Kit - Part 5
Kaotiks rocked forward, his hands touching inches away from where she stood, his voice dropping to a whisper as he continued, no lies in his voice as he spoke. “You remember what it felt like when they cast you aside? Do you remember the nights of pain, of the degradation that you were forced to suffer? Tell me that you wouldn’t like to empower others to make those instances a memory of the far distant past. There will be nothing that you can’t do once you submit to my will and allow me to teach you the powers at my disposal. They would be as chaff before the wind. Tell me that would not please you in some corner of your soul?”Kit stares at the floor biting her lip as she considers his words. While there was no denying that there had been times in her past when she would have loved to destroy those who had wounded her so deeply, she considered these to be moments of weakness that needed to be suppressed. Although she had done bad things in the past, her actions had never been dictated by a malicious desire to hurt someone. She considered that morally reprehensible, a belief tethered by the concept that if she would be kind and caring to others they someday might reciprocate the same to her. Kit clung to the one thing that had sustained her through those awful times, hope. Hope of love returned, hope of forgiveness and hope of a life without betrayal or pain. She shook her head slowly.
“That’s just… wrong” she said quietly “I know what that kind of hatred brings and I could never be a part of it.”
“Wrong?” His voice raised a notch above hers, the whisper quality still in it. “Wrong is casting your daughter out of your house because she has a gift that you are too incompetent to remotely understand.” He sighs deeply and shakes his head, the heat raising as his anger does.
“Foolish are the men who believe that everything will be alright with enough time, enough faith, enough prayer and enough courage.” He stands and the walls begin to crack and burn from the heat and the intense rage that now burns from him.
“Did humans ever wonder why I, the Morning Star, the left the hand of God himself did what I did? Did they ever think that perhaps all was not well, even with all the prayer in heaven?”
She looks up at him puzzled “What do you mean? Is it not better to believe in something instead of be consumed by hollowness and unending fury over something that is not within your control in the first place?” She tilts her head slightly as she regards him. “You say that you can teach me to have all the power that you do and yet, what has it gotten you? You are not happy or fulfilled in any meaningful way. It seems to me that you are just miserable and angry and wanting to have others feel that way as well so you are not so totally alone.”
Kit’s voice is steady, possessing an almost chant like quality her eyes not quite focused on the room in which she was. This was something that he may not have anticipated, for as he projects his thought into her mind she also is catching fragments of his own. Though whether her interpretation of them would prove true was yet to be determined. After all, she was incredibly sensitive in that way and was nearly overwhelmed by the waves of energy radiating from his now irritated form.
Kaotiks stood again and walked along the wall, his hands scraping along the wall and the noise it produces was like a million cats wailing in unison from a fiery death. “You are perceptive Kitten. You have been the first one to notice that I to need a touch of what perhaps I can acquire from a human and a human alone. You see though the evil to the pain that still lies like a cold spike in the center of my being, that thaws so little every year it feels as if eternity will never be enough to melt it.” He stops and turns towards her, the wall of heat getting nearly overwhelming.
“You and I can help each other in many ways young one. You can teach me tolerance, I can show you what respect is supposed to look like. I can show you power, control and dignity.” He scowls again, his face a million nightmares at once. “I can also show you what it would be like for you had I not helped you out the little I did along your path in life.”
Kit’s eyes scrunch together as she tried to block out the hellish wail. Once it subsides she looks at him, sorrow filling her eyes. “It is sad that you feel so little but hate, I feel sorry for you.” Kit arches a brow skeptically. “If the only thing that power gets you is what you suffer moment by moment for eons on end, where is the incentive to obtain it?” Unconsciously she rubs her arms to stave off the blistering that she fears will occur should he put off any more heat.
” I’ve never met you before save a few days ago. I don’t see how you have helped me at all. You throw that word “help” around so carelessly but for all your fear I don’t think you really even know what that means.” Kit flashes a strained smirk. “My life may not have turned out all peaches and cream but at least I can say that I’ve tried, and not taken the easy road just because it was easy. That may not be much but it is something.” She says quietly her gaze on the floor again.
“Who do you think it was that kept you from dying when you were kicked out? Who do you think made food and drink appear when you were down to absolutely nothing and begging for anything you could get? Who stopped the men from raping you when they wanted what you were not willing to give them? Who prevented the power in your mind from exploding outward and ripping asunder passersby?”
