Chereads / A Dance With Demons: When the Madness Consumes / Chapter 31 - Ironically, She Hates to Dream

Chapter 31 - Ironically, She Hates to Dream

The light that streamed from the fixture mounted to the ceiling was a bright, hazy thing. It skittered around the sparse objects in the white room, casting deep shadows, but at the same time, it highlighted the vain perfection of a sleeping body.

Like a princess from a human fairytale, there laid the perfect figure of an ethereal being in a coffin of glass; surrounding the figure in the coffin, were several flowers of multiple colors and shapes, decorating the woman in the glass coffin.

The woman in question's eyes were closed, her expression the serenity of one found in the unconscious. Her facial features seemed to define the meaning of delicate beauty, with a softness to them that contrasted with the man she adored from before her rest—for he had been all edges and angles, all shadows and silence, but she knew he had loved her too.

Her hair was also the opposite of her lover, starlit white that glowed in the eternal sun of the chamber, her long lashes the same color. Her skin was as if starlight had kissed the crest of ice, a soft, satiny texture accompanying it.

Her body was again a contrast to her lover—whilst his body was sharp, and toned to a degree that was excruciating, hers was full of gentle curves that seemed to be fitted to compliment her significantly smaller frame.

As she laid there, adorned in white silks, an intruder stepped into the light chamber, hesitant, the soft steps of the child innocent, and bursting with intrinsic curiosity.

The child in question was an adorably pretty thing that would grow to be an entrancing beauty of a similar quality to the sleeping beauty; she had long, silky black hair that curled in some places as it trailed behind her on the ground, and in the bursting light of the room, hints of starlit white and gold could be seen within her otherwise obsidian hair.

Her features were adorable to look at, a large red eye with a cat-like slit in it and a pale pink crescent moon adorning it peeked out of her long locks of night hair, her other eye obscured.

The child's skin was of surprisingly similar tone to the woman's, as well as her delicate, enviable features, but unlike the woman, there was a certain sharpness to her face and eyes that gave a different, more inquisitive feel to her face.

The child that was adorned in nothing but a silk nightgown slowly approached the still figure, her steps more confident as if she had done this a thousand times before; she stopped next to the glass container, her small hands settling onto the glass as she continued to stare at the woman, complex emotions that did not suite a child reflected clearly in the glass of the domed container.

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, her emotional look was replaced with an adorable, crooked smile that could make the heart of a dead man beat again was drawn onto her face in an angelic expression before a similarly warm and enticing voice rang out.

"Good morning, Mama!"

The woman in the coffin did not stir from her rest as the child, her daughter, continued to speak in an enthusiastic tone.

"Did you know? The sun's shining so very beautifully today—on top of that, there's no storm in sight, not even on the horizon! Yessiry, we're in the clear today as well ma'am! So..."

The child hesitated slightly, the endearingly crooked edge to her sweet smile fading and being replaced with false perfection as she continued more gently, pleadingly, "Mama, you can open your eyes now!"

Silence descended in the sparse chamber of cold white, the harsh light of the chamber reflecting a fading smile on the pretty little girls face, her expression falling little by little as she pursed her lips in a restraining way.

A forced smile overcame her face again before she continued, her dark hair falling in her face as she stammered in a subdued manner, "I-I'm sorry... I know Mama can't..."

The woman, her apparent mother, did not stir, even as her beloved daughters voice fell to a strained whisper, even as tears began to lace her large, sad eyes. Large droplets began to fall, spattering on the cold white floor as the child with the red moon eye and the obsidian and gold eye stared down at her feet in guilt before continuing.

"Cause Mama's been dead for a while now..."

•◦•◌◎◉◎◌•◦•

Within crinkled white sheets and a mountain of pillows and stuffies, a white haired figure shifted. Stretched out across her bed and tangled in her sheets, a pair of dual-colored eyes of red and black stared at her charcoal grey walls vacantly, tears slipping from them and staining her pillows a subdued gray.

Grasping her stuffed animal closer—a large snow leopard that was almost as tall as she was—Eika woke up from her memory of the past, and back into the sh!tty reality she lived in. Though to be fair, this sh!tty reality saved her from her sh!tty dream, so she was feeling a little more grateful towards it, even if she hated the fact that she was even alive.

To breath, to eat, to feel, to put on a smile, to talk—all was tedious to her, a regime of existing that she found hardly enjoyable anymore.

Perhaps it was odd, thinking of the usually flamboyant, extra, happy-go-lucky Eika that had absurd self-confidence, arrogance and displayed serious cases of entitlement, could actually use all that she had as a ploy to hide the emptiness.

Perhaps it odd to think of a usually blunt, unfiltered, and outspoken woman to be the greatest liar out of all her marginal friends.

Perhaps it was odd to think that this wasn't expected in the "Girl Who Has Everything."

Maybe in the end, she was just another cliché that others would discard once they were through with her, the impact of her futile existence insignificant, and forgettable.

The drive to be memorialized, to be remembered for all eternity—maybe that was the reason for her to continue down the path of her meaningless life that had been filled with vain expectations and passive yearning for the unachievable.

Eika recalled an instance where she was so tired of everything, that she had listened to the ravings of a mad eternal, a man who had been a disciple to Jesus Christ, and had continued to walk the Earth and to preach his gospel, even after his 11 other companions had ascended to heaven.

"'Daughter of Satan, one day, you will realize that the love that you always craved was beside you all along. That love will stand beside you for all eternity, and none from heaven, earth, or hell will be able to separate you, so long as you always search for that love.'"

A harsh bark of laughter came from the demoness, her expression despairingly empty and derisive.

Her, loved? Like anyone would ever love her—or rather could love her.

She knew herself; she was a handful and a truckload and a sky-ful of pure trouble lumped into a decently pretty person with a charming smile and a knife for a tongue.

"'Papa, do you love me?'"

She grit her teeth, her expression vulnerable as the hot tears fell, a feeling of agony in her chest as she curled up into her blankets and sheets more, hiding her face from the light of morning under her numerous pillows. More scornful laughter was forced from her lips, a tremulous, pained smile on her face as she squeezed the plushie closer and murmured in a soft, faint voice:

"Of course he didn't, you idiot. Stop asking questions that you know the answer to..."

She was a difficult to handle vixen that was slyer than a snake and slipperier than a fish—there was no way her father who had to deal with an entire world and a large, dysfunctional family could love one little troublesome girl who killed his lover.

Eika curled up in a ball even more, clutching her stuffed animal desperately, as if telling it not to go, not to leave her, like everyone else did; like they always did.

'I'm so selfish...'

"Oi, Eika, are you awake? I got you some coffee, now hurry and get your butt up, it's time for college today."

Eika's desperate posture which was reminiscent of her childhood loosened the slightest bit at Ryosei's sudden intrusion into her thoughts. She remembered when she first met him—though their first meeting as adults was far less pleasant than the one she remembered from when she saw the young Ryosei in his mindscape.

It had been snowing that day, and she'd been injured...

But, as she slowly, painfully released herself from the grasp of her stuffed animals and her soft pillows, she decided to stop thinking about the past.

Too much sorrow laid within her dark past for her to think about with a stable and conscious mind; pondering over it would make her want to end herself even more.