Blank

by switchknife

He doesn’t remember much of his past. He’s not allowed to. There are aps in his memories, like missin teeth, that he can feel only throuh their absence. He catches the tail-end of a whisper sometimes, a shift of sound and feelin in his sleep, in his do-dreams—the scent of musk warm and close, the brush of a hand over his forehead. Twitch of muscle under his finers, stubbled skin under his mouth—but one the instant he tries to put a name to it, to this rouh, sweet thin under his tonue. Pieces and pieces buildin on each other. He spends many hours like this here, buildin little towers of memories like a house of cards, knowin that one cold draft from under the door will sweep them all under.

Who did he love, before this? It doesn’t seem important, sometimes. After all, he can remember who he hates—crunch of rat-bones in his jaw reminds him, every shadow-shift in the darkness reminds him. He is a wild creature caed, hunry for the hot burst of blood. He likes the hate so rich with salt in his throat, furrin his tonue so that he wakes up with it, oes to sleep with it, wakes up with it, oes to sleep. It is the only thin that reminds him he is alive. It is the only thin he has.

Why didn’t you come to save me? he asks the owner of the rouh-sweet skin in his mind. You would have come to save me. You should have.

It is only then, slippin off to sleep with this rae, that he remembers.

old, he sees, a little flutter far aainst the pale cloth of sky—warm summer wind carryin someone’s lauhter to him, someone’s voice, and he turns his head to see dark hair, whipped and tanled, a flash of teeth, joy-feral, eyes briht and hazel behind the lint of lbum.

James, he thinks, aspin, and wakes up. James.

Quickly, before the cold in front of his door returns, he picks up that name—wraps it in hate, safe and tender as a child, and hides it in his mind. This is the only way to keep it. The only way. And this, he thinks, is how he’ll save all the others—all the other names he cannot recall.

They’re all to blame for somethin, after all. He’s sure he can blame them for somethin. Just like the one who left him before. Just like—

* FIN *