He walks closer, her skin bursting into blisters as his voice rises to a roar. “I made you! I allowed you to live these years! I am the father you never had, the friend who never left, the lover who cares, the condom that worked, the pills that got rid of the disease! You are nothing without me and I shall show you if it is your desire. If you wish it I can show you how I was the man in the alley your first night out of your parents house that said the few kind words to you that inspired you to go on. I was the knock on the door when the razor was on your wrist!”
He let out a bellow that sounded like it was from the depths of Hell, the walls burning freely now and not collapsing, the pretense of a shell was gone now, his entire shell of flesh exploded and the fire within him expanded, enveloping her now, the fire burns instantly her skin, what was remaining of her hair and the dress.
“You dare to insult me after I have given you everything you have ever cared for. You know that thought in the back of your mind that there is indeed one person in this miserable world that cares for you and will look for you now that you are gone? Who do you think that is ma petite Minou? Shall I recite conversations? The fire was a wall about them, the heat unimaginable. The flesh of her arms burning to nearly bone. “Now, enough of this play. Submit to me or die and be ash now!”
Kit’s mouth opened to scream as she curled her body in on itself to protect her from the searing flames, her voice was remained silent however as the roaring inferno lashed into her body even as she tried to beg him to relent. As she collapses into his vice like grip the flames snaking upwards, her eyes glistening with the tears of pained betrayal. She mouths two words before the blessed darkness of unconsciousness overtakes her. “I’m sorry.”
The flames destroying her skin are such that even the flesh on other body parts begin to blister and crack in the sweltering heat. A single tear falls from her eye toward his enormous hand though it fizzles away into oblivion before it has a chance to touch him. Even in unconsciousness, her body still tries to curl about into the smallest possible area to protect what little skin she has left intact. Her heart falters, slowing as death looms close to her, bidding her to be free of her nightmare.
Kaotiks smiles as he sees her crumple and roars a final defiance. The room swirls into a million colors and when the spinning stops, she is laying on her bed in the room appointed for her. The bureau is laden with perfect clothing plucked from her mind and she is attired in a fetching negligee that accents her figure and was made especially for her out of a dream she had once. Kaotiks is back in the garb of the gentleman, the poets blouse open and the black trousers tucked into the tops of the boots as always, he sits and watches, a mile constant on his face as he admires the beauty resting now. None of the others had ever survived the encounter with his half-demon form. The fact that she had assures him further that he had chosen correctly.
Kit inhales deeply, rejoicing the free air that fills her lungs as she wakes from her slumber. She rubs her eyes with the back of her hand and stretches languidly, one of her common activities that contributed to her given name. She looks around and seeing Kaotiks watching her she demurely pulls the covers up higher over her body. As the memory of being burned alive dancing about her mind she scowls deeply.
“How long have I been asleep for this time?” she murmurs, not really expecting an answer.
Her hands tremble as she watches him, unsure of what his mood would bring. She was furious and hurt and still rather confused about their previous debate. It was true that at some of the darkest times in her life someone or something had often mediated the situation. As far as she had always believed, it was either her own luck or in more fanciful moods, her guardian angel who intervened unseen. Yet, the beast claimed that those actions were his. Her mind could not accept that he would ever do anything that did not benefit himself and himself alone.
The larger picture that she may indeed be part of his benefit was lost on her.
He averted his eyes as she lifted the covers to the top, inadvertently uncovering her lower quarters. “But a few moments, Dear. I have decided that allowing you to heal in the human way would have been very foolish, seeing as you would have been in the hospital for the rest of what would be a much shortened life.” He lifted a glass of wine besides him and swirled the ruby contents for a brief moment before imbibing the vintage.
“I see in your mind you are trying to piece together the events of your life. I can understand the difficulty in that.” He swirled the glass again and gestured to the table, there was another glass and a plate of food there for her if she had the will and common sense to get up and get it.
“I could not allow you to die. If I did, then what would you have accomplished? Defiance to your parents? Perhaps a minor victory over an assailant? Nay, there are more important things for your mind to focus on child. I am not asking you to commit evil, I am asking you to accept what you are and allow us to help one another.”
