The deathrhythms burst under my skin and pulsate deep inside me, the catcalls of a prostitute I can't just ignore. My old brothers used to play Russian roulette, but I just don't want things that simple.

I suckle at the styrofoam lip of a cup of cheap gas station coffee to soothe myself. Air, crisp and cold, reminds me of a city far from this one. Years that feel like a lifetime ago. The modern and antiquated juxtapose each other like a graverobber's suicide and I smirk in spite of myself.

When I walked into that empty room, I was a child. Inside, the creature was alone; he has had so many masks over the years that I am unsure now which he held to his face then. I do know that as he smiled at me he spoke as a blonde cat.

Each step was careful and precise, his blindfold was sheer but his visibility was obviously still hampered by it. His hair was not long and white but short and blonde, yet somehow it felt intentional and perfected. For that night, he was an avatar in this world of what we seek: something...more, and at all costs. An escape from this...prison. And then, we did leave, under a fat midnight moon.

It was dawn of the day of the dead before I relinquished my antiform in the bathroom at a IHop outside of Colorado Springs. Six years before that, I was greeting the same dawn for the first time truly alive. Now one year and eleven months have passed and the chill is evident. He jokes that if I'm a good boy he'll buy me a cigar, and I laugh. Night in all its splendor drips down on me in respite. In a year, I have no idea where I'll be...and right now I couldn't care less.

Forever in debt for your priceless advice.

Destroy Once Done