Pierce the Veil - Caraphernelia

It took me six long nights before I could convince myself to sleep again, but strength names and caffeine pills only got me so far, especially when I was already weakened by my Sign. I hated winter with a passion. I wished I knew of a way to stop my dreams, to make sleep just be a dark blanket, but that was impossible and I knew it.

Instead of sleep, I focused on hunting, on losing my fears and worries in my Shift. I tried to keep it around me always, every waking moment, to keep my humanity at bay, my emotions. I had thought I could bury them on my own, like I had when I was a child, and I had, at least for a few weeks. I thought my time with my Clan hadn't changed me, and maybe it hadn't, but Jordan had. She was a weakness I couldn't seem to shake. Now I understood why the Book of Dust said our connection could be a curse or a blessing. Sometimes I could get by ignoring my thoughts of her, my emotions, but sometimes I couldn't, not unless I was Shifted, not unless I let my nature take me over.

When my Shift covered me it dulled everything, made it easy to ignore my loss, my fears. Fearing for my Clan's safety wouldn't save them, nothing but finding and killing my father could do that, so I discarded the gut-wrenching dread, the suffocating worry. I let my Shift do away with it all, so only my hunting, only my killing, remained. It was the perfect armor, the perfect way to harden myself against the weaknesses that tried to slink into my mind. All I had to do was kill, no thoughts, no emotions. But sleep was when I was most vulnerable. I couldn't call my Shift when I was unconscious, I couldn't wear my armor to bed, it was then that my emotions battered me, my fears and dreams strangled me. I was able to keep them at bay for a while, for the weeks when I thought Jordan had left the city, when I thought she was some kind of hybrid from Jevin. But then I had the vision of her, and then almost every night since was a dream, some worse than others, but all of them horrible. I dreaded sleep.

Sometimes I saw the phantom from my past, sometimes I saw my Clan, sometimes I saw myself, a monster that couldn't be controlled, without any humanity left, an animal. Sometimes I saw my father, and knew I had joined him. All these things piled up inside of me, making my fears multiply, making my guilt and loss and sorrow grow. Soon I needed my Shift to even think clearly, soon I couldn't manage my emotions without it. I couldn't help but wonder if I was feeling how Jordan did, how Kael and Nevaeh did. Surely they couldn't discard their emotions like I had up until now. I'd had weeks of freedom from my sadness, in some ways, until it had grown so strong I couldn't keep it covered anymore, but my Clan, surely they hadn't been able to do what I did. They had hearts, souls, surely they had been suffering like I now was, but for weeks longer. The thought cut deeper each time it passed through my mind.

I understood why Jordan had gone to Jevin now, if that was her only way to lose the emotions she needed gone, I probably would have done the same if I didn't have the options I did. But what were they doing now? How were they coping now? Pulling their Shift around themselves constantly like I was? Letting it destroy them, their humanity? Or were they simply dealing with their emotions, compartmentalizing them in a way it seemed I no longer could? I hoped they were stronger than me, that they were finding a way to survive that didn't steal their souls. But this was the only option I could think of. Shift so I never had to feel a thing, Shift so I could be a demon, not a man, and try to sleep as little as possible.

Sometimes I forgot to eat, sometimes for days until my stomach would get my attention with a sharp pain or rolling growl. Time was hard to track in my Shift, night and day could easily bleed together, my eyes seeing the same either way. Strength names kept me from realizing when my body needed something, and my bloodlust towered over all other urges, making food, rest, warmth, comfort all seem secondary to finding another guilty one, another victim, to satiate my needs.

When I wasn't hunting, I didn't have the energy to train, and I could feel my body weakening, deteriorating from my lack of care, from the stress of the life I was living. I didn't need a strong body though, anything I lost in muscle my nature, my power, easily made up for. I told myself it didn't matter if I neglected my physical needs, I was still strong enough to kill anything the city housed, but I knew the real reason. It would have been impossible for me to stay healthy even if I had tried. I was falling apart and I knew it, no one could live like I was for long. Sometimes I found humor in guessing if my body or mind would give out first, in making twisted bets with myself of which would undo me.

I let my glamours slip along with my health, no longer willing to use the energy to hide my true face, no one ever saw me anyway, or if they did they were always dead before dawn. I doubted anyone would have recognized me as James, I hardly even recognized myself. All I saw in the mirror was my father; his hair, his eyes, his face. If it weren't for how thin I had become, the shadows on my jaw, I would almost think I was looking at a younger version of him, but that just fueled my hatred more, fueled my need to hunt and capture, cut and tear.

I made a name for myself in the city quickly, a Fallen who had lost his mind, his control. I found the rumors comical. I wasn't mad, at least not yet, and I wasn't a Fallen, I was just a man with nothing to lose, a man who needed the killing as much as the city did. It made me wonder what a real Fallen would do, what someone insane would do. The city wouldn't even be able to fathom it. They said I tortured my victims because I had lost control of myself, but in reality I was simply being just, giving them what they deserved. Nothing they did changed my mind, no amount of begging or bartering, not even their screams, none of it appealed to any emotion in me, not when I was Shifted.