More than anything she was ashamed of the weakness she had shown only moments before. How in the world had she been burned so badly and yet be perfectly whole now? She could not make sense of it, or rather the possibility was too much for her to take in all at once. She had not eaten for many days now and her human hunger overrode the fears she still harbored about the possibility of poisoning. Slipping on a sheer dressing gown that did little to hide what she wished could not be seen, she turned towards the plate of food and began to gobble it down with no regard for proper etiquette .
After several loud swallows she whispered plaintively, “Why can’t you just let me die?”
“Death is the vestige of the weak darling. Of all the things you are inside your fragile human frame, weak is not on of them.” His eyes casually observe her appearance, as perfect as a dream and as a sensual as a succubus.
“Tell me something, if you had the power to rescue the entire world from death by killing an innocent, could you perform the task?” His eyes ran over her face as she thought of what she would answer.
“Allow me to give you the most common answer I have heard in my time”. His voice takes on a childish quality and he smiles as he speaks. “All life is innocent, I am sure that there is another way to solve the problem except by the death of anything.” He shakes his head. “Do you believe that tripe? You understand that it takes millions of animals to die simply for cosmetics?” His voice dropped to the tone of the demon he was but a few moments before.
“Or do you believe that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one?”
Kit shivers as the tenor of his voice drops, her hand shaking uncontrollable. Blinking rapidly she offers a weak shrug “I…I don’t know…” she sighs and drops the sweetmeat she had been holding from unfeeling fingers. The food she had devoured now a leaden ball in her belly.
“I just can’t.”
She bites her lip hard as she fights back the unbidden tears that well. She can’t help but feel that the ideal of her innocence is being forcefully shattered yet again though she cannot find the words or even the thoughts to express it. Better that she just swallow it and glide away until he uses her again, just like all the others she has known.
Kaotiks thought about touching her to calm her for the barest of seconds but knew that she was not ready for such things yet. There were many stages to trust and she had not yet allowed him to take a single step in that direction.
“Kit, innocence is a sweet thing, it truly is. I have seen innocence that you cannot imagine. She was such a simple woman, Eve was. She walked for hours with a smile of unabashed happiness on her face and it was truly a beautiful sight. Adam was the same, his voice loud and proud when he spoke of their love. Then, and you shant believe me, they spoke to me and asked me why the Lord had asked them not to eat of the Tree. I told them what I thought they needed to hear, not what they wanted to hear. All of the suffering of man has been because of a malformed question.” He shook his head and laid his hands near hers on the table.
“Allow me to teach you how to allow the innocents to walk free again, to protect the weak from the strong, the sweet young from the vile predators. Allow me a chance Kit.” His voice was normal now, the bass gone.
“I will not cast you aside Kit. I will not forget you when you have served a purpose or kick you out of the bed when I have your sex. I will not tell you I love you and then beat you within an inch of your life. Hasn’t it been that way Kit? Hasn’t it been running and running for longer than you remember?”
Kit shook her head. “No.. No it hasn’t. I’ve had a lot of wonderful things happen in my life.” She said firmly convincing herself of her own lie completely. As she was unaware of the connection that he had made with her mind, she did not realize that he would very likely be able to perceive her revisions of her life for what they were even if she didn’t.
“I’ve been in love and been loved back in return. Sure my family and I didn’t always get along but for the most part things were good before I chose to leave.” Neither of these was actually true nor accurate but she had slipped into her own version of her life’s events without any awareness of it at all.
She snorts derisively “Aye, innocence is nice but it is like a spring iris. It has its time then must wilt and fade away. There is an order to things that must be as it is, and as it always has been.” Her youthfulness could not encompass the idea that some order other than that which she knew existed now had ever been.
Kaotiks sighs and gets down on his knees before her, not touching her at all, almost in a position to plead with her. “Listen to yourself child. Listen to the entire web of lies you have constructed to protect yourself from the evils of the world and to prevent yourself from being hurt over and over again. You will never be able to escape the circle of pain you have placed yourself in until you can shatter those who impose their will on others that they know are weaker then they are. You may say that I am doing the same to you.”
“No Kit, it is true I have power, but you have your own and, although you do not know it, it is a vast and limitless thing that you have barely tapped, even in the moments of extreme rage when you have sent cars flying down the street with as much ease as I can tip this glass of wine at my side over.” He reaches up to take to her hand, stops and looks at her even in the eyes, no deception or mystery there, just a deep cobalt blue that seem to have no irises.
