlet thread frayed. He stared at the abyss. The crimson mist swirled ever swifter. He gasped, fighting valiantly for every breath. Finally, finally, the thin cord snapped and the marionette plunged into the unexplored depths of pure darkness.

"Be human." Suho gasped. The tapestry of life, was cut from the look of Dreams, a magnificent masterpiece of pain, loss, so cruel in its icy beauty. The eerie whispers of Fate taunted, taunted, triumphant.

But on the frayed thread hanging in mid-air, a drop of scarlet blood appeared, so vibrant was its hue.

"I feel, therefore, I am."

The dream was past, the nightmare over.

***