The strength of my armor was amazing, the hardening of my heart, the hardening of myself in general. The ability to detach myself from the world and do whatever it took to try and pull any information I could on my father's whereabouts from my Darkling victims. But he was as much a phantom as the pale figure who so often visited me in my dreams. I saw her daily now, if not in the city then in my dreams, but it didn't matter, she was just a small string being pulled, one corner slowly unraveling in my mind. I was more worried about the larger holes forming. If seeing her was the worst my mind could conjure to throw at me, I wouldn't even consider my sanity, but as things seemed to be going, the city's rumors may become half true soon.

Sometimes she talked to me in my dreams now. Once, she told me I'd never be forgiven for what I had done, that she would tell, that she would ruin everything. I laughed in her face when she said that. She couldn't ruin everything, everything was already ruined. She would make my Clan hate me? Tear apart the family I loved more than anything in this world? Too late, I had already done that all on my own. She didn't try to threaten me again.

When I saw her in the city she never spoke, just stared, just watched me, blood staining her clothes like some sick costume. It should have worried me more, the fact that I was seeing someone that wasn't there, something no one else saw, the fact that I was being haunted, or hunted. It should have worried me more that I seemed to not even be worried about my lack of worry, but in the end I couldn't change it, and I had better things to use my energy on. If she wanted to follow me around, she could, and if I went mad, it wouldn't be because of her. It would be because of the disaster my life had become, because of the dreams of my Clan, the dreams which always ended with their deaths, always ended with Jordan being a monster.

If I lost my mind it would be because I had given up who I was, given up my soul to try and find my father. Her ghost would have nothing to do with it. At least, that's what I told myself.

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The streets felt like home, though I could have easily dealt without the snow and bitter wind whipping my hair into my face every chance it got. I absently wondered if I could still the wind, but that seemed like an enormous waste of energy, and more than a little pretentious, so I pulled my hood up and bent my head further against the icy gusts instead.

I'd felt increasingly bitter, increasingly angry since dinner, like the thoughts I had been fighting down for days wouldn't let me subdue them so easily tonight. As a result, I felt on edge, like my adrenaline was feeding off my rage. To add to my foul mood I picked a terrible night to make my maiden voyage back out into the city. There was a storm laying snow down inches every hour and the temperature was the lowest it had been in weeks, but still, I was free and I was back in the city I had loved for years.

The city was large enough to be considered more of its own ecosystem than a mere city, and Chimarah's warehouse was far from the streets I had usually walked at the city's heart. I was at the outskirts, the downtown city lights just barely visible against the night sky. I decided to walk further from the dim lights instead of toward them, which surprised me, but I was intrigued by my new surroundings. The beaten-up buildings around me were pretty in a forgotten way, in a sad way. No one was out on these broken-down streets either, it was like my own world, and that was what I wanted right then, what I needed.

I was becoming comfortable with the Clan, but in a distant way. I liked Chi, but it felt mechanical to me, like I was going through the motions, fighting to act normal, but not really feeling it, not really feeling anything. Except my anger, my hurt turned to hatred, that was always there.

Soon, even the warehouses fell behind me and I found myself on one of the older roads, bare trees rose up on either side. It was just as beautiful as my city, though in a different way. It was quiet on the road, deserted from the storm, but I felt something, something that seemed to be just out of sight, a memory I couldn't quite grasp. Fifteen minutes later I discovered what had been dancing just out of my reach as a brick and wooden building appeared on the horizon, a bar. A bar I had seen months earlier, one I had almost forgotten, one that was close to the home of a pack of wolves I had protected, fought beside, one I had driven past on the very road I now walked, with my Clan, my family, the same night everything had broken.

I turned around, not wanting to get any closer, not wanting to even see it, for fear my memories would follow. I returned to Chi's warehouse sometime before the sun rose, disappointed I had let myself get sidetracked, disappointed I hadn't even killed on my first venture, I hadn't even seen anyone. I had run away, from the city, from my potential target, from everything, because I was scared to go back, afraid I was different now, broken again, but in a different way. I slept fitfully, dreaming of the bar, of the Clan's mansion, of the woods and its trails and all the other places I had spent so much time.

I knew it was a dream immediately, a rare mercy my mind gave me in my sleep. I was walking through the woods, the bar springing up in front of me. I turned from it to find myself staring at the manor's grounds, the imposing stone house ahead of me, the house I hadn't been to since I had left it for the cemetery so many weeks earlier.

I felt a heavy well of panic growing in my stomach as I walked toward the steps to the front door, like I was walking to my death, but I knew it was only a dream. I walked to the door and tried the handle, it wouldn't move. I put my weight into the door, but it didn't even creak. Instead I sat on the steps, waiting to wake up, waiting for my nightmare to finish.

I heard the door open behind me. I scrambled to my feet a moment later, spinning to face whoever was there, but the doorway stood empty and dark before me. I didn't want to go in, the panic I felt had risen to my throat, but I knew I had to, I knew I was there for a reason. Each footstep felt leaden, each movement I made a little too difficult, but soon I was past the threshold, staring in at the hallway I knew so well, the stairs, the kitchen ahead and to the left. It hurt to be there, to see the things I had seen before. It hurt because it looked the same, when I knew it wasn't. Everything looked exactly as it had the last time I was there, but it shouldn't, it should look as shattered as I was. I wanted it to be in the same ruins as I was.