“You tell me that you are happy with your life, you tell me with all the conviction you can muster.”
“I can detect a lie young one. I can smell them, detect them and eat them. I invented the lie, so try not to deceive the Great Deceiver.” He walks over and pours himself another glass of wine.
“Tell me you have accomplished even a thousandth of your hopes, seen your dreams fulfilled, found true love and walked in happiness with child in arm and watched them grow to maturity.” His voice takes on an incredible sadness. “You cannot my child, you cannot because it simply is not true.”
Stubbornly, she shakes her head, refusing to hear what he says. Kaotiks eyes flash black in frustration.
“Fine then my Dear, let us see exactly what love they have shown you shall we? Let us show the deep family bond you have with them.” He reaches up and touches her fingertips softly. As soon as he does she is standing in her bedroom, the door is open and a little girl sits sobbing in the blankets. Her little voice repeats over and over again that God will save her because she is an innocent and innocent people who pray never have bad things happen to them. Her father comes in, obviously drunk, his body reeking of the cheap wine that he had bought hours before. When he speaks, his voice isn’t slurry as much as it is panting with lust. “Come here and show Daddy how much you love him tonight.” The little girl shakes her head and the man stands and takes his belt off in a single moment and beats her face in with the buckle, the blood pouring from it. “Come here and show Daddy how much you love him.” The little girl nods sobbing and he opens his zipper and the fading shot is her on her knees, her head bobbing on his cock.
The scene flashes next to a teenager sitting in the car with a young man, they are smiling at one another and he seems to be interested in what she is saying. However his eyes cannot leave what his mind calls “massive tits” that are practically hanging out in front of him. He reaches out to touch one and he is rebuffed by the young lady, a smile on her face as he does so. The young man’s smile turns to rage as he closes his fist and pummels her face with a fury. “You show and don’t let me touch? No. Tonight I get what I want.” He rips her pants from her frame, her panties holding tight until he reaches back and grabs a blade from his pocket, cutting the narrow material and shoving his minuscule penis into her at the same time. The hymen breaks, blood flows, her screams as heard as he fucks her.
The scene flashes again and again and again, the moments of pain, of anguish, of suffering and torment coming back to her in a torrent. All of the evil in her life that was supposed to be by people who loved her, who cared for her. She hears Kaotiks voice above all of the carnage, sadism and rape she sees before her.
“Tell me Kit, is that what you call Love? Is that what you want for the rest of your life?”
Kit’s entire body goes rigid as the scenes replay not only in her mind but as imprints embedded in her bodily fibers. Each gut wrenching gasp for air as she is slowly strangled by her father’s rutting. The sting of each landed blow, and the unseen wounds that rip all lay bare before her.
She stifles a whimper by biting her fist so hard, thin crimson rivulets flow unimpeded. “Stop it…Stop it…Stop it…STOP IT!” she whispers over and over. Her voice rising in panicked increments until she is screaming, her body heaving with unfettered sobs of bitterness and despair. She tries to pull away from him to keep her anguish private but cannot escape his grip.
“Why are you trying to destroy me? Alright! Yes I have been tortured but it is any less than you do to me now?” Her bitter tears fall onto his wrist, snaking a trail of their own across his flesh before falling to the floor to shatter. Just as the world she had so carefully crafted for herself is splintered irreparably through the cascade he presses in her.
“My sweet kitten, I am not trying to destroy you, I am offering you a way to escape a loop that will eventually find you dead in a gutter, a knife in your face from a man who cares so little about you that you are not found for a year and a half and that is only because a drunken hobo trips over your foot.” He goes back to his chair and pours himself a glass of wine and pours one for her as well, even though when will most likely not take it.
“Tell me you want to die like a whore, in a gutter where no one will remember you. Or, do you want to stop men like this from hurting people, stop women from giving themselves to abusive men because they feel they deserve no better?” He shakes his head and crushes the glass in his hand. “Just tell me you want that and I swear it is yours!”
Kit balls her fists in a sudden surge of molten rage. How dare he do this to her? With a cry borne from the fury and tempest raging in her soul she begins to beat him about the chest and face. Using her nails like daggers, she flails at his flesh.
“You fucking bastard! I hate you! I hate … you….”
