[center][h2]The pain on the left[/h2] Day 1 [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl1PYMPdrwk]Theme[/url][/center] Her pale, shimmering skin, now dull, red. Her golden eyes unfocused, awash with tears, stinging, bloodshot. Full rose lips now sore, bleeding… bleeding. Long fingers clutching onto helpless air. A slender frame twisted, bent, defeated… Her lungs, her heart, her muscles and her very bones… each one of them she felt separate, independent, but… hurting. Her body was aflame. Every fiber was disjointed, full of anguish and nothing but. A pain so excruciating it could only be compared to the moment of her creation. Except… it was the opposite. Agony. She was decomposing. Pieces of her ripped apart methodically, mercilessly. Ruins… Dust… Was that her fate? No… no… No. She knew a way. She had known a way. To stop the pain… Yes… there. Gone. Mostly. She came to with a jolt. With a sudden rush of awareness her mind restarted. She could not see. Her sight was gone. She could not move. She was trapped. In a prison? In a body. A day.. A week.. A year? How long had it been? An eternity. An endless void. Where was she? Who--- Lazarus. Her voice rose. But… what? It was not a voice. Gone? But then what…? Violin. Yes. Her lips cracked. It was the sound of her heart. It weaved through the air like the song of a bird, meant to seep into the heart of everyone around. But desperate. Pleading. She continued screaming. “Get me out!”, “Find me!”, “Help me!”, “I’m dying!”, but… Nobody would hear. They wouldn’t understand. The Violin was broken. She was broken. Her heart sunk. [center][IMG]http://i63.tinypic.com/358rlug.png[/IMG][/center] Pale slender fingers on a windowsill. The air was there to hug her and carry her forth. Earth was there to rise and support every step. The breeze existed to stroke her face and whisper stories of every corner of the globe. The world was hers. But more importantly, he was hers. The man on the bed: handsome features, steady gaze, chest revealed. Hers. A voice pulled her out of her thoughts, her own. It was musing over something while her body experienced everything there was. “Nowadays everyone knows what I am but… Few realise that before I became the sword I was lost.” A sound much like a melody, but a voice. Or perhaps not. Maybe just the gentle tremble of a string. And the words. Why was she using such profane words in the presence of such beauty all around her? As if words could ever be enough to substitute the feelings. Yet they continued. “I had so much power but no purpose, no master. Of course, I didn't realise it at the time, but the Essence of the World is meant to serve. It’s but the thread keeping everything together. It’s flawed, it’s artificial. It needs a hand to guide it. And for the longest time I didn’t have that. I’ve always felt like a leaf in the wind. No one would reach out, willing to accept me. And I missed that… So I looked for a master. In the Lords on Heaven and Hell and the Surface…” She stopped and turned her head slightly, the sun illuminating a small twist to her lips, somehow shy. “Then you grabbed me. You didn’t hesitate, you swept me off my feet and didn’t let go. And you loved Hazumi, whatever she was, more than you loved the power she held. You were even okay with her giving it away and remaining just... “me”. There is no better master. I’m honoured to be your student, your friend and your lover. And I never want to be anyone else’s.” She turned her back to the window and strolled towards him. There was no other creature that could move with such grace. Like an iridescent aroma, like a nostalgic song, drifting from afar. She was a creation but also a creator. She would serve him, until her very last breath. And she only had one wish. [i]Never leave my side again.[/i] And when she kneeled down beside him and cupped his face all the warmth in this world was his. And, although she was just human the love he saw in her eyes was vaster than life itself. That love was his alone. [center][IMG]http://i68.tinypic.com/10msgao.png[/IMG][/center] Cold, hard... concrete? Under his cheek. Ears ringing. Taste of blood. Water streaming from his eyes and a boyish sob to accompany it. He knew it. The next day she was gone. Like a cruel joke. The last night they’d spent together was tainted by her disappearance. The sweet memory turned too bitter to swallow. He didn’t know why she disappeared. But it wasn’t by choice. Andri pushed himself up, the world swimming all around him. He had a bitter taste in his mouth but it wasn’t because he’d bitten his tongue on the way down. Rather, it was because of the emotion that undertoned this vision. Three words remained in his mind, segmented and weak. “[sub]Love,... dead… yet….[/sub]” “This was really uncalled for...” he whispered to himself as he wiped the warm streak off his cheek. He checked his watch and his gut twisted. 22:30 “What did you just do?” He asked Ashley, too shaken to be properly upset. [i]Don’t you remember? I warned you to sit down.[/i] Yeah. We see how that turned out. [i]That was Hazumi. She used my twin sister, Aris, to contact us. She wants you to relay a message to someone. The man from the memory.[/i] Yes. That man. The man worth more than all three worlds combined. Andri had been in the consciousness of a beast. And Lazarus was its master.