I had never been able to change my dreams, to make them into what I wished, I had never had that kind of control, but something changed in the room, as if my dreams were finally listening to me, finally allowing what I wanted to come true. The walls began to peel, to discolor as if with age, dust grew along with the shadows and cobwebs. The entire room seemed to decompose before my eyes until it looked as sick as it should, as forgotten as the abandoned warehouses I had walked by that night.

I thought I would feel better, that seeing the house dilapidated and decaying would somehow give me peace, but it didn't, it only deepened the sorrow I felt, the clawing loneliness, the raw pain I could never completely cover. I hated it all, the feelings, the weakness, the sadness. I hated it and I hated myself. I hated the whole world, but especially, I hated him. More than anything else, he was what made my memories so tainted, so poisoned, he was what had ruined me.

I stared at the house before me, knowing it was me. The house we had lived in was irreparably broken, rotting and coming apart at the seams, just like me, and it was all because of Gabriel.

I awoke with my jaw aching, a deep soreness from the hours I had spent with it clenched in the night. I stayed in bed for what must have been close to an hour, staring at the ceiling, listening to the Clan outside my door. They had let me keep my room, so I didn't sleep in the communal center area of the warehouse-like the rest of them, though I had a bed out there as well, in case the mood ever struck me. Chi had offered my own space with a smile, but I figured it was because Horn and Halo still thought I planned to cannibalize them in their sleep. I chuckled at the thought. Finally, I could see the sun through my high window and knew I was wasting my day. I would train today and I was losing the light.

The main room always had a rolling hush move through when I entered, like the normal things the Clan did had to be done more carefully, more quietly, when I was around, like I might snap if I heard a dish clink the wrong way. Syn's eyes looked curious when I emerged from my room, concern in their golden brown depths. It was rare for me to be able to sleep past sunrise, but I didn't want to talk, even though it was evident he did. Instead, I immediately headed outside, avoiding the looks from the other Clan members.

The sun was high as I expected, close to noon, and I broke into a run after only a couple streets, feeling the familiar burn as I picked up my pace, trying to avoid the deep grey slush that covered the sidewalk, like a winter mold constantly spreading. I wanted to try and stay as warm as I could, since I planned on being out until late that evening, and soaking my boots early didn't seem like a good start.

I jogged toward the city, excited to see the streets I had missed so. I consciously knew I had been there just weeks before, but that hadn't really been me, the stupor I had been in had only been a shell of me. My face, but not me inside. The memories were fading fast, like a nightmare that danced away when you tried to remember it, but still made you jump at noises in the night. I was glad I couldn't really remember those weeks, as long as I remembered the lessons. As long as I kept the burning revulsion close and reminded myself to never let anyone control me again, to never be owned again, then that was all I needed.

My steps flew down the streets, avoiding the half-frozen puddles when I could, splashing through the thick grey water when I couldn't. I saw so many faces move by, all bundled up with scarves and hats, and I found it amusing that none of them knew what was in their world. They were so consumed with the ordinary, they missed the real world, my world, and everything it had to offer. Often I wondered if the life I was living was worth the knowledge I had, if the pain I had gone through was worth knowing what was really out there. Usually my answer depended on how strong my emotions' assault was that day. A knock at the walls I had built and I would think my life was worth it, but when they battered at my shields, cracking them and breaking me down, I often wished I had never even seen the Clan that fateful day in my store. It seemed like years ago.

I ran for miles, hours, breathing out endurance and strength names whenever I felt weak. I knew I was just wasting time, going for a run, no matter how long, was hardly training for me anymore, but I couldn't quite decide how to actually train. I didn't have a sparring partner, I didn't have a place even, or equipment and I didn't really want to find a brick wall to punch since my healing skills were basically infantile - so running it was. Endurance would always help, at least that's what Kael had said. Just thinking of his puppy-dog eyes made my breath catch painfully in my throat, making me run harder to try and leave his image behind, leave the memory of his voice behind, his jokes, his booming laugh. I missed him while still being angry and hurt that he had so easily left me. He knew me, but he had still abandoned me because of my blood.

I felt torn when I thought of it, of him. Part of me thought I would have done the same, but then another part of me knew I could never leave Kael. Not the man who laughed so loud the whole manor shook, not the man who had overcome his own nature, who cared for Nevaeh despite how horrid she was. I felt an ache in my chest for how difficult the past months had surely been for him, only having Nevaeh. I could still remember her eyes, the look she had given both my Pair and me. I understood her anger even more so than Kael's. Kael's came from betrayal, hers came from her past.

She had lost everything because of something like me, she knew firsthand the destruction a Half could serve and I almost didn't blame her. She hadn't been my friend, she didn't have any reason to stand by me, and when you piled her past on top of it all, I didn't really blame her, not much at least. I would have left her, so faulting her for doing the same to me hardly seemed fair. But the anger was still there.