While her outburst may have been directed at him it was not solely about him. True he had crushed what little comfort she had taken in her fantasy recreation of her life but there was something even greater against which she rages. Whether it was his intent or not, he had ripped her emotional guards down in the cascade of horrendous images he had forced her to endure. She weeps the tears of the broken soul and wonders in her heart if she will ever be able to pick up the shattered shards of her mind ever again.
Kaotiks allows the woman to beat him, the nails like a sweet release for him, her emotions finally not a lie. He wraps his arms around her and allows her to continue to release what she has been holding back for her entire adult life.
“You may hate me Sweet Kitten, but you and I are not all that different. We live in worlds of denial that neither one of us ever want to leave. We have substituted fact for the illusion of happiness and the delusions of adequacy that we have always wanted.” He runs a soft hand through her hair, ignoring the fact she will be repulsed by the movement, it felt right to do so he did it.
“I have made the first step to recovery my sweet. I have admitted that I have this problem and I have found a way to this solution, for myself, and for you.” His voice is barely above a whisper, the movement of the room silenced save for the two of them, not even the air seems to move as he holds her and lets her finally express the true nature of what has always been buried in her soul.
Kit continues to weep for a long while. As her emotions run rip shod over her the unsecured items in the room quiver and quake in time with her ragged sobs. The fine crystal and porcelain objects shattering as if hit by invisible sledge hammers. Much to his surprise, she does not fight him as he pulls her close. She is so consumed by her emotions that she does not even truly notice his action.
“There is no solution.” she snarls. “So I die in the ditch like a dog. It’s what I deserve. Who the hell cares anyway? None of it matters anymore… nothing does… It’s all a waste…just like me.” The finality in her statement hung heavy in the pulsing air. As she speaks them, cacophonies of razor sharp crystal shards rise from their resting spot scattered on the floor and hurtle towards them. All her resignations and despair reflected in their shimmering facets now intent on ripping her flesh asunder just as her soul has been.
Kaotiks held her closer as he heard the despondency in her voice, the utter defeat at such a tender young age. He felt the crystals rise and even knew that they were racing towards them. He lifted an arm at the last moment and the crystal shards shattered into infinite pieces, during the seemingly endless time when all about them was a prism, he spoke soft words to her that he prayed she would at least hear.
“There is a solution my dear, there are things that can be done to give you the moments of happiness you want, the ones you need. It matters more now than it ever did because you realize what has happened all this time. You are not a waste. If I thought you such, would I be here now pleading with you now to take my hand and allow me to help you change the destinies of millions after you?” He held her close and wrapped his arms around her as the crystals fell to the floor with a crash.
Kit swallows her tears, her struggle to do so causing her bosom to heave and giving her hiccups. Her eyes remain firmly fixed on the wetness her outburst has left on his chest. After some moments which seem an eternity she utters a single word that seals her fate.
“How?”
Kaotiks tightens his grip on her, the emotion pouring from him into her now is the realest he has felt in eons of time. His ultimate goal is within sight and this creature of elegance and beauty was going to walk with him through the final steps. He smiled and flipped the coat over the both of them, the light disappearing and the soft lights of her boudoir appear again, the perfection of everything restored. She is laying on the bed, the negligee she had been wearing before was restored, the wine and plate of food in place and Kaotiks, as ever, stood in his attire of black holding his hand out to her.
“Come with me Kit, allow me to show you how we can make the right things happen for the right people. How we can ease the pain of the decent and punish the flights of the wicked. Come with me and allow me to teach you all that is needed to become what you have always had just within you to be. Please my sweet, join me and allow me to open the door to your new life.”
Without a word she nods in agreement. “Aye, there are some wrongs that need righting” she murmurs. “And as you obviously will not relent until I acquiesce to your instruction.” she takes a deep yet quaking and unsteady breath.
“So is it…let it begin.” She whispers more to herself than in response to him.
In her heart of hearts she knows that by relenting she has no doubt sealed her fate - whatever that may be - but she is equally as sure that she does not want to go back to the shell of a life she has up until now known. She rises to a sitting position and squares her shoulders. Slowly she raises her eyes to meet his penetrating gaze, her hands folded gently in her lap. In a perfectly calm and steady voice she says the words that she knows he has been longing to hear.
“I’m ready.”
